I don’t believe I’m writing this – if they did exist why have we never known of them?"
... because we were too busy looking at the Mystery Towers!
PS. Do any of the images from the top of the 2nd Mystery Tower show the view West? That would be the same period and the hangars would be visible.
also I found this about the Crete ships:
The only other concrete ship to see service at
Shoreham was the seaplane tender RFC 109 (later
RAF 109) (Fig 7). It was based at Shoreham,
being discarded at the end of the Great War. It was
then acquired by the Brighton & Hove Gas Co .,
being used to transport tar from the gas works at
Portslade to Lennard & Co . Tarworks (latterly South
Western Tar) at Shoreham Beach .
http://sias2.pastfinder.org.uk/sih_1970_2008/35-2005.pdfNow that implies Seaplanes flew from Shoreham and then lifted and recovered. So where did they unload? The tender would not get near the beach, so would have to recover and ship back up the river to... the airport? a dedicated hanger on the river?...