Here, in Hertfordshire, in the first summer of the war, how great an event was still the passage of an aeroplane over these quiet woods! How the accidents of the first two years appalled us, heart-broken spectators, and the inexorable military comment upon them: "Accidents or no accidents, we have got to master this thing, and master the Germans in it." And, accidents or no accidents, the young men of Britain and France steadily made their way to the aviation schools, having no illusions at all, in those early days, as to the special and deadly risks to be run, yet determined to run them, partly from clear-eyed patriotism, partly from that natural call of the blood which makes an Englishman or a Frenchman delight in danger and the untried for their own sakes.

Thenceforward, the wonderful tale ran, mounting to its climax.

At the beginning of the war the military wing of the British Air Service consisted of 1,844 officers and men.
At the conclusion of the war there were, in round numbers, 28,000 officers and 264,000 other ranks employed under the Air Board.

From under 2,000 to nearly 300,000!--and in four years! And the uses to which this new Army of the Winds was put, grew perpetually with its growth.

Let us remember that, while aeroplane _reconnaissance_ was of immense service in the earliest actions of the war, _there was no artillery observation by aeroplane till after the first Battle of the Marne_.