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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 1509.PDF
NOVEMBER 20, 1919 FR©MTi5£ FOUR \WM\S>& ^s^^^^®=^3®es^c^sg^z^aEg® GEN. SEELY'S resignation should do good by letting the light-in upon the anomalous position of the War Office and Air Ministry dual ministerial control. It is for Parliament to appreciate the vital necessities of the situation and to take a firm stand. Without delay Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, Chairman of the Parliamentary Air Committee, called the members together on Tuesday last, and it is to be hoped the open invitation to new members of Parliament and mem bers of the House of Lords who had not an opportunity of joining the Committee, was widely responded to, in view of the important further statement made at the meeting by Gen. Seely. WHATEVER the knowledge of the actual position may be with those who really know, the popular and erroneous view is that, in the words of so usually well-informed writer as Mr. Gerard Fiennes, the " R.A.F. is placed entirely under the War Office." It is true this may be the practical effect of the Winston Churchill duality, and for that very reason Gen. Seely has rightly seen the impossibility of per petuating so unsatisfactory a position. As a fair example of the very wide divergence of views held upon the maintenance of the R.A.F. as a separate entity, or its absorption by the War Office and Admiralty, a couple of communications to the Press upon the subject are well worth publicity, as showing the uninformed and narrow views on the one hand of the upholders of whiskered tradition, and the wider view under modern experience and enlighten ment of the defender of a separate and independent Service. Taking the first letter, which is signed as from an " Ex- Chaplain, R.A.F.," this reads as follows :— Gen. Seely's resignation of his post as Under-Secretary for Air raises two im portant questions :—First, is there the necessity for a separate Air Ministry ? Secondly, is there the ne cessity for a separate Air Force ? These two questions should not be confused. It may be necessary for the future development of avia tion that the Air Ministry should retain its independ ence. Upon that point I do not feel qualified to give an opinion. But the neces sity for the retention of the Royal Air Force on a basis of independence of War Office and Admiralty control seems to me to be very much open to ques tion. As a chaplain to the R.A.F. I have had con siderable opportunity of estimating the efficiency of its organisation and ad ministration. I have come to the following conclu sions :— (1) The discipline and ad ministration of Air Force stations, being in the hands of (in the majority of in stances) extremely youthful officers, who have risen to senior rank by skill and gallantry in the air during war service, could be much more efficientlv and econo mically carried out if such stations were under purely~mili- tary (as opposed to Air Force) control, and commanded by Regular military officers of senior rank. (2) Military and naval officers, who have transferred to the R.A.F., can never work in harmony, their traditions and methods of discipline being diametrically opposed to one another. The same applies to all ranks. (3) The training required for naval flying officers is entirely different from that required for military flying officers. A naval or military officer can be taught to fly in six months, whereas a pilot cannot be made an efficient naval or military officer in under six years. (4) The higher control of the R.A.F. administration could easily be carried out by the War Office with but a com paratively slight increase of personnel, thus releasing a large majority of the staff at present employed at the Air Ministry. Under the existing arrangement every administra tive branch is unnecessarily duplicated. I, therefore, am strongly of the opinion that the best interests of the nation would be served if the Royal Air Force should cease to be a separate organisation, and that the naval and military branches of the Flying Service should once more be placed under control respectively of the Admiralty and the War Office. So much for that side, about as weak a case as could well be put forward. A reply for the separate service con tention comes from " Ex-Flight Leader " who answers, seriatum, the " arguments " of the Ex-Chaplain. Ex-Flight Leader's points are :— (1) " Ex - Chaplain, R.A.F." Some R.A.F. Impressioi&s Squad.-Leader H. E. J. Hewitt, O.C. No: XI Training Squadron, which turned out many expert flyers during the War I5II complains that the disci pline and administration of the Force are largely in the hands of extremely youth ful officers, and urges that the higher commands should be given to Regular officers of senior rank. We have yet to learn that the discipline and adminis tration of the Air Services have been one whit worse than that of the Army. True, the individual flying officer is allowed to exert more initiative than his military brother. He is not so closely fettered by rusty chains of obsolete etiquette and hard -and -f a st rules. Nor is it to be desired. In the career he has adopted he is never called upon to meet a situation which is exactly paralleled by a preceding one ; and as a consequence has no need for manuals and regulations written in an age long since passed away. But he does require a leader; and in the very essence of things he prefers a comrade who has proved his worth in " actualities " to a relic of ancient days, dug up, may be, from a Reserve bat talion or ah A.M.L.O.'s office, or to an ex-Brigadier whose only excuse for ap pointment would be, " We must find him a job some where," and whose interest inaviation began and ceased the night that the Hun bombed his chateau in France.
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