The RAN's involvement with aircraft goes back more than 85 years, conventional wisdom suggesting it began with Sydney and Australia in European waters late in World War I. However, the distinction of being the first Australian warship to carry an aircraft operationally belongs to the cruiser HMAS Brisbane , which embarked a seaplane at Colombo in April 1917.
The early days of 1917 brought the news that a German commerce raider had evaded allied patrols in the Atlantic, had rounded - and laid a minefield off - Cape Agulhas (the southern tip of Africa), and had passed into the Indian Ocean. The ship was the auxiliary cruiser SMS Wolf, a converted freighter of 5,800 tons armed with seven 5.9" guns, four torpedo tubes and 450 mines. She was the most successful German raider of World War I, capturing or sinking 14 ships totalling 135,000 tons during a cruise of some 64,000 miles. At sea for 15 months in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, Wolf drew allied warships into the search for her and away from other areas in which they were sorely needed.
One of these was Brisbane, a "Chatham" class light cruiser and sister ship to the first Sydney and Melbourne. At Admiralty request she had sailed for the Mediterranean upon completion in December 1916, but spent only two months at Malta before the mysterious disappearance of merchant ships and sudden discovery of minefields raised the alarm. The cruiser was detached to the East Indies Station and ordered to Colombo, where she was joined by other allied ships, including the 20 year old French cruiser Pothuau and the British seaplane carrier Raven II. The latter was a converted ex-German prize with an aircraft complement of four Short 184s and a Sopwith Baby. Raven was detailed off to search the Maldives and, on 2 April 1917, the Baby was transferred to Brisbane for reconnaissance purposes during the hunt for the Wolf.
Brisbane's seaplane (No. N.1014) - was a scout-bomber built under licence by the Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co. Ltd. It was powered by a 110 hp Clerget engine, giving it a top speed of around 100 mph and endurance of 2¼ hours. Despite its name it was a slightly larger - but significantly slower - machine than its more famous wheeled stablemate, the Camel fighter. The aircraft was stowed between the cruiser's after funnel and the mainmast, being hoisted out and back in by means of a derrick.
For two months Brisbane scoured the seas around Colombo for the raider but to no avail - at that time Wolf was far to the south and east, ploughing through the stormy seas of the Southern Ocean; she then sailed into the Pacific to the uninhabited Kermadec Islands to overhaul her engines. Although the search ultimately proved fruitless, valuable experience was gained in operating aircraft, the Baby making two flights a day for several weeks. The pilot was Flying Officer A.W. Clemson of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), later to become a Flight Commander and be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
When all six vessels of the Australian Destroyer Flotilla were dispatched to the Mediterranean in June 1917, Brisbane was recalled to Australian waters and the Baby had to be returned to the East Indies Squadron. The experience had, however, so impressed the cruiser's Commanding Officer, Captain Claude Cumberledge RN, that he became a strong advocate of using seaplanes on the Australia Station. The Australian Commonwealth Naval Board (ACNB) responded by requesting the Admiralty to quote for the cost of four Sopwith Babies. While a price of £1734/15/- (each) was forthcoming, encouragement was not: Their Lordships wrote back in discouraging terms, stating that "The use of small seaplanes from cruisers is not recommended" and "... in any case, the type is dying out" in favour of aeroplanes. The matter proceeded no further and it was not until 1920 that the RAN was able to order its own seaplanes, six Fairey IIIDs. However, by the time they were delivered, the RAAF had been formed and it's unlikely that they ever served under direct naval control.
An interesting sidelight to this story is that Wolf also had a 'baby' - the Wölfchen (wolf cub or little wolf), a Friederichshaven Type E33 seaplane. Capable of being dismantled and stowed below when not required, Wölfchen was very successful, routinely being used for reconnaissance missions and often directing the raider onto her victims. It was the first aircraft to actually capture not one, but two ships (s.s. Wairuna and the schooner Winslow), and undertook at least one night landing at sea without flares. Fittingly, Wölfchen survived the entire voyage, launching to overfly Wolf on the raider's triumphant return to Kiel on 24 February 1918.
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