FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1925
1925 - 0706.PDF
OCTOBER 29, 1925 SIR SAMUEL HOARE'S CAMPAIGN ON October 16, at the Guildhall, Lincoln, Sir Samuel Hoare gave the first of the series of speeches he is to -make during his tour of the provinces in connection with the Air Defence scheme. After thanking the citizens of Lincoln for giving him the opportunity of discussing the matter with them, he alluded to the fact that the older Services relied in the past for their recruits on families and classes that, generation after generation, had provided officers and men for the fighting forces. But, he said, in a world of high taxation and continuous changes this was becoming.more and more difficult. Thus, he looked to the great industrial centres, such as Lincoln, to help in the difficult task of strengthening our air defences. They might ask, said Sir Samuel, why in a period of peace— when the Locarno Conference gave promise of a peace more profound than any that they had enjoyed for more than a generation—did a Minister come to them and raise the question of air defence ? There was oiothing the country wished to think less about than the question of a possible war, but he, none the less, said that in the very interests of peace and economy they must maintain their defences at an adequate level, or they would otherwise run the risk of panic measures and panic expenditure, and be in the situa- tion, impossible for the British Empire, of living upon the sufferance of foreign Powers. It was good, therefore, for all British citizens to review from time to time the state of their national defences and satisfy themselves that they were reasonably secure against risks— though remotely improbable—so great. As a result of such a review one fact emerged prominently—that with the development of science we were no longer an island, isolated by the sea from the rest of the world. An aeroplane, military or civil, could fly equally over sea and land, and, however strong our Navy and our Army, could penetrate into the heart of the country. This meant that if a European war ever broke out again our battles might no longer be fought upon foreign territory, nor our casualties be restricted to the regular forces. It was much more probable that the critical battles of the future would be fought over our great cities and the chief sufferers would be the civilians—men. women, and children of our great towns. They probably already knew the main lines of our defence proposals : a certain number of highly trained regular squadrons capable of adopting the only sound method of air defence and taking the war into the enemy's camp, a ground organisation carefully organised for warnings and such protection as anti-aircraft guns could give. But over and above these aspects of it there was a third that he was there to discuss. He had come to invite the citizens of Lincoln, and it was an invitation that he would make to other great cities, to take their part as civilians in a task that was incumbent upon every British citizen. Hitherto there had never been connected with the Air Force any non- regular or Territorial element, and he was convinced that, not oaiy on the grounds of economy but also on the grounds of national security, it was essential that they should intro- duce into the Air Defence scheme a substantial element of non-regular and semi-regular personnel. They were thus starting two kinds of defence squadrons, Auxiliary and Special Reserve. As Lincoln was concerned only with the Special Reserve squadron it was proposed to start during the next few months, he would deal with that side of the scheme. A Special Reserve squadron would consist of a strong nucleus of regular officers and mechanics, but the bulk of its personnel would be civilian special reservists drawn from engineering and similar undertakings in the vicinity. Its peace time headquarters would be an aerodrome situated as near as possible to the centre from which its personnel would be drawn—in the case of Lincoln, at Waddington—and it would have a war station to which it would move in the event of hostilities. Squadrons would be either day bombers or night bombers, and it was proposed to make the Lincoln squadron of the latter class, which meant that it would be equipped with twin-engined machines, and organised in two flights of five machines each. The total personnel of this squadron would be 28 officers and 214 airmen, of which 14 officers and 113 airmen would be non-regular special reserve personnel. At first the squadron would have principally training machines, but gradually it would be given its full establishment of service types of aircraft like a regular squadron. Sir Samuel then gave a brief outline of the term of service proposed for the Special Reserve personnel. Firstly, officers should be between 18 and 25 years of age and would, of course, in their own interest, have to reach a certain standard of physical fitness. They would be asked to undertake, in the first instance, a term of service of five years ; for any shorter period an expensive flying training would not, of course, be justified. As regards this training, the best way for an officer to learn to become an efficient pilot would be for him to spend six months continuously at a regular Air Force station or squadron. It was realised, however, that in some cases this might be inconvenient and as an alternative an, endeavour would be made to arrange for intermittent instruction to be given somewhere in the neighbourhood of the officer's home, so that there might be little or no interference with his ordinary way of life. For example, an officer from Lincoln, whenever he had a day or an afternoon free, would be given instruction at Digby. Once an officer had completed his initial training he would be required to carry out periodical flying practice up to a minimum of 12 hours annually, but otherwise the demands made upon his time would be very small. In the case of airmen, too, they were anxious to make con- ditions as elastic as possible so that there might be a minimum of interference with a man's everyday life whether in his work- ing or leisure hours. The age limits would be from 18 to 38 and they contemplated a period of service of from one to four years in the first instance, so that a man need not feel that, if he became a Special Reservist, he was tied for a long period from the very start. Only qualified men would be enlisted for the skilled trades, the principal of which being fitters (with experience of internal-combustion engines), carpenters, electricians, wireless operators, and mechanical transport drivers ; in this way it was hoped to avoid the neces- sity for any long period of specialised initial training, though in a few cases a special initial course of six months might be necessary. In the ordinary way, however, it should be pos- sible for a skilled tradesman to carry out all his training in his own time, and there should be no need for him to attend at the aerodrome for more than a day, or even half-a-day, unless he wished to do so. A Special Reserve airman would be provided with uniform and working clothing, and when called up for duty as an airman (including periods of initial training where necessary) he would receive the same pay, allowances and rations as a regular airman. When his Commanding Officer was satisfied that he was proficient, he would receive an annual retaining fee of £3 per annum. Special Reserve airmen would not be liable for overseas ser- vice without a special Act of Parliament ; the Force that Lincoln was being asked to assist in building up was essenti- ally for purposes of Home Defence. This, briefly, said Sir Samuel, was a short description of the squadron it was proposed to start at Lincoln. He would draw attention to two features in particular connected with it. In the first place, a squadron of this kind was obviously much cheaper than a fully manned regular squadron. This was an important fact at a moment when we were all struggling to keep down expenditure and to lessen taxation. The initial cost of a special reserve squadron was over £150,000 less than that of a regular squadron of the same type, and it cost about ^45,000 per annum less to maintain. Secondly, it would be noted that more than half the personnel was drawn from civilian life and that the repair work of the squadron was to be carried out by contract with civil firms. He attached the greatest importance to this side of the scheme. For the first time in our history civilian officers and men would have a chance of taking their part in air defence. For the first time in our peace time history a military unit would be formed that would make the fullest possible use of the civilian facilities in the neighbourhood for repair work and non-military duties. He was sanguine enough to think that the experiment would succeed and that if it did the practice of availing ourselves of civilian help would greatly increase. He realised the objections that might be made against the proposal. The objection, for instance, that a unit should be fully manned by regular personnel and fully self-contained. None the less, he believed that the advantages would greatly outweigh the disadvantages. From the point of view of economy the experiment would help to reduce expenditure. But most of all from the point of view of the progress of British flying, he believed that we would obtain the great advantage of diffusing the knowledge of flying and the principles of air defence amongst a much wider section of the population than we would reach if we restricted our efforts to the regular officers and men of the R.A.F. Gradually a knowledge of air would be built up in our great industrial centres, gradually a reserve 706
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
