The air surveys undertaken in Burma in 1924 and the beginning of the present year originated in a suggestion by Mr. C. E. Hay, of the India Forest Service, that aerial methods would be best for surveying the Delta of the Irrawaddy. The suggestion was not taken up seriously until 1920, when Mr. Watson, now Chief Conservator of Forests in Burma, and then in charge of the Delta Circle, took up the idea with persistent enthusiasm. Mr. Watson visited England later in that year and carried his negotiations during the ensuing year so far that I remember when we returned from the survey of the Orinoco Delta and demonstration in British Guiana at the end of 1921 that we fully expected to be on our way to Burma in the next few months.

As a matter of fact it was not till January, 1924, that I found myself at Marseilles looking for the P. & O. liner “ Malwa ” to take me to India on the way to the Irrawaddy.

The early conception of a flying boat in the days before the war was due to the aeronautical rather than the marine community, and the whole problem was regarded in the light of aeronautical experience. It was thus inevitable that whilst the flying boat had a comparatively satisfactory aerostructure, its marine functions were given somewhat primitive treatment. As a result the hulls were fragile, unseaworthy, and of high resistance. During the war this attitude of mind became well entrenched and the constructional method it involved was highly developed. Nevertheless the more logical system of making a boat that would fly rather than an aeroplane that would float soon received the attention that was its due. By 1918 the flying boat was definitely recognised as an amphibious machine, and its marine and aeronautical functions were being given full and separate consideration.