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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0227.PDF
MAIICH 16, 1916- (/USHT) PARLIAMENT AND AERONAUTICS. MR. BALFOUR INTRODUCING the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons on the 7th inst., Mr. A. J. Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty, said :— " Let me deal now with the Air Service of the Navy. That ser vice entirely owed its origin to my right hon. and gallant friend (Colonel Churchill). Long before the use of aircraft had been proved by experience, my right hon. and gallant friend foresaw the important part that it was going to play in the naval warfare of the future, and he set himself to work to lay deep the foundations of a Naval Air Service. Since August, 1914, the strength of the Naval Air Service has increased tenlold. That necessarily has involved snme alterations of organisation. Among other things we found that the means of educating airmen were inadequate. With the sanction of the Treasury the Admiralty purchased some months ago a Urge tract of land very suitably situated for all the purposes of training in flying. The Admiralty have also secured the services of Commodore Payne, who has done admirable work in con nection with the Army, and I have no doubt that under his supervision with the facilities that are being placed at his disposal an immense growth in education in air mat ters will result. It has been said : Why should the Navy have an Air Service at all ? Whether there should be a separate Minister for Air or not—a question into which I will not now enter—the N ivy will always require a special service for its own purposes who ever may superintend it. The work of the Naval Air Service is largely different from that of the Army, and consequently the train ing for the two services must be different. For instance, no Army airman is ever required to use a seaplane or to distinguish the various types of ships, enemy or friendly, which have to be discriminated if an airman is to be a good scout over the sea. The next question is : Have these Services been so organised as to entirely prevent over lapping? It would be a strong order to say that there has never been any overlapping, but I am absolutely convinced, whatever may be true of the future, that in the past it has been an immense gain that there have been two separate departments to deal with all the nascent and early problems of this growing branch of warfare. It i) all in its infancy. " There is one branch of the Air Service which the Army have deliberately handed over to the exclusive patronage of the Navy— I mean the lighter-than-air craft. Here also there has been a great development since the war began. It was decided, rightly or wrongly, in years gone by—I think myself wrongly, though I cer tainly do not blame the people who came to the decision—that it was not worth our while to deal with the complicated and costly question of Zeppelins. I do not believe any prophet now living can say with confidence what the future relation between the THE HOUSE OF LORDS IN the House of Lords on the 9th— Lord Montagu of Beaulieu asked His Majesty's Government whether, in view of the great and growing importance of aviation in modern warfare both by sea and land, and the need for special attention and effort being concentrated upon it, they would create a separate Ministry to deal with the whole question. Before dealing with the subject he thanked their lordships for their sympathetic references to his rescue when the " Persia " was sunk. He regarded the question he had placed upon the paper as a matter of mote than ordinary importance. The need for concentration upon problems dealing with aviation was very great, and had now become so insistent that more steps should be taken than were likely to be taken by the Government. He was aware that in this country we never took a bold stroke at once unless there was great weight ot public opinion in its favour. Everything must be subordinated to the needs of the war, and although he welcomed the appointment of the Committee over which Lord Derby was to preside, which was " itself an admission of weakness, he wished to convince the Government that there was need for something bigger with wider powers and with a man of imagination and foresight at its head. He knew he had been classed with the unfortunate body of people called prophets who were received first with derision, then with con tempt, and afterwards with dislike, but he wished to point out that he had called attention to this matter in 1909. If the Committee he had suggested in 191 o had been appointed the problem of aviation would not have been neglected and we should not have been in the position we were to-day. One of the difficulties he had •° confront was the clanger of saying too much. Everything *td n either House of Parliament was known in Germany in a few ™ys, and he could not therefore deal with the technical aspect of * subject. Very little of importance in this country was not snown to the German General Staff, for their means of information were very extraordinary. It was also necessary to remember, ON THE R.N.A.S. Zeppelin and the hcavier-than-air machine is going to be. Both are improving, but perhaps the improvement in the heavier-than- air machine is more rapid and more certain. It may conceivably be that in ten years people will regard the Zeppelin as an antiquated instrument, and say you ought entirely to rely upon the magnitude of power of your heavier than an machines. On that I make no forecast. All I say is that at this moment it is extremely desirable that we should have lighter-than- air machines from the naval point of view in order to supplement the efforts of our Fleet by machines for scouting, which in many respects and in favourable weather are far more effective than the swiftest destroyer or the most powerful cruiser. Therefore, we have been, and are, doing our best to develop the lighter-lhan-air machine. The difficulty we have found—I am not talking of the Zeppelin now, but of the non-rigid types—is not so much in con structing the instrument as in housing it. In the present condition of labour throughout the country the length of time taken to build an adequate shed and shelter for these instruments is what is really checking their use. The kite balloon also has been handed over entirely by the Army to the Admiralty. It has undergone great and growing developments, and I am personally persuaded that we shall find more and more use for it at sea." Col. Winston Churchill, in the course of his speech, said :— "There is another matter which I cannot avoid mentioning, although I shall do so in language of the utmost precaution. A strategic policy for the Navy purely negative in character by no means necessarily implies that the path of greatest prudence is being followed. I wish to place on record that the late Board of Admiralty certainly would not have been content with an attitude of pure passivity during the whole of the present year. That is all I say upon a matter of that kind. There is one other cognate matter which illustrates what I mean. We hear a great deal about air raids. A great remedy against Zeppelin raids is to destroy the Zeppelins in their sheds. I cannot understand why all these many months, with resources far greater than those which Lord Fisher and I ever had at our disposal, it has not been found possible to carry on the policy of raiding which in the early days was carried on, and send a handful of naval pilots to Cologne, Dusseldorf, Friedrichshaven, and even to Cuxhaven itself." Sir Hedworth Meux said he thought they were making a great deal too much fuss about Zeppelin raids. Everyone was in the same danger. The Zeppelins would do a certain amount of harm, per haps even to the House of Commons, although he did not believe what was rumoured in Germany that any airman who destroyed the House of Commons would get penal servitude for life. ON THE AIR SERVICES. before blame was directed to the naval or military authorities, that there was no experience upon which to build a policy, and that in this country to suggest anything novel was always to be condemned. There had been opposition from the heads of departments and from the Treasury, which had retarded the efforts of those who wished to push on with aviation. He did not wish therefore to criticise the beads of the naval and military departments, though they had not done all he could have wished them to do, and had in the Inst few months been hampered by other departments. He was glad to see that Sir David Henderson had been appointed to the Army Council, and wondered if that was the result of his question having been placed on the paper. It was, at any rate, a step in the right direction. With regard to the suggested Ministry of the Air, he admitted that only a year ago he was very doubtful whether the Air Service should not run on its present system divided into two branches, for there were great difficulties about combing the services, and there were prejudices which it would be very hard to overcome. But it could not be denied that the present position of our Air Service was very unsatisfactory. A year ago, and even last summer, a German aeroplane was hardly ever seen over our lines in Flanders, but now he teared we had lost our air supremacy. It was our duty at all costs to regain it, and we should not regain it until our present system was altered. The Germans now had aeroplanes which could fly faster and ascend more quickly than ours. At home we had had about 25 visits from Zeppelins, and with the exception of part of a propeller found in Kent this week there was no evidence that any Zeppelin had been seriously damaged. That alone proved we had not had enough energy. He was sorry Loid Derby was not present, and had it been possible he would have asked for the debate to be postponed. But the Com mittee over which Lord Derby presided was merely one which allocated the production of our factories to the Army or the 227
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