大象传媒

According to English Heritage, Calshot in Hampshire boasts 鈥榯he best-preserved group of WW1 seaplane hangars in Europe鈥�.

The three surviving buildings range from a small wooden flying-boat shed built in early 1914, to an immense steel-framed hangar, now in use as a sports centre.

World War One came just as Britain鈥檚 entrepreneurs were taking to the skies. Men like Thomas Sopwith and Noel Pemberton-Billing were setting up factories and offering prototype aircraft to the military. The Royal Navy needed a base to test early seaplanes and flying boats and took over the coastguard station at Calshot. The Solent offered a relatively sheltered testing-ground although fatal accidents were still common.

At first, seaplanes were used principally to observe the fall of shot from battleships and to locate the enemy. But as the U-boat threat escalated, aircraft were increasingly used on anti-submarine patrols. Some planes attacked U-boats but few were sunk 鈥� their success was more in detection than destruction.

Location: Calshot Road, Southampton SO45 1BR
Image: Short Type 827 two-seat torpedo bomber seaplane. Fitting a Lewis gun. Photograph taken at Calshot (1917), courtesy of IWM

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