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Aviation History
1922
1922 - 0360.PDF
JUNE 22, 1922 THE INDEPENDENT AIR FORCE DINNER Fourth Annual Reunion ON Monday, June 19, about 90 members of the I.A.F. and guests gathered at the Hotel Cecil for the Fourth Annual Reunion, under the chairmanship of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard. Group Capt. H.R.H. The Duke of York, a member of the Force, was present, and the guest of honour was the much beloved and great French officer, Genl. de Castelnau. Other guests present were Capt. the Rt. Hon. J. E. Guest, Secretary of State for Air ; the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, late Secretary of State for Air ; Capt. M. Sable, French Air Attache; Capt. de la Ferriere ; le Marquis de Bonardi; Capt. de Kerrillis ; Maj.-Gen. J. E. Dickie, C.B. ; Group Capt. C. L. N. Newall, C.M.G., etc. ; Col. Sir Walter Lawrence, Bart., G.C.I.E., etc.; Gen. Whittington, C.M.G., etc. Capt. Guest, in proposing the health of Gen. de Castlenau said, before giving the toast, he proposed to say a few words about the Service and the development of flying generally in this country. During the last year, he said, the independence of the Ministry and the Force had become greatly and firmly consolidated. Every day new responsibilities were being placed upon them, and bravely shouldered by their remark able and indefatigable Air Chief Marshal. He took that opportunity of offering the sincerest congratulations upon his well-merited promotion from Air Marshal to Air Chief Marshal. The filling of that post for the first time in the Air Force gave the Chief of the Air Staff the equivalent rank of full General or Admiral. The Air Force was gaining great credit and earning fresh laurels by its performances in India, Aden, Somaliland, Egypt, Irak and Palestine, and from all quarters reports arrived which showed how high were both the morale and the efficiency of the squadrons overseas. Continuing, Capt. Guest said it was being gradually appre ciated by the public that the Air front had now no relation whatever to either the Sea front or the Land front, where we had been accustomed to expect collisions to occur. The Air Arm was now being gradually recognised as the first line of defence. Home defence against air attack was the Air Ministry's latest responsibility, and it was from that point of view that the study and development of Civil Aviation became of vital consequence. It had been suggested that Civil Aviation should be analogous t<j the Merchant Service, but a moment's study would show that this could never be so until civil air transport became a commercial success. The Merchant Ser vice of England was not built up on subsidies, or high insurance rates, nor yet to provide reserves for the Navy. Even in its infancy, a few payments for services rendered, such as the carrying of mails, were the only assistance that the great merchant and passenger sea services of Great Britain ever received. The Government paid—and pays—for the use of these great transport services just as anyone else does—no more and no less. It would, he said, be fatal if we permanently departed from the great principle that Civil Aviation, to be of any real national value, must, sooner or later, be able to fly by itself. The interim period between the " sooner or later " was, however, the one with which they were concerned at the present time, and the Government policy of giving temporary assistance to this undertaking during its infancy was only justified up to a certain point. Capt. Guest having summarised the terms of the present subsidy granted by Parliament, said he was informed that none of the companies pay, and it was suggested by some that this failure to pay was due to competition, and that the problem would be solved by granting a monopoly. Again, this suggestion clashed with the fundamental view of British trade development. Every successful industry had been built up by healthy competition, and if Civil Aviation was ever to pay in this country, it must be on the basis of reason able and healthy competition. The first responsibility of the Government was to safeguard the public from avoidable risks (a) by guaranteeing the air worthiness of aircraft, (b) by the careful licensing of pilots and ground engineers, and (c) by satisfying themselves of the efficiency of a company before allowing it to operate. The deductions to be drawn from these considerations, even if a little depressing, had better be bravely stated. 1. The rapidity and perfection of rail transport in our small island made this country the most unlikely of any in Europe for Civil Aviation to succeed as a commercial enterprise. 2. Our fitful climate was a still further handicap. The British Empire, however, was not confined to the British Isles, and we had within our boundaries and Domi nions more wide stretches of territory, unbridgeable except by air, than any other nation in the world. He was satisfied that Civil Aviation could be made a commercial success and Imperial asset by the development of these further routes. Canada, India, Australasia, South Africa, all, in his opinion, offered fruitful ground for this development, and he seriously recommended British • enterprise to study and develop these wider fields. It was not impossible that by the development of these Imperial routes we might be able to collect an Imperial reserve of trained pilots. He was, however, all for the maintenance and development —even, if necessary, by higher subsidies—of the cross-Channel route, if only from the point of view of experience and illus tration. It must be realised that these services were under taken in the fiercest limelight of criticism and in the face of the most intensive land and sea competition, and he submitted with a very high degree of efficiency and success. Capt. Guest then made an appeal for the general Press to modify their attitude with regard to the exaggeration of accidents. Gen. de Castelnau, replying to the toast, said his first thought was to associate himself with all his heart to the respectful toast to His Majesty The King. He did so in obedience to the respectful and unalterable feelings of devo tion which they had harboured in France for so long towards the glorious dynasty which directed the destiny of the British Empire. Gen. de Castelnau went on : "I want to thank Air Marshal Trenchard for having allowed me to meet you all, my dear comrades of the British Army, whose glory is inseparable from all memories of the Great War. To thank you I should like to possess a voice of gold, but my voice, alas ! is made of a coarser metal of disused war weapons. I am happy for England, our neighbour and friend, and happy for my country to see assembled here so4>rilliant a company of heroic aviators. I am happy to see them under the auspices of the Duke of York, under the sagacious direction of Capt. Guest, Minister of the Air, and under the command of Air-Marshal Trenchard." Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard, in proposing the Independent Force, said he would like to take the oppor tunity of saying how keen were all of them who were there that night, His Royal Highness included, that this dinner club should continue an;! prosper and that more and more of their members should be present year by year; and of mentioning the untiring effort* of Maj. Toe Smith, Sqdn-Ldr. Cleverly and Group-Capt. Newall to make tlieir dinner a success. He was glad to say that since \hey last met the discussions of the past were happily over. The Service was now made, and they had helped to make it. Small though it still was, it had its charter. They thanked Lord Cavan and the Army Council for the help they had "given at: them, and that he knew they'would continue t< and though they were still discussing with the Admiralty improvement in methods of co-operation with the Navy. he felt quite certain that they could relv on their help also, In the past twelve months they had been by no means idle. They had been successful in maintaining pea Jordania. Responsibility for Iraq was in >rocess of transfer to them, and all accounts irom all sourc es told wonderful things of the Air Force in that country. They heard how efficiently they were carrying out their work under great climatic and other difficulties, and how the Air Force had already saved large sums of the, long-sufft'iiag tax-payers' money. The cross-desert route, without any organisation and practically without any money spent upoa it, and in spite of all difficulties of landing in the desert, had carried the mail with a saving of an average of 10 to 14 days over the ordinary route ever since it was opened OH August 1 last. At Aden they had only three machines. The reports he had received were extraordinarily good. They had done a great amount of work, and had, he thought, incidentally prevented a renewal of disturbances in Somaliland. Referring to the Pageant, Sir Hugh said what he wanted to impress upon them was that the Pageant was really the culmination of their training. Their training aimed primarily and chiefly at reliability and organisation. The organisation enabled every machine to start for every event within a minute of scheduled time, and that, he thought, was some thing to be justly proud of. It was a military asset, a military necessity—and it was done. Not only was it dose at the Pageant. Recently they had occasion to move a squadron, with all its personnel and transport and evt rything complete. 36O
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