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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 0248.PDF
AVIATION IN Aerial Navigation IN the-House of Commons on February n, notice was given by Maj.-Genl. Seely that a Government Bill embodying temporary' provisions for tin- regulation of aerial navigation would be introduced. Naval, Military and Air Forces THE SECRETARY »P STATE FOR WAR (Mr. Churchill) on February 12 : I beg to give notice that on an early day I shall ask leave to introduce a Bill dealing with the Naval, Military, and Air Force Services, and to make provision for the maintenance of such Forces of the Crown as may be required to meet the exigencies arising during the year after the termination of the present War, and in respect of the conditions of service of such forces, and other purposes in connection therewith. The Air Ministry and the War Office CAPT. WEDGWOOD BENN (in the debate on the Address in reply to the King's Speech on February 12) said : I rise to move, at the end, to add the words:— " But humbly regrets that no assurance is given that the merging of the Air Ministry and the War Office under one head is but a temporary measure of convenience, inasmuch as to disintegrate the Air Service or subordinate it to the other fighting services is detrimental to the Empire's aerial develop ment." This is an Amendment intended to protest the necessity for the unity and independence of the R.A.F. The Amendment, you may say, was not put down on the initiative of the members who are supporting it, but was rather provoked by the action of the Government ; because, despite the fact that this House has passed the Air Ministry Act setting up a Secretary of State for the Air who is to be co-equal with the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty, in the construction of the Government the two offices—the War Office and Air Ministry—have been combined under one head, and in the judgment of those who are supporting this Amendment, which is put down in the names of members all of whom have been actively engaged during the War in the R.A.F., the union of the two offices under one head threatens the unity and independence of the R.A.F. It is too late in the day for it to be necessary for me to explain the necessity for an Air Ministry independent of the other Services. That has been decided by this House, and it is based upon the unity which exists among all t j iAir Services in material and on land and water and in the unity of training, because, except in the finaf stages, there is no difference in the training of a pilot whether he is to fly a seaplane, an observation machine, or a scout. In our judgment unless the Air Force is independent it cannot remain united. We consider that on the independence of the Air Force depends entirely the basis on which alone its unity can be preserved. The Minister for War, who is also the Minister for the Air, will be faced with problems like this. About this time of the year Estimates are being prepared. We know what happens. The Departments ask for much more money than the Cabinet is willing to grant, and there is a general series of interviews and representations, and each Department has to cut the coat according to the cloth. We will suppose that a certain amount of money has been set aside, for defence purposes, and that the question is whether that money is to be spent, say, on cavalry or on aeroplanes. Which side will he take if such a question comes before him ? I believe that a year ago there was a dispute between the two Ministries on the question of the medical service. Anybody who has been in the Air Service knows perfectly well that there is a large field for air medical service, and that the problems of a medical service for the air are really quite different and quite specialised, and are not the same as problems of the War Office. The right hon. gentleman probably agrees with me that there is a case for a separate air medical service. In anv case a pledge was given on the subject, and why was it not done during the War ? It was not done because the War Office would not agree. If that problem arises again, which side is the right hon. gentleman the Secretary of State for War and Air going to take ? But I do not base the case against War Office control of the air even on matters like that, which could be elaborated indefinitely. I say that the whole Army point of view on air subjects is unsound. It is not the air point of view. There is such a thing as an air sense, and persons regard the air in the same way as the sailors regard the sea. That air sense you will never get in people trained only on the land. I have observed matters in the Army and the Navy. I know the sort of thing the Army people want. They want spectacular points, such as " How many Huns have been destroyed to-day ? " That is really not the funda mental fact in air warfare, and is really ancillary to the real service that the Air Force renders in observation and defence. There 15 also their attitude towards the technical side. The progress of the air, I make so bold to say, depends entirely on mechanics. The Army point of view never gives proper weight to the mechanical side, and to con stant improvement in mechanism, by which alone progress can be made. What about the naval side ? It was only with the very greatest difficulty that the Air Ministry was formed to include the machines which were under the orders of the Navy. Now there is a very great suspicion in naval circles of the union even to-day. Many of the men on the naval side of the Royal Air Force have been in the Navy. Does not the right hon. gentleman think that they would be a little suspicious when they found that their promotions or rewards had to be decided by the Secretary of State for War ? It may be said that these matters of promotions and ribbons are small matters, but soldiers and sailors do not work for money. They work for honour, and they think a great deal of those things. I think the man in the Navy who renders service in the air would be rightly suspicious if he found that such matters have got to be decided by the War Office. In my judgment, when the union took place some mistakes were made. The naval flyers were put into the united Air Force, and the titles selected for them were military. 1 do not think that was necessary, and I think it was a mistake, because I do not think the military titles, such as colonel, captain, and brigadier, are in the least applicable to the Flying Force. I think it would have been better to select naval titles if the question was one between the Army and Navy, but l_do not see why you should not have special terms for the Air Service Then there is the question of discipline. Discipline in the Air Force was based upon discipline in the Army, and in my judgment that was a mistake also. Of course, during the War Acts had to be adopted bolus-bolus, because there was no time to go into details, but I do not think that the discipline which is suitable for the Army is necessarily the type of discipline suitable for the Air Service. Personally, I think the Army discipline and the whole penal code in the. Army wants revision, and I think its punishments and its ideas are mediaeval, archaic, and ineffective, and they are certainly not suited to the peculiar psychology of the airmen. What happens ? A number of flying men are in a ship. Even when they were Royal Naval Air Service men there was never that knitting together between them and the ship's company as there was between the whole company itself, and when they became Royal Air Force men the feeling of division became more acute still. The captain of the ship, who exercised a very complete and rather paternal control oyer the whole ship's company, resented having on board a number of people in a unitorm that he did not recognise and subject to a discipline that he did not understand and strongly suspected. That caused a desire PARLIAMENT. for separation, and that desire, I think would be very greatly increasid by the knowledge that those men were under the control ol a Minister whose first charge he would suppose must necessarily be the War Office, and not the Air Ministry. Demobilization is now taking place. The Air officers consist of people, some ol whom were soldiers and other--sailors before joining the Air Force, while others still entered directly. It is among these that you have the best chance of fostering the real esprit it corps of the Air Force, but these are the very people who are beingdemobilised first, and you have as a result a tendency already set up to leave in the higher positions of the Service the very men whose desire to get away lrom one another and to get back again to their first love, either the Army or the Navy. You get the sort of thing which, in my opinion, is the worst possible thing for the Air Force, and that is men who do not know whether they an going to succeed in the air or whether they will not go back to the Artillery, or to their old ship ; and if you have men whose interest is divided you never can get that wholehearted support and enthusiasm and real esprit tU corps which must be the basis of success in aviation in the future. I dare say the right hon. gentleman will explain either that this is a purely temporary arrangement—if it is we must accept it as such, but we should like to know how long it will last—or he may say that it is a step in the direction of the co-ordination of the three Services and ol the creation of a Ministry of Defence. Thirty years ago Lord Randolph Churchill presented a memorandum suggest ing a Minister of Deience, who should combine both the Navy and the Army under his control. But I would remind the right hon. gentleman that one of the reasons why that very scheme was turned down by one ol the strongest Committees that ever sat on Defence.'ot which Lord Sydenham was secretary, was because the Navy could not be convinced that under such a scheme it was not going to get the worst of it. It that was well founded then, bow much more true would it be for the Air Force to be suspicious, being the youngest of all, that she was not going to get an equal pesitien with the older Services under such a scheme I suppose that what will really happen will be, not that there will be one Minister in charge of the three Services, but that our defences will be governed by some Committee partaking of the character of the Imperial Deience Committee or the War Cabinet. We are, therelore, entitled to ask what will be-the exact functions ol the Air Ministry under such a Committee, and whether this present plan of uniting the two under the control of one right hon. gentleman is going to assist a successful arrangement of that kind? During the War the smallest part of the work of the Air Force has been done by the Independent Air Force, which is the part which operates not under the orders of either the Army or the Navy. That Force will have the greatest part of the work to do in the luture. There will be a punitive expedition, perhaps, or there may be police work to be done in the wav of a force to be put at the disposal of a League of Nations in order to enforce its decisions. This will be partaking of the character ol the work of the I.A.F. In the particular part of the theatre of war in which 1 was employed some years ago a great deal could have been done if there bad been an effective LA.F. The whole of the Turkish coast line was exposed, but there was absolutely no organisation of the Air Force to enable us to attack it. The Bagdad Railway passes the Gulf of Alexandretta at a point only 15 miles rom the coast, perfectly flat land over which it is quite easy to fly, as we did repeatedly, but we had no organisation of machines to enable us to blow up the railway, which crosses two rivers by bridges 130 metre* wide, I think, if I remember rightly—a single line. That railway could undoubtedly have been destroyed il we had had the material to do it, and that would have meant isolating the forces of the Turks in the East lrom theii headquarter* in Asia Minor. Then there is the case ol the Hedjas. The Turks for a long time kept a garrison at Medina, from which a single line of railway runs through the desert to the north. If we had had a sufficient and properly organised I.A.F. there is not the least doubt that that line could have been cut repeatedly, the garrison of Medina forced to surrender. and the King of the Hedjas would have had his victory months, and perhaps a year, sooner than he had. As it was, the capture ol Jeddab was a decisive military action by air. The place was bombed and the Turks surrendered without any land force being required at all, which is an instance ol a decisive action by air. At Aden there was a man with a force some 25 miles inland and no one would attack him because it was too hot. if we bad had an effective I.A.F. he would have been wiped out. That is the sort ol thing which will happen in fntnre. It is one of the things that the Air Force will have to undertake on the military side. Then there is the civilian side, which is far more important. These are some of the commonplaces of their work—licensing aircralt, certifying pilots, regulating patrols, laying down international law, and so on, as well as a great deal of pioneer work. The aircraft industry is, ol course, at a very critical point. It has lost, or is losing, its best customer. The War having ceased, the best customer is cutting down its orders, and it is not a time when the industry can afford to do the necessary pioneer work. The air must be policed. You must prevent smuggling—a big job. You may both find and signal distressed vessels. A great deal of the work done by coastguards could certainly be done by ahxratt. The air patrols would see a vessel in distress and might bring it succour, and certainly bring back news so that assistance could be rendered. Then there are expeditions. An expedition already is fitting out in America and taking aircraft to explore the Northern regions. Undoubtedly there is the use of aircralt lor the production of ram by a discharge oi electric currents between aircralt in the clouds. There is the whole arrangement of codes and signals in the air. You most have charts showing the speed of winds at different heights. There is also the ques tion of telling aircraft which are lost their position by means of wirelesf telegraphy. Then thereis the provision of lighthouses, and all sorts oi signal in fog. All this sort of work has got to be done by the Air Ministry, and the ques tion we have to ask is : Is a proper foundation tor this sort of work being prepared by the association of the Air Ministry with the War Office ? The R.A.F. can look back without shame on the records of the last lour years. It can look forward to an unparalleled opportunity of service in the can" of humanity. That, in my judgment, depends entirely on the preservation of its unity and its independence. Col. Moore-Brabazon : The Government have introduced a measure ior an arrangement ot offices which is so much against what we understood in tin past that I have, much against my will, to raise my voice in protest. In the very early days of aviation, in 10,11, certain members of the Aero Club were so impressed with the possibilities ol aircraft Irom a purely military point of view that they arranged a deputation to the War Office, and marie an offer to the War Office to provide two aeroplanes, with the pilots ant) all the necessary paraphernalia, so that the aeroplanes might be tried during the Army manoeuvres of that year. I formed one of that deputation 1 approached, I must say, the building with some confidence. After beiii£ kept waiting three-quarters ol an hour we were told that the aeroplanes wen not wanted for war purposes, that no one could see any use tor them. That was the sort of encouragement one got in those days. Lest, however, th< Admiralty should think that they are less blameworthy, let me tell tin House that the Aero Club again had to teach the first four naval pilot1 These were taught by private members of the club because no action would be taken by the Navy in the matter.
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