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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0242.PDF
FEBRUARY 28, 1918. connection with the Education authorities ; in fact, every Government Depart-ment has its own Medical Service except the Air Service. b It is not a very easy matter to institute such special medical air service at thepresent time, because the Army and the Navy, between them, have taken all the doctors, and the question arises how on earth we are to get doctors for thisproposed new service. The idea of those associated with me was that as the Army and the Navy between them apportioned off a certain number of doctorsto the aerodromes to attend to the flying men that we ought to take over the whole of that Medical Service in England, and thus get the doctors which theArmy and the Navy are at present supplying for this work as a nucleus of a larger and more aatisfactory service. I do not think we should require such agreat many doctors for this new Service at the present moment, but it is a grow- ing concern, and as time goes on we should, of course, require more. Another question which has been raised is in regard to the expense. I do notknow what the cost will be. I know that something was said the other day about an aerodrome which cost £500,000, and which was abandoned. Thatwould have paid for the Medical Air Service. As a matter of fact, two or three hours of Government expenditure would be sufficient to pay for the MedicalAir Service. Let me take another point. What is the value of an efficient aviator?am told that he costs the country about £900 and his machine roughly costs about £4,000. If an aviator is killed and his machine is wrecked roughly you loseabout £5,000. I do not like to make such a calculation, because it is putting money value on a man's life, but I only mention it as an illustration. Let usconsider how many of those lives and machines could be saved in the course of a year. Let us place the number at one hundred, and if you place the costa' £5>ooo then you save half a million of money and you pay for the expense of the whole of the Medical Air Service. I do not, however, think that the ques-tion of expense is anything to do with the matter. Then there is an idea that after the war we are going to have an ImperialMedical Service and the doctors are to be told off to different branches of the Service. I fancy also that there will be an attempt at interchange of thedoctors, and a medical man will be an air doctor for a time and then he will probably be sent to some other Service. That does not help us as it is notbeing started at the present time. With regard to what has been arranged for the Air Service, the length oftime which was taken in coming to a decision did not suit my mind at all. I like to make up my mind quickly and stick to it. You have heard what is thepresent state of things, and in future the Air Service is to be in commission as it were under the Army and Navy. There is to be a Chairman of the Board, theDirector of Naval Medical Service, and the next man is to be the Director of the Army Medical Service, and the gentleman who represents the Air Service is tobe a medical administrator. In that arrangement you have no permanence. Men are to be seconded, sayfrom the Navy, for three years and then they go back. That is not a proper piedical service. The Air Service will, however, be allowed to have a few officersWith permanent rank. I was very worried over this matter all the winter, and I went to my hon. and gallant friend and said, " I am going to move the adjourn-ment of the House in order to bring the question of the Air Service before the House of Commons." I really was in earnest, because the thing could not goon any longer. That resulted in my being shown what the compromise on this matter was. I studied it and slept over it, and then I came to the conclusionthat I should not be justified in rejecting this compromise. Supposing we had said, " This compromise will not do." It would have taken two or three monthsbefore we should have got any further, and in the interval no medical man would have been in training. Therefore, I thought it was far better to acceptthis compromise, although I know some of the members of the Air Council were very keen about a special Service; this was all they could succeed in gettingfor the time being. I concluded that it was much better to take this compromise in the meantime, although I do not think it will work or meet the requirementsof the Air Service. If, however, you get plenty of medical officers trained, that is the main essential, and it does not matter much about the administra-tion. After the war you must certainly have a separate Medical Air Service. The Air Service is not going to be demobilised, but it is going to be one of ourgreat national assets, and people who travel in aircraft will insist that the pilots are certified to be thoroughly fit by specially-trained medical officers. Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood : It is a positive scandal that this scientificdepartment of the Air Service has not got a scientific medical board perfectly free from the Royal Army Medical Corps. That corps has done yeoman serviceduring the war, but the most enthusiastic supporter of it would not presume that it has within its members anything approaching the great knowledge of specialistslike the Committee which was set up to advise the Board, and who unani- mously advised the creation of a separate Medical Air Service. The suggestion underlying everything said by the distinguished medicalgentleman who has just sat down is that at this moment we are sending these gallant boys—the great majority of them are mere boys—to fight Germans inthe air without them being properly examined by skilled medicalspecialists before they make their ascents. It is a cruel thing. I cannot but emphatically protest against the action taken by the Air Ministryin turning down this Medical Advisory Committee's Report and in refusing to disclose to the House—I myself have asked for it several times—the Reportitself, so that we might form some opinion as to whether it should be carried into effect, or whether we should be governed in this, the latest scientific develop-ment of warfare, by the Royal Army Medical Corps, which has not produced one single atom of evidence to justify its control of this in some respects our mostefficient service. I want to ask the hon. and gallant gentleman in charge of the Estimates if it is a fact that during the year 1917 we lost more flying menin schools of instruction than we did on all the fronts ? Of course, one does not ask for numbers, but I would like a specific answer on that point. There isnothing more cruel in this war than to have a man lost during his training. The Air Service is the only Service where the casualties in training are other thannegligible. I appeal to the Under-Secretary to give us some hope that in the immediate future the sad casualty list in the training schools will be diminished,and that the Air Ministry is not boggling over money or worrying about the rights of farmers or the positions of haystacks. I am glad to think that here in England we produce the finest engine of anyflying machine, in spite of what one may read, but we have not enough of them. It is a commentary on this and the two preceding Governments that in the fourthyear of the war we are actually short of machines, and that we have men trained to fly who have not got machines with which to fly. We have got a greatnumber of machines. We have got various kinds of engines. I would urge the Government to get this engine business on a proper basisas quickly as possible, so that the supply of engines will not only be large, but will be enormous. Colonel C. Lowther : In spite of the sanguine speech of the Under-Secretary,it is an open secret that the defences of London, notwithstanding improve- ments, are very inefficient and very inadequate. I am pleased that the system of reprisals has been accepted by the Govern-ment. For months, almost for years, I among other members advocated the system of reprisals, only to be put off with some evasive answer or to be told thatit was contrary to humanity, or that it was impracticable or something of that sort. I hope that now the system has really been adopted, there will be nocheap sentiment about whole-heartedly advocating reprisals and taking them up. May I make one suggestion to the Parliamentary Secretary ? It is that forevery attack made upon London, or upon any unfortified city, we should imme- diately make a counter-attack upon Frankfurt or Cologne or Dusseldorf, or some big German town worthy of making an attack upon, by which I mean a townof over 200,000 inhabitants. In addition to that, could we not notify to the inhabitants of that town, either by dropping leaflets or in some other manner,that the attack is made in answer to a specific attack upon London or some other unfortified town in England ? Sir J. Walton raised the question of the aerial gunnery station in Scotland,and asked on whose advice the scheme was abandoned and on what ground, and also if the Under-Secretary could state what further expenditure wouldyet have to be made to finally close this most important transaction ? Colonel Sir C. Seely supported Mr. Joynson-Hicks and Colonel Sir H. Green-wood as to the very great desirability of the Air Ministry taking note of the very serious number of accidents which occur during the course of training inEngland. He also asked what effect the institution of the Versailles Council wouldhave upon the Air Council, to what extent their executive powers will apply to his Board, and what authority, if any, it will have to make demands uponhim for personnel and for material irrespective of other demands for our own services ? He would be glad to know to what extent it will apply if it appliesto all. •ontinued : The hon. and gallant gentleman mentioned the fact that theaeroplane was the one thing of which the submarine was really frightened. I hope we may trust that in the provision of aeroplanes and in the division of theduties of aeroplanes he will not forget that fact and will not forget that really the most important thing at present is to deal with the submarine menace.Reference has been made to the question of raids and reprisals. I do not like the word "reprisals," and I do not like the principle of reprisals. I do notthink two wrongs make a right. If you really want to produce a moral efiecf upon the German, the real way to do it is by destroying submarines. If bymeans of a sufficient provision of aeroplanes you could ensure that any sub- marine within ten miles of these shores was discovered and sunk within a dayor two, you would produce a moral effect upon the Germans enormously greater and out of all proportion to what you would do by dropping any number ofbombs upon the civilian population anywhere in Germany. I feel that the demands of the Navy, whatever they are, for the purpose of protection againstsubmarines should have absolute preference over almost every other purpose in the provision of aeroplanes, and I trust we may feel confident that thatprinciple is well noticed and improved on by his Board. Mr. Lynch : There is one point on which I would beg to differ from my hon.and gallant friend, and that is where he rather limited the number of new elements which come into play. I refer, for instance, to sudden shock and suddensurprise, quite apart from the actual physical effects of the elements in which the pilot is flying. There, again, the French have endeavoured to ascertainbeforehand the aptitude of their pilots by an ingenious adaptation of means which were employed in quite another sphere of science, namely, experimentalpsychology. They have adapted or devised delicate instruments for testing the speed of reactions, and also -the nature of reactions to sudden shocks ! Iwould like to ask the representative of the Air Ministry if there is anything in this country corresponding to these laboratory tests which have been set upby the French, which, at first tentatively, and now with every increasing knowledge, they have developed so as to give increasingly valuable tests ? Ihope that the Air Council will resolve to give an entirely separate Medical Service for the Air Service. The hon. and gallant gentleman pointed out thedifficulties of obtaining the necessary medical men; he said that the Military Service and the Naval Service had already secured all the available medicalofficers. The significance of that is, and this was what I foresaw when the Bill was passing through Parliament, that the same principle operates not onlyin the Medical Service, but right throughout the entire functions of the Air Service; and it is precisely that which is limiting its usefulness so far that,instead of being a great striking force, which might have been decisive in its results, it has already of necessity been whittled down until now it is little morethan an adjunct of the Military and Naval Services. As a representative of Ireland, I will mention the neglect of the developmentof the Air Service in Ireland. This should not be a difficult problem at all. In Ireland you have all the facilities for producing a great aeroplane output.You have the land and you have the labour available, and it would be a benefit to Ireland and a great benefit to the whole country. That ground has beenalmost entirely neglected. I would like to have a clear and definite reply to the question why that is so. There is an idea of some want of good faith indealing with the Irish representatives, and I would like to see that notion dis- pelled, because it may be entirely unjustified. At any rate, I would like to seethis question definitely faced once and for all. Why do you neglect that promising ground, which, if properly cultivated, would so enormously increaseyour aeroplane output ? Our one great avenue to victory is by the air. It is possible to obtain thatvictory by the air. Whatever difficulties may be interposed those difficulties are capable of solution. Therefore, the Government must even now, at thislate hour, rise out of those traditional grooves and regard this matter in its true light, plant that problem steadily before their eyes day by day, that whatwe want is not a mere adjunct to the Army and Navy, but a great, a colossal, and, I hope, a decisive new striking force on which we can all confidently buildour hopes of victory. Mr. Billing: First of all, I take exception to the fact that these Estimatesare introduced on a Token Vote. What is the use of coming down to the House of Commons with a Token Vote of £1,000 ? What does that convey to us ? Isuggest the Estimates would have been better introduced had we had the amount which it was proposed to expend on the Air Service announced to ushere to-day. Is it £1,000,000, or is it £10,000,000 ? I do not think any hon. member, if he gives this matter thought, would suggest that by coming to thisHouse and stating that it is proposed to spend 10, 2o, or 50 or a 100 millions —and I hold, and I am glad to say that gradually other members of this Houseare beginning to hold, the opinion that if £100,000,000 were spent on the Air Service it would be well spent—on the Air Service, that £50,000,000 was to bespent in training great raiding squadrons to carry our war into Germany, that would not have been a more satisfactory statement than coming here with apaltry Token Vote of £1,000 and wasting the time of the House with a disserta- tion on what airmen do ? I am quite sure the pilots to-day would far soonerhear what we were going to do for them than a long dissertation on what they are doing for us. When the Air Force Bill was before this House I opposed many of its pointsto the full extent of which I was capable, but I am glad to say that though they gave themselves in the Bill powers to commit administrative blunders theyhave decided not to commit them. They have decided that the Naval Air Service, that is, the part of our air fleet which is essential to the well-being ofthe Grand Fleet, should remain under the command of the Grand Fleet, and that the part which is essential to the well-being of the Army in the field shouldremain under the command of the Army in the field, and they wish to build up a separate Air Force for the purpose of striking behind the enemy's lines. Thatis well. I only hope that the other point which arose at that time will be settled in the same spirit. Yet, despite that, we find that a very considerable differenceof opinion seems to exist as to the value of a striking and air-raiding force into Germany. I am not going to enter into a dissertation on the regret experiencedin regard to past action. What was said then was only in the nature of a prophecy: to-day it is in the nature of an actual fact. I put it to the Government that the time has come when it is possible tostandardise three distinct types of machines which are necessary for our efficiency and for our success. The time has also come when it is possible to standardise 238
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