FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1924
1924 - 0063.PDF
JANUARY 31, 1924 R.A.F. AND IMPERIAL DEFENCE THE Report issued last week on National and Imperial Defence of the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Impetial Defence, appointed by Mr. Bonar Law in March, 1923 (Cmd. 2029, Stationery Office, price 6d.), is an .important contribution to the solving of this vital problem. The Sub-Committee was composed of the following members of the late Government :—Lord Salisbury (in the Chair), Mr. Neville Chamberlain (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Lord Curzon (Foreign Secretary), the Duke of Devonshire (Colonial Secretary), Lord Derby (Secretary for War), Lord Peel (Secretary for India), Sir Samuel Hoare (Secretary for Air), and Mr. Amery (First Lord of the Admiralty), with Lord Balfour and Lord Weir. Sir Maurice Hankey was secretary, and the terms of reference were :— " To inquire into the co-operation and correlation between the Navy, Army, and Air Force from the point of view of National and Imperial Defence generally, including the question of establishing some co-ordinating authority, whether by a Ministry of Defence or otherwise, and, in par ticular, to deal with :— (a) The relations of the Navy and the Air Force, as regards the control of Fleet air work. (b) The corresponding relation between the Army and the Air Force. (c) The standard to be aimed at for defining the strength of the Air Force for the purposes of Home and Imperial Defence." The question of the relations between the Navy and the Air Force as regards the control of Fleet Air work was re mitted to a special sub-committee composed of Lord Balfour, Lord Peel, and Lord Weir. Their report, which was issued last summer, and published in summarised form in FLIGHT, was adopted by the Government. By this decision the prin ciple of a single Air Service was upheld. On the other hand, as the sub-committee did not think it possible 'to sever com pletely the Air organisation which does work for the Fleet from the Air organisation responsible for Home Defence and for co-operating with the Army, they proposed a course " some where between those two extremes." The Committee, in their conclusions with regard to the co operation and correlation of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force, state :— a) While the Committee do not put forward any sugges tion to change the existing division of responsibility between ground. Since the war the Royal Air Force has been given the responsibility for the security of the mandated territory of Iraq and Palestine. In addition, on March 16, 1922, the following principles in regard to the co-operation of the three Services were announced in the House of Commons :— (i) That the Air Force must be autonomous in matters of administration and education ; (ii) That in case of defence against air raids, the Army and Navy must play a secondary rdle ; (iii) That in the case of military operations by land or naval operation by sea, the Air Force should be in strict sub ordination to the General or Admiral in supreme command ; and lastly (iv.) That in other cases (such as the protection of com merce and attack on enemy harbours and inland towns) the the relations between the Air Force and the other Services should be regarded rather as a matter of co-operation than that of the strict subordination which is necessary when aeroplanes are acting merely as auxiliaries to the other arms. In order to ascertain whether the above allocation of res ponsibilities between the three Services required further readjustment, the Committee felt it necessary to make investigations into the strategical basis of our system of National and Imperial Defence. The most important result of this part of the inquiry was to confirm the vital need for a great increase in our air forces, which had been established in previous inquiries. It soon became clear, .not only that the Air Force has an important part to play in the defence of our home territory against seaborne attack as well as of maritime communications in waters adjacent to the British Islands, but that to provide protection against aerial attack a large aerial Home Defence Force was required. The adoption by the Government of the Committee's recommendations on this subject added to the responsibilities of the Roya! Air Force. In other respects, however, it did not bear upon the problem of co-operation and correlation between the three Services, which depends on those aspects of National and Imperial Defence where strategical or tactical co-operation between two or more Services is required. The Committee therefore inquired into these questions in considerable detail. So far as the protection of territory and communications in the wider oceans is concerned, the question of a readjust- t\l ™ bervic,es' they recommend that the responsibilities ment of responsibilities between the Service Departments oi the JNavy and the Air Force in regard to the protection of HiH nn+ ari00 communications in the narrow seas should form the subject of further investigation. The Committee further recommend that experiment in respect of the problems of air attack and defence at sea should be given due weight in Admiralty and Air Ministry programmes, in order to secure on the basis of practical experience the fullest measure of unitv of pro fessional opinion. (b) The principal need, as regards co-operation and correla tion, is closer co-ordination (c) The principle that in all belligerent operations in which more than one Service is concerned one of the three Services should be selected as a " predominant partner " to co-ordinate the other Services should be examined bv the Committee of Chiefs of Staffs. (d) While the menace of attack from the air has greatly increased and necessitates a strong Home Defence Air Force, the three Staffs are agreed that in existing conditions the liability of the country to seaborne invasion has considerably diminished as compared with pre-war standards. The following are the chief passages of the report of the Main Committee on the co-operation and correlation between the three Services from the point of view of National and Imperial Defence :— Considerable progress had been made before the commence ment of the present inquiry in the direction of defining the post-war responsibilities of the three fighting Services. The inquiry by Mr. Bonar Law's Sub-Committee on the Capital bhip (March, 1921), which heard much evidence as to the potentialities of the air arm at sea, had resulted in the retention of the capital ship as the basis of our sea power. The scope of-the inquiry, however, did not extend to a definition of the respective responsibilities of the Navv and the Air Force in regard to operations at sea. The Committee of Imperial iJefence had also approved an arrangement made between the War Office and Air Ministry in regard to the responsibility lor anti-aircraft defence, under which the Air Force was to be responsible for the control of anti-aircraft defences, the War *»« ^Ulx wl L1La ce providing the necessary personnel and matiriel on the experience of the war in support of both sides of the various 63 did not arise. In the narrow seas, however, Imperial territory and com munications are evidently liable to attack, not only by surface craft and submarines, but also by aircraft, in so far as they are within the radius of action of aircraft operating from foreign territory. The Committee therefore found it neces sary to inquire how far the power of the Navy to protect territory and communications in the narrow seas is affected by modern developments of naval and aerial warfare. So far as territory is concerned, it is satisfactory to be able to record that the three General Staffs are agreed that in existing conditions the liability of the United Kingdom to seaborne invasion as compared with the years preceding the war is negligible. Another matter on which some measure of agreement was found to exist between the Naval Staff and the Air Staff is in regard to the increased risks to communica tions in those portions of the narrow seas which are exposed to attack by aircraft operating from shore bases, such as the English Channel and the Mediterranean. _Both Staffs admit that the advent of aircraft has increased the danger to com munications in such waters, though they differ as to the extent of this danger. Apart from this, when the Committee came to examine the question of the protection of maritime communications in the narrow seas, they did not find the same measure of agreement between the * Staffs which they had met with in regard to the protection of the territory of the Mother Country. On the contrary, this part of the inquirv revealed wide differences of professional opinion, between the Naval Staff and the Air Staff, both in matters of principle and detail, on such questions as the power of a fleet to operate within effective striking range of hostile aircraft, the effectiveness of attacks on a fleet by aircraft and the power of a fleet to defend itself against such attacks, the defence of naval bases against aircraft attack and the protection of certain portions of our trade routes. The more closely the inquiry was pressed in matters of detail the wider these differences appeared. In the course of this inquiry frequent appeals were made to the
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
