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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0236.PDF
FEBRUARY 26, 1920 THE FUTURE OF THE R.A.F. IN his speech on the Army Estimates in the House of Commons, on February 23, Mr. Churchill said :— " We must not expect too much in a hurry, and we must pursue an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary course. We must develop our processes for the next few years ; I mean the demand for what is called a mechanical Army. Lord Fisher would like us (and many writers in the newspapers follow in this order of ideas and along this trend of thought) to confine ourselves at the present time to an aerial armada and a submarine fleet. Lord Fisher appears to believe that we could now make arrangements to hold our Empire on this basis. I do not believe we could do it now. Any way, how much would it cost ? " The case of the Army and the Air Force is not quite so clear as the case of the Navy. The evolution must be more rapid because the plant involved is far less expensive, but although I cannot accept the view of those who say or write ' halve your Army and quadruple your Air Force,' it is an interesting hypothesis. I cannot quite accept that at the present time. I favour the steady increase of the Air Force at the expense of the Army and the Navy, and I believe fiat will be the tendency increasingly year by year, but I am sure that any such increase should only take place in proportion as the Air Force is actually able to discharge blocks of day-to-day duties which are in fact discharged by the Army and the Navy now, and in proportion that it is able to give us the assurance that in an emergency it will afford the same solid, if somewhat prosaic, foundation for our safety. I am anxious to give the Air Force an opportunity of substituting air power for military power wherever sub- stantial economy can be shown, and provided the work can really be done. " We have had an example of the possibilities of the Air Force recently in the Somaliland campaign, which, for a cost of about £30,000, achieved much more than we were able to do in one expedition before the War for an expenditure of over £2,500,000, and that would be £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 of the present currency. That campaign was particularly interesting, because it was the first time the Air Force was in command, and where the ships and the military or ground forces and the sea forces co-operated under the general direc- tion of the aerial command. I propose to apply that prin- ciple to another field. I have directed the Chief of the Air Staff to submit an alternative scheme for the control of Mesopotamia, the Air Force being the principal force or agency of control, while the military and naval forces on the ground and river would be an ancillary power. Up to the present the 'General Staff have not been able to offer any solution of the problem of Mesopotamia, except by the employment of a military garrison, the cost of which will crush the country. I propose to invite, as it were, competitive tenders from the Air Staff. It may be that, by changing fundamentally the point of view and by applying an entirely new line of thought, a great saving in annual expenditure may be effected, and should a practical scheme, involving a real reduction, be framed on high professional authority, and should it receive the approval of the Cabinet, the Air Force's Estimates will be increased by the amount necessary to provide for the security of Mesopotamia, and the War Office Estimates will be decreased by what I hope will be a much larger sum. " It will also follow that the Command-in-Chief in Meso- potamia would be vested in an officer of the Air Force, just as in other parts of the Empire, for tactical purposes of the Empire, the air forces are placed under the command of the local military Commanders-in-Chief, so that if the Air Force becomes responsible in this theatre, the naval forces on the river and the military forces on the ground would be under the command of the Air Commander-in-Chief. Whether this development is possible or not must depend upon the result of the staff studies which are proceeding both in the War Office and the Air Ministry, and on the amount of econo- mies resulting from the change, and the degree of reliance •which can be placed upon aerial methods of control. I do not prejudge the issue, but I am sure the Committee will see that the Air Force is being given every possible chance of expansion and developing, provided they can show any specific case like this, that they really can do the work that has hitherto been done by the other branches of the Services, and can do it with a substantial saving in cost." Maj.-Gen. Seely, in the course of the debate, said : " On the subject of the division between aerial and military power, to which the right hon. gentleman devoted v portion of his remarks, I think the discrepancy is deplorable. I will take the case of Mesopotamia. He tells us he hopes to put it up'to auction, competitive tender ; but why did he not do it before ? Enough was known about it to have enabled him to make a very great and real reduction in the garrison in Mesopotamia this year. But the air has many enemies, and I have been at some pains to find out what is happening in Mesopotamia, and shall be glad to give the result of my enquiries to the right hon. gentleman. A great many of the older school of soldiers do not believe in the air, and now they give it a grudging belief, and will not allow it to perform its functions in the proper way. They say, ' Of course, we must have some aircraft, but they can only be ancillary—they are only the eyes of the army—and a few machines flying over the enemy to complete the rout will be of use.' But they will not let air power be used as air power should be used. If you have a completely separate air power, and enable them to work under the political heads, you will ?ave yourselves certainly millions of money, and I am quite sure you will save thousands of lives. The power given to the political chiefs to go to any threatened point and there to warn the tribes of the impending disaster to them if they are not complying with our wishes is a power which will really stop any number of these small wars. It has stopped a good many already, but it has not stopped them all. There was a punitive expedition to Mesopotamia the other day, and it took it 15 days to get to a place where aeroplanes can get in three hours; but the aeroplanes could not prevent the necessity for it, as they ultimately did after the expedition had gone, because they were under the control of the military authorities and not of the political chiefs. We have had an instance of it, as the right hon. gentleman says, in Somaliland. We were told that for £30,000,1 think the right hon. geDtleman said, we did more than we had done with £2,500,000 before. Yes but what were the casualties in each case ? The Com- mittee will remember that in the operations against the so- called Mad Mullah we suffered thousands of casualties. In a tiny little operation, in the middle of the War, one British officer was killed and five were wounded m attacking one little outpost, and in the main operations we had thousands of casualties. The right hon. gentleman himself tells us that the operations on this occasion had more far-reaching results than any previous one. What were the casualties ? Amongst the European officers and men engaged the casualties were nil, and, so far as information has been received from the Colonial Office, the total casualties of all the operations in- volved in the destruction of the power of the Mullah was one native African soldier died of wounds and one slightly wounded. That is what happens when you let air power have its way. But the right hon. gentleman knows very well that it was not very easy to let air power have its way, even in the case of Somaliland. All through this business, as I see it, the right hon. gentleman has been gradually driven over to the re- actionary side. He has been angry with those who have pressed him to adopt new methods unduly, and he has been ultimately driven to the reactionary side, and we see the results in these Estimates. My right hon. friend has fallen into this error, if error it is, because he has not been able to give enough time to the two things he tries to control. I do not wish to dwell at further length upon this, except to say that I am quite sure he cannot preside over two councils any more than a steam engine can pull two trains on different lines. I am quite sure it is no use trying to be a sort of political Capablanca, who can play a number of games at once and win or draw them all. The right hon. gentleman has lost one game already, and it is my conviction that, unless he sticks to one job, which I hope will be the Army, very soon he will lose them all." Lympne as Aerial Dover IT is understood that Lympne aerodrome has passed into the control of.Mr. D. A. Davis, D.F.C., late R.A.F., as •a civilian Customs' aerodrome. Hitherto Lympne has been under the Air Force personnel. Mr. Davis now controls civilian traffic as Civilian Traffic Officer under the Controller- General of Civil Aviation. He was formerly on duty at Uounslow aerodrome. „- 236 The Flight to Timbuctoo ;- - A GREAT deal of anxiety has been caused in Paris in regard to the fate of Commandant Vuillemin, who left Taman- rasset on. February 18, with Gen. Laperrine as passenger, for Timbuctoo. In the 550 miles between these two places there is one post, Burrem, which is in wireless communication with Timbuctoo and Dakar, but it has had no news of the missing machine. ...• ..v. .... . „.._.•• -
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