FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0296.PDF
IfiJGHT] AP*IL 6. 1916, brought to our generals, but that the life perhaps of a pilot and certainly of the observer and the machine itself might be saved from total lot*. He would like any hon. member to picture himself in a machine absolutely alone walled in by wires, with a pilot somewhere behind. He heard a gasp and a cry and turned round and saw that his pilot was dead. He was sitting there helpless at J 1,000 ft., the machine diving and sheering in all directions, and knew that the moment would very soon come when she would get imo a nose dive and he would crash 11,000 ft. and be smashed to pieces simply because of the foolish folly of these officials who did not understand and would not be taught tbat dual control in such a machine would have saved tbat man's life. I would like to have on the floor of the House one of those men who had l>een through one of these terrible death dives to tell right hon. gentlemen on the Front Bench what it felt like. No time must be wasted. However important the debates in this House might be, our national existence depended on the issue of this subject. No time ought to be wasted. However important the debates in the House might be our national existence depended on the issue of this subject—if not to-day, in the days to come. All around L—doa were these accursed old groggy machines, these badly lighted or unlighted aerodromes, and these heroes sitting and waiting to go up to save the face of those who were set in authority over them, and who had failed them every time. It was frequently difficult even in law to draw a hard-and-fast line between murder and manslaughter, or, again, between manslaughter and an accident caused by criminal negligence. When this negligence was caused by the official folly of those in high places, coupled with entire ignorance of the technique which, in this case, could alone preserve human life, official folly became criminal negligence, and when the death of a man ensued the line between such official folly and murder was purely a matter for a man's conscience. Sir Alfred Gclder said that he felt veiy strongly that the Government after two years had not made efforts which were essential to meet the attacks of Zeppelins around our coasts and in these islands. All were desirous of bearing it bravely, if it was felt that the authorities were doing what they could to help the people to meet this evil. He was informed that the question of defending the coast from air raids had been a year in the hands of the Army authorities, who had done nothing. Of course the naval authori ties were not to blame. In regard to the future they said they intended to make the air service on the east coast efficient. A week or two afterwards one or two motor aircraft guns were paraded through the streets of the city to which he particularly referred. It was naturally imagined that they were for their defence, and the people were very delighted. But no more was heard. They were _ there for two or tnree days, and were then taken to another place for a ' similar purpose. After his first interview with the Admiralty, twelve months ago, and after they had paraded these guns through the town, the military did another thing. On one of the large engineering works in the city he was referring to, a solitary gun was fixed and a military guard was mounted by day and night over tbat gun. All thought that that was part of the equipment to pro tect the city, but it was found afterwards that it was only a dummy gun. (Mr. Joynson-1 licks : " Qaitf true.'') At a private meeting two generals were present, and I told them exactly the same thing, and offered to apologise if I was mistaken. Immediately the Chief Constable jumped up and said : " There is no occasion for apolo gising ; it was a military performance." Why was that done ? (Mr. Billing ; " Bluff.") He thought it was done to allay the fears, the suspicions, and the anxieties of the people, and if that was so, such deception was unworthy of the military authorities or of any general staff allowing it to be done. (Mr. Billing: " To save the Government's face.") He was glad, however, to say, that during the past two or three weeks some efforts had been made to improve matters after they had had an interview with Lord French, and he hoped that what was being done would be a complete defence. He believed that with efficient guns and aeroplanes the Zeppelins would be prevented from doing what they did on the last occasion they were there ; that is, to stop their machines until they found thtir bearings exactly over the place where they were nine months before, and to drop three bombs within 20 ft. of each other. There was a design, a method, in their operation, and if the East Coast towns were left defenceless and the Germans got to know this, as they would get to know it, if they came once or twice and had no reception, it meant the blotting out of some of these places. Coming to the question of lights on railways, when the Zeppelins came to the north east part they followed the railway lines right away to the city. The railway companies ought to be made to put out their lights. If the trains all stopped there was no reason why the signal lights should not be put out, and there was no doubt that these large number of signal lights in towns were, with the lighting of buoys and revolving lights on rivers, a great and unerring guide to Zeppelins. The First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking a fortnight ago as to the building of lighter-than-air machines to meet the attacks of Zeppelin.-,, said that they could have built these craft twenty of them, but they could not get the sheds built. He, the speaker, was free to say that if they would grant to the builders on the east coast the proper facilities for material and the use of the railways, ic, they would undertake to build these twenty sheds large enough to hold the largest dirigibles, within six months from that date. He would stake flis reputation upon that. Any official who made the statement to a Minister to the contrary was absolutely incapable. If the machines could be provided, there was no difficulty in providing the sheds for them. Mr. Lynch said that he advocated a large aeroplane fleet, far larger than anything yet held in contemplation by the Government, and that he was in opposition to Sir A. Gelder in regard to the building of lighter-than-air machines. He believed that we had in our hands a stronger instiument—the aeroplane. The Zeppelin menace could be completely met by the construction of suitable aeroplanes, but the conditions necessary did not at present exist, partly because the air service was subject to two controls, and the problem of regarding the Air Service as a totally distinct service with out necessarily interfering with the subsidiary part of the Admiralty and of the Army in regard to an Air Service, had not been sufficiently studied. His point was that if a separate departmem were created with separate construction, control, and responsibility, regarding this as a purely separate arm for independent purposes, it would still be necessary as a subsidiary part of the Navy and Army. Therefore what he proposed was not to take the Air Service entirely out of the Army and Navy, but rather to develop even more strongly those branches which were necessary to those particular services, but, independent of them altogether, to form a new arm with a definite task in view, with a definite object- plan and course of action. The raids by aeroplane in various parts of the world, from Metz to Schleswig or the shores of Belgium, against Zeppelin sheds, &c, should be regarded as valuable rather byway of ascertaining what were the powers of the aeroplane, than as showing results which should be viewed as the high-water mark attained, or that they should necessarily be continued on those lines. Instead of being content with a raid of 20 or 30, or even 50 aero planes, upon some vulnerable base of the Germans, it shou'd rather be sought to build 10,000 aeroplanes or even 20,000, and these should be used as the deciding factor in the war. It a com petent man were put at the head of a department specially created for that purpose all objections would be found to vanish. Once we had this fleet of 10.000 or 20,000 aeroplanes, we should be masters of the situation. That was the plan he put forward without working it out in detail. They had to rise to a conception that this arm could be made a great and decisive factor in the war, and all obstacles in the way to that end should be removed. And once the House made up its own mind that these difficulties could be re moved, the object sought would be reali ed. Sir A. Markham said that he hoped that the War Office would continue the policy of not disclosing to the Germans where their air ships had reached. He also asked the Under-Secretary for War to give positive assurance lo the House that no man, owing to the exigencies of the service, would be sent up to fly a machine which would be so dangerous as to constitute wnat the member for Hert fordshire had said was " technical murder." (Mr. Billing ; " May I suggest that the question should be that there should be assurances that officers are not being sent up in machines to accomplish a duty which the machine is totally unable to accomplish.") What was wanted was an assurance that there shall be indiscriminate scrapping if there was a machine which was dangerous. He thought the fact should not be overlooked tha: the Germans hid lost a great number of Zeppelins which carried from 20 to 30 men. That was what occurred when you are dealing with experimental machines. In this country we were in the position of having to deal with the aeroplane service, and in the progress of development they had had, unhappttyi loss of life. The main point was whether this country had the ascendancy in the past or not. (Mr. Billing: "May I suggest that in speaking of the ascendancy of England we also include France, which is twice as efficient and has twice as many machines, and Russia, which is almost as great, and we also include Belgium.") The Speaker : " The hon. member has made his speech." Sir A. Markham, continuing, said he thought that the member tor East Herts would have pertormed a public service if his re marts brought home to the War Office the fact, if it were tt fact, that we w«r not supplying our airmen with good machines, and sending our *' to fight the enemy with machines that ought to be scrapped. "5 ' not know whether the losses had been greater in the Flying u>fPj than amongst the men in the trenches. Those men in the trencnes nan been fighting without machine guns, and without proper weapons " put them on equal terms with the enemy, and the same thing* » thought, had probably happened with the airmen.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
