maintain them. The navy purchased two seaplanes from the Glenn Curtiss factory in Hammondsport, New York, and two Maurice Farman seaplanes from France. To establish a cadre of naval aviators and technicians, the navy also dispatched three officers to Hammondsport and two to France for training and instruction. After their return to Japan at the end of 1912, two of the newly trained naval aviators made the first flights at Oppama on Yokosuka Bay, one in a Curtiss seaplane, the other in a Maurice Farman. In 1912, the Royal Navy had also informally established its own flying branch, the Royal Naval Air Service. The Japanese admirals, whose own Navy had been modeled on the Royal Navy and whom they admired, themselves proposed their own Naval Air Service. The Japanese Navy had also observed technical developments in other countries and saw that the airplane had potential. Within a year, the Imperial Japanese navy had begun the operational use of aircraft. In 1913, the following year, a Navy transport ship, Wakamiya Maru was converted into a seaplane carrier capable of carrying two assembled and two disassembled seaplanes. Wakamiya also participated in the naval maneuvers off Sasebo that year. Siege of Tsingtao On 23 August 1914, as a result of its treaty with Great Britain, Japan declared war on Germany. The Japanese, together with a token British force, blockaded then laid siege to the German colony of Kiaochow and its administrative capital Tsingtao on the Shandong peninsula. During the siege, starting from September, four Maurice Farman seaplanes (two active and two reserve) on board conducted reconnaissance and aerial bombardments on German positions and ships. The aircraft had crude bombsights and carried six to ten bombs that had been converted from shells, and were released through metal tubes on each side of the cockpit. On 5 September, during the first successful operation, two Farman seaplanes dropped several bombs on the Bismarck battery, the main German fortifications in Tsingtao. The bombs landed harmlessly in the mud, but the aircraft were able to confirm that was not at Tsingtao; this was intelligence of major importance to Allied naval command. On 30 September Wakamiya was damaged by a mine and later sent back to Japan for repairs. But the seaplanes, by transferring on to the shore, continued to be used against the German defenders until their surrender on 7 November 1914. Wakamiya conducted the world's first naval-launched