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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0118.PDF
these pestiferous interferences with the established routine of our lives. Let " summer time " die with all the rest of the precious restrictions and limitations of the ineffable D.O.R.A. • • • '*/-. It is abundantly clear that there is a The very strong current of naval and military • : F^tJiTe opinion—to apply the mildest possible Air Force term—in favour of abolishing the Royal Air Force as a separate Service and making it again a simple auxiliary of the older Services. Col. Repington, in the Morning Post, is the latest exponent of this school of thought and devotes, in arecentissueof that journal, a column and a half to a review of the Trenchard memorandum, and, incidentally, to proving that the Air Force can never, within the limits of present vision, aspire to be any- thing more than auxiliaries of the Navy and Army. He makes the point that, from a Service point of view, it is necessary that the Air Force should be prepared to operate in the closest co-operation with the other Services, and should not arrogate to itself an independent strategic rOle, though it may occa- sionally be allotted such a role for some special politico-military end. If the Air Force succeeds in its mission and performs the duties laid upon it by the chiefs of the Navy and Army, then it will take its legitimate share in defence, and the Services can be well content for it to remain under a separate Ministry for preliminary training and research. But if the fact of separation causes it to aspire to independence of strategic control, then it is probable that the Navy and the Army will unite in opposition to it, and will be compelled to demand that the Air Service for Navy and Army shall be replaced under the Admiralty and the War Office. Now, all this is simply assertion, unbacked by sound argument, and so far as we have gone there is only one statement with which we are disposed to agree, and that is that the opinions expressed represent " the Service point of view "—as evolved in the smoking room of "The Rag." What real argument is there against the aspiration of the Air Service to assume strategic control of war in its own element ? We do not say, at the. moment, that the Air Service actively contemplates anything of the sort, but it may quite conceivably have to do so at some future time and, again, we ask : Why not ? If we go back through history we find the very same situation arising in the relations between the land and sea forces of the Crown. It was not until Elizabethan times that the seamen exercised the right of " arro- gating to themselves an independent strategic rvle." Until then the seaman was merely a navigator, whose duty it was to obey the orders of the soldier and place his ship where the latter wanted it, so that he could do his fighting in conditions approximating as nearly as possible to those of war on land. It was the army which exercised all the strategic, and even the tactical, control of war at sea, and if we were possessed of the contemporary records showing the heated discussions which undoubtedly took place when the seamen awoke to the realisation that the sea affair was one for them, and that war on land and war at sea were a totally different business, we should find the soldiers advancing the same arguments as those which are being used now in the matter of the Air Service, and its relations with the others. If we except the remote period before the Christian era and deal only with the wars commencing with the JANUARY 29, 1920 Conquest, we shall appreciate that no sea battles were actually decisive of a war, by themselves, until we come to the affair of the Spanish Armada. Sea power was, until then, always a mere auxiliary of land power, and such sea battles as were fought were fought to clear the communications in order to land armies in the enemy's country. It is true that sea power is exercised partly to that end now, as we know from the lessons of the recent war, in which our Navy kept the seas for the safe passage of our own and our Allied troops. But that is not its only rUe. There is a separate and distinct strategic bearing in maritime war which may be totally unrelated to war on land, and it is important to note that this does not seem to have been adequately realised until, at the earliest, the reign of Henry VIII, when the Navy Office and Trinity House were established. Indeed, we should prefer to put it that it was in the time of Elizabeth that the real enlightenment began. It is intensely interesting to see how history is in process of repeating itself. Ten years ago the meaning of air power was not realised, except as a purely abstract proposition. Six years age the dawning of that, realisation was at hand, but the Air Service was the humblest of handmaidens to the older Services.' Under the influence of war the Service grew, and as it grew, those who had fostered it began, as did the seamen of the 16th century, to see that there lay in the 1 future a role for the new Service far beyond and of infinitely more importance than the auxiliary services hitherto given by the new arm. They saw that, as it is possible for either a Navy or an Army to make decisive war without calling upon the other for aid, so might— so undoubtedly will—air power be called in to decide wars without the interference of either. No doubt that is heresy to the seniors of the older Serves, but it is just as certain that when the seamen were urging their right to make war in their own way without the interference of the soldiers there was much wagging of grey beards in the taverns of the time, and many strange oaths were sworn because of the presumption of these ignorant mariners. But the ignorant mariners were right, and they had their way—and the course of the history of war has justified them. To our way of thinking, the analogy is well-nigh perfect and, until sound argument replaces mere assertion of opinion, we shall continue to believe that air power is as important to our existence as either sea or land power. And by air power we do not mean mere strength in auxiliaries to the older Services, but' a self-contained and strong Air Force, separate entirely, except with the reservations we have admitted on many previous occasions, from the administration: and control of either the Admiralty or the War . Office. . . -Speaking at a luncheon of the Associa- Sr tion of British Chambers of Commerce Trade recently, Mr. Holt Thomas again took the opportunity of pointing out how the apathy of the Government towards civil aviation is destroying our lead in the air. As he pointed out, it is not charity that is wanted, but merely vision and commonsense. Referring to the London-Paris mail service as a case in point, he said that if a load of 400 lbs. per day of first-class ; mail matter were guaranteed, they would be glad to carry it at 4s. per lb., and the cost would be just over id. per letter. If the load were 800 lbs., the cost would be about \d. per letter. With a guaranteed 118
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