slung to the envelope of the ex-army airship Eta.

On January 1st, 1914, an important event took place: the Army
disbanded their airship service, and the military ships together
with certain officers and men were transferred to the Naval Air
Service.

Before proceeding further, it may be helpful to explain the
system by which the naval airships have been given numbers.
These craft are always known by the numbers which they bear, and
the public is completely mystified as to their significance
whenever they fly over London or any large town. It must be
admitted that the method is extremely confusing, but the table
which follows should help to elucidate the matter. The original
intention was to designate each airship owned by the Navy by a
successive number. The original airship, the rigid Mayfly, was
known as No. 1, the Willows airship No. 2, and so on. These
numbers were allocated regardless of type and as each airship was
ordered, consequently some of these ships, for example the
Forlaninis, never existed. That did not matter, however, and
these numbers were not utilized for ships which actually were
commissioned. On the transfer of the army airships, four of
these, the Beta, Gamma, Delta and Eta, were given their numbers
as they were taken over, together with two ships of the Epsilon
class which were ordered from Messrs. Rolls Royce, but never
completed. In this way it will be seen that numbers 1 to 22 are
accounted for.

In 1915 it was decided to build a large number of small ships for
anti-submarine patrol, which were called S.S.'s or Submarine