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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0243.PDF
FEBRUARY 23, 1918. the three types of pilots. There are three distinct jobs for pilots. The firstjob, which calls for the least skill, is night bombing. The man has simply to be able to box a compass and read his instrument, and it is the simplest thingto teach him to fly as a night-flying bomber. Out of every 100 men you get you would probably find at least 60 of them capable of learning to fly night-bombing machines. Then there is the question of the day-bombing machines. One of these machines requires a man of greater skill and of a totally differenttype of courage. The night flyer deals with an unknown danger, the day- bomber deals with a known danger, an apparent danger, and this is where ourMedical Service can help us so much. In the case of the night-flying bomber who deals with an unknown danger, his nerves might possibly be affected if hewere called upon to face a known danger. We have the fact that we have three types of pilots, and we come to the otherinteresting fact that there, are but four types of machines which it is necessary to standardise. -Captain Sheehan : I want to draw attention to the question of national aero-plane work in Ireland. I think that in regard to the Air Services and industries of Ireland, practically from the start of this war, Ireland has not been treatedfairly or equitably. Several millions have been added to the taxation of Ireland, and what has been given back to that country in the way of war employment isonly a drop in the ocean as compared with the taxation which has been put upon us. That is not quite fair, and those of us who gave our services in thewar, and who induced our countrymen to assist in it, have a right to demand that fairer treatment should be given to the country which we represent. I would ask the new Air Ministry to use its influence to see that Ireland isnot entirely neglected in the matter of its activities. There is no doubt that you get many of your most gallant officers from amongst my own fellow country-men. I have a very personal interest in the matter, because one of my own sons is serving in the Air Force at the present time. Having given our services, theleast that we have a right to demand is that we shall have some consideration in the matter of aircraft manufacture. Mr. T. Davies and Major D. Davies both urged that full attention should begiven by the Air Council to the medical question. Major Baird : May I thank hon. members for the reception they have givento the first Vote for the Air Ministry ? There have been in the main three points raised in the Debate. Let me take, first, those raised by Mr. Joynson-Hicks. He complained that the transition stage was rather prolonged. He had hoped to see the Air Force established before now. I can assure him thatthere has been no undue delay. Let him realise that we have to deal with two Services, serving under two different discipline codes, with great traditions,different ranks, different rates of pay and engaged in daily, hourly, nightly service against the enemy, and it is impossible to merge those two forces with-out an immense amount of the most careful work, so as to ensure that, what- ever else may occur, when the fusion takes place, there shall be no confusionand no dislocation on the front. If my hon. friend will bear that point in mind he will not think the time has been excessive. Then, in making this fusion, hehas, first, to settle all kinds of disciplinary and financial matters with the legal authorities and the Treasury. We have then to lay down the new system,and in a perfectly clear, straightforward manner, to see to it that a pamphlet containing the regulations for working the new force will be in the hands ofthe officers concerned a reasonable time before the force comes into existence. We have now got a proof of the pamphlet, which will be distributed at a veryearly date throughout the whole world where officers and men of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service are now stationed, so that whenthe change takes place they will be aware of the position. The Act contains a Clause which gives an officer or man the option of reverting to his old Serviceduring a period of three months, starting from the time when he receives notice that he has been transferred to the Air Service. No harm has really been done.I described how we are taking over, gradually, different branches of the Air Service. We have already taken over works, buildings, and land, the postingof individuals, and a few other points which are all coming over gradually, and it is only by a process of gradual change that it is possible to carry out thetransfer without confusion or dislocation. There is, of course, the other point of housing. We cannot exchange the men who are necessary for running thejoint Air Force until we have more room. All these are details of a more or less domestic character, but they are of vital importance in dealing with the efficiencyof this new Service. A point of greater importance, perhaps, which formed the subject of the mostinteresting speech, which we were all delighted to listen to from my hon. friend (Sir W. Cheyne), is the question of the medical services. The hon. and gallantgentleman (Major Davies) made a more or less determined onslaught on what he called the Air Board. I think he means the Air Council. The Air Board isdead, and the Air Council has taken its place. I hope hon. members will not confuse the two things. In supporting the arrangement which has been cometo with regard to the Medical Service I am in the extraordinary good company of Sir W. Cheyne. In regard to medical matters I would plump for my hon.friend (Sir Watson Cheyne) every time, and he and I agree absolutely. We are both agreed. He presided over a most distinguished Committee which pre-sented a Report to the Air Board. The Air Board accepted this Report, and it formed the policy of the Air Board with regard to the Medical Service underthe new organisation. That was the Air Board's contribution to the discussion between the Army Council, the Admiralty, and the Air Board before the forma-tion of the Air Force. The Air Board were only one of the three parties to the discussion, but the other parties to the discussion having possession, which isnine-tenths of the law, were in a considerably stronger position than we were, and it proved impossible to persuade the other parties to the discussion to acceptthe proposals of this Committee. We came to an agreement whereby it becomes a point of honour for the Navy,the Army, and the Air Council to see that this new Air Medical Service is efficient. The main point is that you should have a body of medical men specially trainedto deal with that particular medical aspect of cases which only occurs in people who live in the higher atmospheres and who live the life of airmen. I hopethat hon. members will, at any rate, be as generous in this respect as they have been in other matters connected with the Air Service, and that they will givethis new scheme a fair trial and give it a fair chance of showing whether it succeeds. It is only for the duration of the war. After the war it must beobvious that a separate Medical Service for the Air Service is bound to come. To insist on our starting a separate Medical Service now would only mean thatthere would be no Medical Service at all, while the fight is in progress, and thousands of lives might be lost which might have been saved by the adoptionof a system which, at any rate, is a great improvement on anything which has been done before. It must be remembered that we do obtain control by theA-r Council over the Medical Service under the new system. At the request of the Director-General of Military Aeronautics, militarymedical authorities have been working on special lines in regard to the Royal Flying Corps. The officers are now examined by a special medical board beforethey are sent for training in France. Another staff is engaged in the medical examination of officers suffering from disabilities caused by flying. A specialtype of hospital has been set apart for the treatment of members of the Flying Force, both military and naval, and in addition a Royal Flying Corps hospital,which is maintained entirely by private subscription, provides accommodation for 70 serious cases and more than a hundred convalescent cases. This has been atwork for more than two years, and we owe a deep debt of gratitude to those who have organised it. Meanwhile every effort is being made to give specialtraining (or medical men so as to qualify them to discharge the peculiar func- tions wkicfe are necessary. We are incurring considerable displeasure on the part of those responsiblefor collecting air pilots because of the rigorous nature of the examination which is insisted upon. It cuts both ways. The young men complain that they haveto come all the way from Edinburgh or Dublin to be examined here in London by a special board. But that is justified solely on the ground that it is impos-sible at the present time to establish boards of specially qualified men at different centres, and it has been thought it would be far better, under the circumstances,to have the examination in London rather than to incur the risk of accepting men not quite up to the proper standard. Now I come to the question of LochDoune. ^ I may explain what happened from the point of view of the old Air Board.In 1916 the French had a school of gunnery which enaDled them to give a particular kind of instruction in gunnery and which led to an immense increasein the efficiency of their Air Service. That school was visited by representatives of the Royal Flying Corps, and in order to reproduce the same course of instruc-tion as was given by the French it was thought desirable that we should obtain if possible a similar area of ground with a large expanse of water here. Thewhole country was searched for a suitable site. Many places were examined. Their advantages and disadvantages were balanced, and the conclusion wasreached that Loch Doune offered the best prospect of success for such an institu- tion. The technical experts of the War Office had doubts as to the feasibilityof making the school, but the Flying Service held that Loch Doune was the best place provided that the difficulties were not insuperable, and nobody, Ithink, will deny that, if we were to have some place where the same course of training could be given to our airmen as the French were giving, Loch Douneappeared to be very suitable for the purpose. Works were commenced, but they proved to be far more difficult and far more costly than was originally anti-cipated. Up to this point I had no responsibility, but here my responsibility does come in, and if hon. members are looking for a scapegoat they can startwith me, because I am prepared to accept responsibility for abandoning Loch Doune, and I will tell the hon. members why that course was adopted. Whenthe Air Council took over the buildings and undertakings of the Royal Flying Corps and the Naval Air Service we wanted to know what it was we were takingover. We found that amongst other things Loch Doune was included, and an officer of the Air Council went down to look at it. On his report we came to theconclusion that, from the point of view of the works which had to be carried out, there was no hope of completing those works during a reasonable periodof time. Further than that, it was costing a much larger sum of money than was contemplated when the undertaking was set on foot, and we said—and I amprepared to stand by it—" We will apply to this public business the principles which we apply to our own private businesses, and we will cut theloss." Nobody will deny that the place could be made into an aerodrome, but itwould take too long and cost too much to justify that being done now. That is the whole story. Will hon. members please believe that there is not any bodyof men on earth more anxious to reduce casualties to the lowest possible limit than those responsible for the Air Services ? It is not easy to say to whatcasualties are really to be ascribed. A very large proportion of casualties, no doubt, are due to errors of judgment, but if in time of war you try to establishdifferent categories of casualties—fatal accidents, I mean—and to say that if there had been more medical examinations there would have been fewer casual-ties, or that if there had been different machines there would have been fewer casualties, is, I think, not to do anything in which there is any advantage. Itis not an unnatural thing for hon. members to do, I agree, because there is nothing, obviously, that appeals more to the feelings of everybody than thenotion that these boys, showing all the spirit that we expect a boy to show, rushed into these Air Services, and then for some reason of which they havebeen quite unaware—nerves, or something or other—they have suddenly found something fail, and they are killed Somebody said something about the casual-ties at home being larger than the casualties at the front, but I have taken the trouble to ascertain, and I can say that is absolutely without foundation. Thereis nothing approaching that. There are very good reasons for not giving the facts about casualties. Every year the standard of flying required in orderto obtain the wings—that is, to graduate in both Services.—increases by leaps and bounds. A man who took his wings last year would not necessarily comeanywhere near them in the standard of this year. The standard increases all the time, and the speed of machines also increases. Yet, in spite of that, and inspite of the immense increase in the number of men under 21, the percentage of casualties is not increasing. It is, I believe, falling. There is nothing thatis watched more carefully, so far as anything can be watched, with all the care one would like in a Service growing as rapidly as ths Air Service is, than thisquestion of training. Every step that can be taken is taken for the purpose of reducing the risks in what must always be a dangerous and difficult art—namely, the mastery of the air—is taken whenever it seems possible. Sir C. Seely: I asked as to the powers, if any, that the Versailles Councilhave over the Air Council ? Major Baird : Those powers are not defined yet. We have our representativeat Versailles, but the exact power as between the two has not yet been defined. Undoubtedly, it will be in a short time. Sir C. Seely : W ill the House be informed what they are before they are agreedto? Major Baird : I cannot guarantee that.Mr. King : I beg to move to leave out from the word " That " to the end of the Question, in order to insert instead thereof the words " air attacks against theenemy should be carried out with military objectives and in such a manner as to avoid, as far as possible, injury to non-combatants, women and children."The terms of this amendment indicate, I think, what is already the policy of the Government, of our armies, and of our Air Force. When we undertakemilitary operations by air against the enemy we have in view, I believe—and we have only in view—the military objects that we can attain. That, I under-stand, has been the point of view which has been repeatedly stated by the Leader of the House, and I find that point of view very well stated in the words usedonly last night by the Under-Secretary of State for War when, speaking of the work undertaken by our men on the Western Front, he said that we have, inaddition to numerous raids on important points behind the German front, and constant attacks by low-flying machines on the enemy's troops and transports,undertaken a series of extremely successful long distance raids in Germany. Railway centres, factories, and other military objectives have been attackedwith success, sometimes by daylight. I am glad that he gives there no colour to the cry which has been ignorantly and, I think, unwisely and even ignoblyraised in certain quarters that, because the enemy, in attacking us with aircraft, have killed women and children, we should set out with the first object of attack-ing and killing women and children. I am glad that not only in the statement of the hon. member yesterday, but in the communique issued now two or threetimes a week by the Commander-in-Chief in France, we have constant accounts of military attacks made by our aircraft, apparently, very successful in theirresults, but never undertaken primarily against non-combatants-—women and children. I am not always here to support or indicate adherence to Government policy,but, believing that on this occasion I can do so, it gives me all the greater pleasure. I understand that this is the policy of the Government, and I want it madequite clear in connection with our Air Force, because I think that it is of value and important to us as a nation to be able now, and still more at the end of thewar, to say, that, though we were under grave and serious provocation, though we saw constant attacks upon our capital, which is mainly a peaceable city with-out great military character or importance, though we saw our women and 239
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