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Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0726.PDF
IN PARLIAMENT—THE IN the course of a speech in the House of Commons on September 15th, Sir H. Dalziel asked whether the Admiralty were satisfied with lhe aerial defence of London. Wtre I hey satisfied that the guns were of the right kind, that they were powerful enough, that the men in •charge were fully qualified for the responsible task which had fallen on them ? Why on a recent visit of Zeppelins to London were no aeroplanes apparently called into requisition ? He understood there were plenty waiting. Had the Admiralty made a definite study of the defences of Paris, against which flying machines seemed to have been unable to make any headway ? Who was in charge of the aerial defence of London before Sir Percy Scott ? Sir Percy Scott's appointment had, he thought, been received in all quarters with great satisfaction, but he could not understand why it was necessary to wait until the Zeppelins had visited London before calling for Sir Percy Scott's advice. His appointment did not mean that if the present system was imperfect it would immediately become perfect. He supposed the whole question was the provision of the proper gun. Too much must not be expected till Sir Percy Scott had had time to review the whole situation, and probably to secure the guns which would be required, Mr. Balfour (First Lord of the Admiralty) : The right hon. gentleman who has just sat down made a pointed and perfectly legitimate appeal to me to say something about the defence of London. He asked me questions about the guns, the provision of guns, the character of the guns, and their sufficiency in point of number, and their sufficiency in point of quality, and he also asked me various questions about the organisation of the defence of London, which, as he truly observed, is not a thing which can be brought to perfection merely by appointing officers. In order that the House may really judge of the situation fairly, they must remember that nobody foresaw, when the war broke out, the full development of aerial war, whether on our own part or on the part of our opponents. This is a branch of war which has never been tried before, and on which there has been no experience until this war which counts for anything, and, therefore, it is inevitable when youlhave to deal with a situation of that sort, that before your eyes the situation changes, and the organisation which those responsible before the war might naturally have thought adequate is proved by experience to be quite inadequate. Take this case of the defence of London. In the first place, we may be asked why the Admiralty has got to defend London at all ! It is a question on which I have no personal knowledge. I found, I frankly admit to my surprise, that when I took over the Admiralty I was also responsible at the same time for something which seemed to have either no connection at all, or only the remotest connection with naval work. It is a paradox unquestionably. If we had set to work, let us say, three or four years before the war with a full knowledge of the development of aerial warfare ; if the Govern ment of that day had set to work with that knowledge to organise the defence of London, I have no doubt it would have been organised on lines different from those which now prevail, but you really ought not to criticise the Minister then in charge, because it is not done. That is not a fair way to look at human effort. The Naval Aerial Service has, I think, quadrupled since the war com menced—I rather think 1 am under the mark in saying that. An organisation which might have been adequate and was adequate when the war broke out, and responsibilities seemed relatively slight in regard to the defence of the internal parts of the country, gradually became more and more inadequate, and has been supple mented, and is still in course of being supplemented, day by day. I hope the organisation intended to meet this danger is improving, and is growing far more rapidly than the danger itself. That is my hope and my expectation. The right hon. gentleman dwelt, and is quite right in dwelling, upon the question of guns. Guns have been the great diffi culty. You cannot get guns simply by saying that you are prepared to order them, and are prepared to pay for them, and that you know the type of gun you want, and that all that you desire is that they should be made as quickly as possible. I believe the whole question of designing guns to meet aerial attack did attract the attention of those responsible some considerable time before the war. The type of mounting was new, and it required a great deal of experimental work to be carried out upon it. When war broke out, although much had been done in the way of prepara tion, the actual numl>er of guns was not very great, and they have not come in very fast, compared with all the work which they are called upon to do. Let it be remembered that, under modern conditions, the Navy has not merely, in regard to aerial craft, to defend the inland parts of the country, which, as I said before, are rather anomalous functions to be controlled by my particular Department, but it has to defend its ships, obviously, against aerial attack, which is now one of the recognised forms of maritime warfare. That means that for all your ships you require anti-aircraft guns. It means that the SEPTEMBER 24, 1915. DEFENCE OF LONDON. strain thrown upon the supply of anti-aircraft guns is very great, and unquestionably at the present time the supply has not reached the crest of the demand. It is improving, as the supply of all other munitions is improving. I do not pretend for one moment that it is in a position to which I should desire to see it. The right hon. gentlemtn asked why Sir Percy Scott, whose appointment he is good enough to approve, was not appointed before. The answer to that is really the answer to all this particular class of attack. There are things which were foreseen before the war, there are things which were not foreseen, and which I do not think could have been foreseen before the war. One of them was the peculiar development of this method of warfare. The appointment of Sir Percy Scott is not the only great change of organisation which it has been found necessary to effect in consequence of the development of aircraft warfare. I now find it absolutely necessary to bring the whole air service more into harmony with the general practice of the Admiralty, to greatly increase the staff at the head of affairs, and to make arrangements to deal with the enormous amount of work which is now thrown upon those responsible for the air service. The naval air service is now an immense service. The number of flyers is very great and the number of machines is very great. There are responsibilities as regards the design of machines. There are responsibilities for arranging the whole system of coast defence, and the organisation which was not inadequate when the war broke out I found completely inadequate soon after I assumed responsibility as First Lord of the Admiralty. I hope, as regards the organisation, that it is now either complete or in a fair way towards completion. The changes have been very great, and they have all been in the direction of fitting the office to deal with new and great responsibilities, and I hope as time goes on their adequacy will more and more make itself felt. If the right hon. gentleman asks me whether I think that at this moment everything has been done that can be done or will be done for the defence of London, I do not think so. I think the thing is still in progress, and still in process of development. If he asks me whether I think it possible within a reasonable time to provide an adequate defence of London, I should give him a much more reassuring answer. Let me frankly say I should give him a more reassuring answer, in no small degree because I have a great belief in the organising capacity and the energy and resource, the open ness to new ideas, which has always characterised the distinguished Admiral who now has the defence of London immediately under his control. The right hon. gentleman mentioned Paris. Pains have been taken to make ourselves acquainted with the methods of the defence of 1'aris, and much, no doubt, has been learned, and will be learnt, from studying their example. But let not the House be carried away with the idea that the problem of London is identical with the problem of Paris. I am sure the right hon. gentleman does not fall into that error. Nor, if I may say so, is the problem of one who has got to try and defend London at all similar to that of the Minister who has to try and defend Paris. Paris starts with being under a single military Government, and it starts with being a great military fortress, and therefore being a military fortress it is supplied with a great mass of guns and with great defensive arrangements. London is not a fortified town. London is, as everybody knows— and nobody knows it better than the Germans—a city which should not, under the laws of civilised warfare, be the subject of this kind of attack. But we take our enemies as we find them. We perfectly recognise that a nation which is prepared for any degree of brutality at sea is not likely to show undue humanity when it comes to deal with land. Therefore, we do not for a moment suppose that London, or any other undefended place in this country, is to derive more consideration from the laws of humanity or the laws of nations. But I hope and believe, although I cannot promise immunity from attack to any part of the United Kingdom—in war immunity from attack can be rarely promised by any responsible Minister or General—but I think I can promise the House that everything is being done to develop and to organise such defences as are possible against aerial attack. I think I can tell the House, without being unduly optimistic, that, lamentable as have been the result of these German attacks on undefended places, the actual number of persons killed and injured, and the actual amount of property destroyed, has been relatively insignifi cant, although the hardship inflicted on particular individuals has been tragic beyond expression. If you turn your eyes away from the cases of individual hardship, cruelty, and suffering, and consider simply how much injury to this country, either as a great economic unit or as a great fighting force, has been done by these aerial attacks, I can truly say that, so far, that damage has been insignifi cant, and, although immunity cannot be promised for the future, I have every hope that Sir Percy Scott and all the other naval authorities who are devoting their minds to this problem will be
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