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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 1206.PDF
i* .(Sas^i^ into the^scope of its care a great strategical offensive far beyond what theexisting Army forces are doing at the present time, or what the Army rightly do. I quite agree that the Army should have all the aeroplanes that it needsfor its use in carrying out the work it is doing—for artillery observation and photography and short bombing raids close behind the lines, and so on. ButI want to put it to ray hon. and gallant friend as a soldier, and to carry all the soldiers in the House with me and the soldiers at the front too, in saying thatthe question of the strategic offensive is really a question of psychology and not a question of military expediency. There is where I think we have gonewrong up to the present moment. The question of whether it is worth while for Great Britain to institute such proceedings as have been instituted byGermany over the City of London is a question not for the Commander-in- Chief in Flanders, but for the War Cabinet here. It is a question not ofwhether we could exercise such military effect in Germany as could be exercised by dropping bombs on dumps or aerodromes behind the German lines, butwhethsr we can affect the psychology of the German nation and affect their morale, for I am convinced that the result of this war will depend on the moraleof the men in the trenches as it must be affected by the morale of the respective nations. The point I want to press is that the new Air Service should consider, apartentirely from the views of the military authorities at the front, whether it is not desirable from the pyschological point of view to get behind the enemyforces and smash, as I think we could do, the morale of the German nation and so produce a great effect upon the morale of the Ge.rman troops in the trenches.I know that up to the present we have devoted ourselves to bombing dumps, but it seems to me it is better to bomb the place where the munitions are manu-factured, than to bomb the completed article in the dumps behind the German lines. We feel that if it was good enough for the German High Commandto spare machines in order to try to affect the morale of the people here—thank God they have not done it. I do not think they will succeed in doing it. Ithink that the morale of Great Britain is altogether different from the morale of the people of Germany ; but, from my knowledge of German psychology,it would be worth while to transfer from the needs of the Army sufficient machines to try to affect their morale. t> All this comes back to the question of production. The new Secretary ofState with his Air Council must first, after he has got over the initial difficulties of instituting his new forces, devote himself, in conjunction with the Ministryof Munitions, to production. I have pleaded before this House, and I am going to plead very shortly again, for bigger machines and more high-power engines.The new force should not be content to get equal with the Germans, to make machines as good as the latest German machines, but should go boldly onebetter, jump over the heads of the Germans, and have machines bigger, faster and better than the German machines. Everybody knows that the Germansare devoting all their manufacturing efforts at the present time to jthe creation of a still larger air service for use against Great Britain and our forces both atthe front and at home in the spring of next year. It we are to meet them, the only possible means of doing so is to create an equally large and equally strongAir Force. We know that the Germans are enlarging their plant for air purposes, that they have placed large numbers of orders in Switzerlandfor the production of air engines, that the Fokker Co. itself has taken over an enormous guano factory in Schwerin in order to manufacture aeroplanes, thatthey are building three-seater bombers carrying over a ton of bombing material, that they are now building two and three-engined machines provided withelectric heaters, and that in the six months prior to August this year no fewer than 29 new aircraft factories have been opened by our German rivals. I am not going to ask my hon. and gallant friend to tell us what we aredoing. I merely want on this occasion of the starting of this new Imperial Air Service to press upon him that he must go to the Ministry of Munitionsand ask them, if possible, to consider whether they can really divert some of the men and women who are now working at other forms of munitions to agreat output of aeroplanes, and aeroplane engines. I know that I have been regarded in the past as a fanatic on this point. Perhaps the Ministry ofMunitions may say, " We cannot spare them from the creation of guns and shells." The rival armies have now had 3! years' work with guns and shells,trying to beat one another and up to the present moment it is fair to say that the war is not yet decided. Many of us who may be called fanatics have feltthat there is a chance of the war being decided in the air. I for one say quite frankly that if the present Prime Minister, when he took in hand 2| years agothe supply of munitions, when he put into that work that wonderful imaginaton and wonderful driving force of his, greater perhaps than that of any other manof the nation, had applied some portion of those qualities, while he was dealing with the production of shells and guns, to the production of aeroplanes andhigh-power engines, I for one feel that the war might have been ended in the air before the present moment. I feel most strongly that there is a very definite,chance of the war being ended in the air next summer by whichever of these two great rival countries gets supremacy in the air. One thing more : The work is only half done, but I believe that it will becompleted by the spring or summer of next year, and I am convinced that when this new Air Service gets to work, when the new push, with the new drivethat must come into it from whoever may constitute the new Air Council, coupled with the braverv which no words of mine or of anybody else in thisHouse can paint too highly of the men in Flanders and our other fronts who are flying and fighting there, if next spring or summer means that victorywhich my hon. and gallant friend mentioned, the victory which will lead to peace, that victory will, I believe, be brought about in the air through thegallantry of those young men who have fought and are. going to fight under this new scheme. Lord Hugh Cecil: I am a strong supporter of the Bill. But, as my hon.Friend said just now, this Bill does not achieve, or anything like achieve, the object of building up an independent Air Force. He called it a skeleton Bill.It is, at any rate, only a beginning. It is inevitable that, in time of war, to set up a complete organisation by Act of Parliament, would be quite out of the ques-tion ; but it is a desirable thing to do, because when first your Air Service is set up, it should be able to study all the problems involved. Let us pass the Bill assoon as we can and raise no points that are not really necessary to improve the Bill and make it more efficient than it is. If we display such a spirit, weshall not be unworthy of the gallantry of those who fight our battles and we shall in our humble capacity play our part. Sir Henry Norman : I only desire to raise one point, andl do so particularlybecause it has been raised in a striking fashion by Mr. Joynson-Hicks. The point is this : My hon. Friend said that he hoped that there would not be leftany residuum of the R.F.C. or the R.N.A.S., and that that was what the Bill did. The Bill in my understanding, and I raise this point to be corrected if I amwrong, does nothing of the kind. It is permissive. It may do it in the future, but the Bill, as it stands, may leave both the R.F.C. and the R.N.A.S. preciselyas they are to-day It mia;ht have the effect not only of creating a third Air Service, because at the end of Clause 8, Sub-section (4) it is stated, " His Majesty may by Order in Council, transfer . . . such property,rights and liabilities of the Admiralty or Army Council or Secretary of State as may be agreed between the Air Council and the Admiralty or the Army Council,as the case may be." Lord H. Cecil: I think my hon. Friend is mistaken ; that Clause only refersto the property rights and liabilities ; it does not refer to the Air Forces or personnel. Those are dealt with in Clause 13. ^ NOVEMBER 15, 1917. Sir H. Norman : Is not the personnel under precisely the same provision ? -The personnel may be taken over if the man is willing himself or if the Army Council or Admiralty consent. Is not that the case ? . . ' An Hon. Member: Yes. Sir H. Norman: Then the personnel is on precisely or practically the samefooting as the property rights andTiabilities spoken of in Clause 8. Mr. Billing : Perhaps the ton. and gallant Gentleman would clear up the pointat once ? Major Baird : It is absolutely true. We are dealing with men in the Army andNavy, and we cannot, even by this Bill, take them without the consent of the Army and the Navy. Lord H. Cecil: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman ? I do not gather fromthe Bill that there will be any air force except the one air force created when this Bill becomes law. Sir H. Norman : I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite for hisexplanation. The matter seemed to me so clear that it hardly needed his con- firmation. But the point raised by the Noble Lord—I put that because thesuggestion is that there will be no Air Service except service in the R.F.C. or the R.N.A.S. It seems to me that under this Bill—and on Second Reading a Billof so long a character is always, of course, a little vague—there may be a third Air Service formed under the new Secretary of State. Suppose that the R.F.C.on the one hand, when approached with a request, or an offer, from the new Sec- retary of State, says in correct, official, technical language that it does not agree,then, so far as they are concerned, is the thing to remain there ? The same would be true of the Admiralty. That is in the Bill. Major Baird : There is the War Cabinet. Undoubtedly, if the Army orthe Admiralty refused to grant the airmen required by the Secretary of State, he will go to the War Cabinet, and, the War Cabinet having decided the matter,the Army or the Navy will have to give him what he asks for. Sir H. Norman : I am very glad of that, because that clears away to a certain extent the only point I desired to raise. Major Baird : It is a very important point. There may be certain officers,naval or military, who obviously arc doing admirable service where they are as naval or military officers. We cannot—it would not be fair—arbitrarilytake them away from the Army or the Navy if they are doing better service with the Army or the Navy. If, on the other hand, the Army or the Navy should inan obstructive way—and they have shown no signs of it—refuse to hand over large numbers of officers wTho are now training as airmen, the whole thing becomesconfused. Then we shall go to the War Council, and place the matter before them. Sir H. Norman : That, of course, as I say, makes clear to me the difficulty thatI wished to solve, and answers the one point I desired to raise. We are then left with this situation : that this Bill may only create a third Air Service, leaving theR.F.C. and the R.N.A.S. as they are, except in a case of necessity where there will be the intervention of the War Cabinet. That states it accurately. The -matteris really, as my hon. and gallant Friend said, one of very great importance, because most of us who are interested in the air look forward to the time, not fardistant, when by the natural development of events, certainly not by any arbi- trary action on the part of the coming Secretary of State, by the natural courseof events and developments there would be, not a third Air Service but one great Air Service precisely as there have been one land service and one seaservice. Many of us feel that if the War is going on for many months longer- counting it in months—it may be demonstrated, almost mathematically de-monstrated, that the War can be won in the air. For that purpose it is neces- sary that there should be an absolutely uniform command and control in theair. Mr. Billing : I should like to assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman who ispiloting this Bill through that not only in the view of certain Members of this -•House, but certainly in the view of quite a number of Service Members, theBill leaves very much to be desired. While I appreciate the fact that anyone who purposely obstructed this Bill would be doing his country and, as the NobleLord opposite me particularly stated, the gallant men who are actually flying and fighting for this country, a great disservice, one would be doing them afar greater disservice by not seeing that the Bill when it passed met with their views and did them justice. Here, on this occasion, we are dealing with an Actwhich, instead of saying a thing " shall " be done constantly says,things " may " be done. Posterity may well refer to this Act as the " May " Act. I only hopethey will. Before we come to the Committee stage there are a number of points which I think need to be very satisfactorily cleared up. The first instance we have in the title of the Bill itself. Here was an oppor-tunity to embody in the Bill not only a grateful compliment to the Dominions, but even in the Preamble of the Bill there might have been a happier and more .comprehensive title than the one we have. The Bill might have been called the ""imperial Air Forces Bill." On the other hand, it might have been called the" Imperial Air Service," because, if the hopes which have been expressed in the House this afternoon materialise I trust that the aeroplane, even as it is to-day— ,the most punitive weapon which has ever been placed in the hands of mankind,may eventually render war so terrible as to result in its abolition altogether. Under these circumstances the word " Force " would be an unhappy one. Theword " Service " would be infinitely better. I sincerely trust, when this War is eventually brought to a close by the medium of and through the dominion ofthe air, that we shall discover a happier word than " Force " for referring to that Service. Imperial Air Service would have a more real meaning than Air Force.I would suggest to this House that when the Air Service is in being directly the war ceases, if we are to keep the establishment which is absolutely necessary -for us to be prepared for any eventuality or any invasion by air, some meanswill have to be found for employing aeroplanes on more productive work than mere flying from aerodrome to aerodrome to keep the skill of the pilot, up to dateand the machines themselves in flying order. I suggest that it will \x found most probable that all the mails of this country, and possibly the mails of theEmpire, will within the next few years be carried by the very service, to introduce which we are now debating the Second Reading of this Bill. So far as that isconcerned, I would recommend with due humility to the Government, and with a proper appreciation of the source from which the recommendat'on comes, thesuggestion that " Imperial Air Service," or, if the word " Imperial " is dis- tasteful in the minds of the Government, " Air Service " rather than " Air Force "should be introduced as the name for that service. The next point that arises is that, throughout the whole of this Bill, it seemsto have been the determination of the gentlemen who framed it, under the direction, presumably, of the Officers of the Crown, to confer upon the WarCabinet or by Order in Council, whatever that may Iw, powers of dictatorship, and to remove from this House any opportunity whatsoever of controlling theirfuture actions, their movements, or the destiny of the force which we now pro- pose to create. Unless we are going to be handed over into a condition ofbureaucracy, without any effort on our part, I would suggest that the Mem- bers of this House should watch this Bill, as an instance, very carefully, andnot allow it to become a precedent of actions on behalf of the War Council, under the plea, which we hear so frequently at that box that it has almostlost its meaning, that all these things are necessary because we are in a state of war. I do trust that when we come to the Committee stage there I2O6
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