Under Major Maitland's command the airship squadron--that is to say, No. 1 Squadron--grew in strength and efficiency, but it was cut off in its youth from the aeroplane squadrons. Expert opinion, which was divided on the military value of airships, was united on their naval value. Not without protest the decision was made to hand over all the airships to the navy, and at the close of the year 1913 this was done. An airship is much more costly than an aeroplane, whether to construct or to work, and when it flies at a moderate height for the purposes of military reconnaissance, it is much more vulnerable. This, no doubt, was the consideration which determined the severance of the airships from the army. Yet the airships, during their brief period of service with the Military Wing, had demonstrated in the most convincing fashion the enormous value of aerial reconnaissance, and, more important still, had put the whole Flying Corps in their debt by adapting wireless telegraphy to the uses of aircraft. The value of this work was not at once apparent. The time before the war was spent chiefly in experiment. During the retreat from Mons no ground receiving stations could be established. But when the German rush was beaten back, and the opposing armies were ranged along a fixed line, wireless telegraphy became a necessity for aeroplanes. The machines and the plant needed for this new development were not in existence; but a good deal of the preliminary work, much more troublesome and uncertain than the multiplication of a pattern, had been done. In a very short time there appeared at the front large numbers of machines fitted with wireless. The credit of this sudden apparition belongs, in part at least, to the Royal Engineers, and to their child, the balloon school, which by a steady process of growth had been transformed into the airship squadron of the Royal Flying Corps.