This method having succeeded beyond the most sanguine
expectations, every station had one or more of these sub-stations
based on it, the airships allocated to them making a periodical
visit to the parent station for overhaul as required.
Engineering repairs were effected by workshop lorries, provided
that extensive work was not required.
In this way a large fleet of small airships was maintained around
our coasts, leaving the bigger types of ships on the parent
stations, and the operations were enabled to be considerably
extended. Of course, certain ships were wrecked when gales of
unprecedented violence sprung up; but the output of envelopes,
planes and cars was by this time so good that a ship could be
replaced at a few hours' notice, and the cost compared with
building of additional sheds was so small as to be negligible.
From the month of April, 1917, the convoy system was introduced,
by which all ships on entering the danger zones were collected at
an appointed rendezvous and escorted by destroyers and
patrolboats. The airship was singularly suitable to assist in
these duties. Owing to her power of reducing her speed to
whatever was required, she could keep her station ahead or abeam
of the convoy as was necessary, and from her altitude was able to
exercise an outlook for a far greater distance than was possible
from the bridge of a destroyer.
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