FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0902.PDF
1/0553 Admiralty who, up to the recent reorganisation of the service, had conducted all the departments of the air service with conspicuous ability, the Admiralty had now altered the system, had brought the air service under the ordinary Admiralty practice, put it under the Sea Lord, and had, by that very action, necessarily altered the position of the distinguished gentleman to whom he referred. The facts are these. When the war broke out, the air service was relatively in its infancy. The very fact that the war broke out expanded it enormously in all directions. The distinguished officer to whom the hon. member refers was, in the first instance, an expert in lighter than air ships. Gradually, as the air service expanded, his duties expanded ; to lighter than air were added heavier than air. To the design of aircraft was added the control and command of an ever-increasing and enormous staff—designers, and fliers, pilots, and mechanics. He was made responsible for the most heterogeneous duties until the weight of responsibility thrown upon him was far in excess of what any officer ought to be asked to bear. I came to the conclusion that the time had come when the air service ought to be brought under the ordinary Admiralty practice. In its early days, Mr. Churchill, to whom the country owes a great debt of gratitude in connection with the air service, kept it under his special personal charge and supervision, and I am not sure that my hon. friend did not suggest that his example should be followed by me, and that I should put all the Naval Lords on one side and assume the sole management and control of the air service. I think that would have been a great error. Much was gained by the personal control, the personal interest, the initiative and the farsightedness of my right hon. friend in the early stage of this air service. But I might as well really keep the submarine service, or the destroyer service, under my own personal control. The air service has come to stay. It is, and it must henceforth always be, part of the Admiralty equipment, and I am confident that I was right in thinking that the time had come when the enormous expansion which it had gone through required it to be treated as other great naval services are treated, and put under the same machinery which experience has shown to be, after all, not a bad machinery for managing the affairs of the country. I hope I have made it clear to the House that what happened was that the enormous expansion of the air service really absolutely outgrew its primitive organisation, and it had to be put under the accepted organisation of the Admiralty. I believe that has done nothing but good. The information I had before the change was made was that in many cases there was great want of discipline in the air service, which was only natural, because the distinguished officer who was at the head of it really had not disciplinary powers, and the various COmmanders-in-chief round the coast had no authority over the air service at all. It was quite inevitable in these circumstances that there should be some relaxation of the bonds of discipline. It could not be otherwise, and it was not otherwise. I believe it was really of the greatest possible advantage to the air service that it should be introduced into a system which, whatever else may be said of it, has undoubtedly produced admir able fruits in the way of wise discipline. No one has ever sug gested that the Navy of this country is not admirably disciplined, and to bring the air service under that system seems to me to be conferring on it one of the greatest possible advantages. I turn from the general organisation of the air service under the Board of Admiralty to the particular criticisms passed upon the Zeppelin attacks and the defence of London. I do not speak for the Army, because the representative of the Army will speak for himself directly, but, as far as the Navy is concerned, we are doing our very best to increase both the number of our flyers and the machines which they have to use. It is no use saying how much better off we should be if we had more of the things which it is extremely desirable we should have. We are making them as fast as we can. That is a general observation which deals with some points raised by both the speakers. When we come to the case of Zeppelins my hon. friend said, " Will the FiTSt Lord of the Admiralty explain why Zeppelins were not built before the war, and why a Zeppelin which was being built during the war was not gone on with ? " I am not going to discuss the policy of the present Board in connection with lighter-thanair craft, though I may say that we are building no inconsiderable numbers of lighter-than-air craft at this moment, largely for the purpose which my hon. friend refers to—the purpose of scouting. If he asks me why these ships were not built before, he must recognise that the whole policy of Zeppelin versus aeroplane is still undecided, and that the most competent people hold the most diverse views upon it. No nation, I do not care what nation it is, could expand equally in every conceivable direction. You have to choose, and there are many persons—I do not say they are right, I have not an opinion —who think that Germany chose wrongly. If Germany chose wrongly in the matter, I hope NOVEMBER 19, 1915. the criticism upon the preceding Board of Admiralty will be mitigated in severity. If the Germans were wrong in putting so much energy, money, skill, invention, and manufacturing power into the making of Zeppelins, do not let us criticise the proceeding Boards of Admiralty because they did not fall into the same error. But, passing from this general question as to whether you ought to construct Zeppelins rather than aeroplanes, or aeroplanes rather than Zeppelin-, I come to the more particular criticisms my hon. friend made with regard to the defence of London. With some of his observations I am in hearty agreement. I quite agree with him, for example, that no small part of the defence of London or any other place within these islands, should largely, and as far as possible, be a coast defence. It cannot be wholly a coast defence. London must have local defences, as well as coast defences, but I entirely agree that we should extend the circle of our defences as far as possible, and, if you can, and when you can, you should catch your Zeppelin as he approaches your shores, and I doubt not that as we get more and more of the necessary appliances for doing so, we shall more and more succeed in that object. Let me add something to what the hon. member has said. Our defence against Zeppelins should not be limited by the shore, and they are not limited by the shore. You cannot have a ring of cruisers round the island, of course, but it is undoubtedly the fact that we can use, and should use, and we do use our ships of war as far as possible to anticipate and prevent attacks on the metropolis. But all these questions of defence, or gun power, are limited, just as the aeroplane service is limited. It is limited by what we have got. We are making as hard as we can aeroplanes ; we are making pilots, and we are making guns; but we are behindhand. We have always been behindhand in this war. It has never been denied. I am not responsible for it. That is part of what I may call the admitted common places of the situation. We have not had and we still have not all the munitions that we shall have, or that we ought to have. Until we have them it is impossible that we shall have the defences entirely satisfactory in their character or amount. They are improving every day. They are much more formidable now than they were, and they will be much more formidable than they are, and I do not think the House will think it reasonable to ask for any further assurance than that which I can most truthfully give them. We have never been supplied with all the guns we want. We have taken guns from the less necessary places to more necessary places, and there are positions on ships and on land where I would like to have guns where I cannot have guns, simply because the guns are not yet there, though they will be there. The House must accept that as an unfortunate fact which is being remedied, which has for months been in process of being remedied, is from day to day improving, and will get right, I hope, before a not very long time. I do not pretend that we have at this moment, either in London or out of London, all the guns that are desirable or necessary for its complete protection. My hon. friend dealt with one other point. He said, "Is not your organisation for the defence of the country against Zeppelins hopelessly complicated and confused ; would not everything go on smoother if it was under one authority ?" I do not think the organisation is the most perfect organisation that can be devised, but I do not quite see how you could work it with one authority. At any rate, it might not conduce to things going more smoothly. The Navy must be concerned, however you put it, because, as I have just explained, the defence at sea is part of the defence against Zeppelins. Therefore if everything on land were put under the Army, you would still have some of your anti-Zeppelin defences under the Navy, and no conceivable arrangement would get rid of that. When you are dealing with a great area like the metropolis you must bring in the police, the Home Office, the County Council, and the Fire Brigade, as well as the Army and the Navy. That represents a large number of separate Departments, but I do not think, so far as my observation goes, that this produces any real dislocation at moments of action. As regards information, the Army and the Navy are in the closest touch. It is quite true that some of the flying stations near London ate under the Army, and others under the Navy. These stations are in the closest telephonic communication. Each knows exactly what is being done at the other stations. There is no difference of policy or principle, there is no division of authority. There is not, and I think there can hardly be, a collision between one and the other, and in these circumstances I greatly doubt whether any of the ills that my hon. friend seems to think follow the system are really to be found. Nor do I see how he would alter that system at present. These are flying stations where training goes on. I am very much dissatisfied with the division of stations, so far as the Navy is concerned, and I am very anxious to have a much larger training school and to unify the training as far as possible in one place. I believe it will be a great saving of 902
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
