FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0260.PDF
FLIGHT, MARCH 15, 1934 My noble friend testified on his return from his recent tour to the splendid spirit which he found pervading the personnel of the R.A.F. at all the stations he visited. The same spirit exists equally at home. It would not have been altogether surprising if all the talk which has been taking place of recent years on the subject of the total abolition of air forces had resulted in a certain discourage- ment and apathy among those who have chosen the Royal Air Force as their career. I would ask hon. members to bear this aspect of a diffi- cult question constantly in mind ; I am sure that the House as a whole realises that the Royal Air Force is now, alongside the Royal Navy, the first-line of defence of these islands and of the Empire. We must look to it that we do nothing to undermine the spirit and courage of that defence, so long as it remains necessary to our national security. I believe that no harm has been done as yet, but that is due to the loyalty and devotion of all ranks of a Service which, as I am sure the House will agree, has fully proved its worthiness to take co-equal place with the two older Services in the trinity of Imperial defence. THE DEBATE MR. ATTLEE, for the Opposition, said that he Was not qualified to discussthe technical details of the Estimates. He was struck by the amount spent on the younger Service compared with what Was spent on the older Services.Defence expenditure was called our insurance. He asked, first, was that insurance effective, and, secondly, Was the amount right in respect of thevarious risks Which might come to this country. For air risks was paid one- fifth. All warfare was the propulsion of a projectile on to a target, and thedefence of that target. The delivery of a bomb by aeroplane was in essence the same thing as David slinging,a stone at Goliath. To-day the dominantprojectile was the air weapon. He took it as an established fact that in any future war the decision Would be reached in the air. There was no effectivedefence against air attack. To his mind the proposals put forward by this country to the Disarmament Conference had not got rid of competitionin air armaments. He held that it was a mistake not to have urged the internationalising of civil flying. He urged hon. members to consider inter-nationalising the air forces of the world as an international police force. It was not too late for the Government to say that our Air Force was acontribution to the force which should support the rule of law in the world. CAPT. GUEST agreed With Mr. Attlee that the Estimates failed toindicate a policy. He averred that Germany had every intention of re-arming as quickly and as best she could, and that she intended to annex Austria.It Was obvious that Italy would interfere, and it was hard to say what would be the result of that. It was another simple truth that if anything didhappen in the next few years, Ireland would be delighted to side with any enemy of Great Britain. Serious members of the Belgian Cabinet werefrightened at the danger from Germany. France, presumably, was our friend, but she was rocking with internal troubles. Considering what we did knowabout Germany, he complained that in our Estimates there was no provision for the future, for any development which we might afterwards be calledupon to make. London was easy to find from the air. and there Was no alternative capital. All our aircraft factories were within 15 miles of London.Turning to civil flying, he thought that the agreement made by Imperial Airways with the railways had been made behind the back of the Air Minister,and he asked the Under Secretary for a statement on that point. MR. MANDER (Liberal) complained of a lack of policy in the Estimates.He said that under them we neither armed nor disarmed. The policy was a half-hearted one of doing neither one thing nor the other, which was abso-lutely futile and hopeless, and was leading straight to disaster. We should either have a whole-hearted disarmament policy and pursue it with all thevigour possible, or we should re-arm. The only policy which he believed could save us was to use our influence to attain immediately the abolitionof air forces all over the world, coupled with the international control of civil flying. MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL, in a very fine speech, said that it wascertain that our attempts at persuading Europe to disarm had failed. In view of that we must take measures to put ourselves in a state of reasonablesecurity. There were four lines which we could follow. First, we should continue to pursue a peaceful policy. We must continue to strive to preservethe peace and harmony of Europe. Secondly, we ought not to neglect any security which we can derive from international conventions. He didnot agree with those who said that these international conventions were not worth the paper on which they were written. It might Well be thatvague, general, pious affirmations like the Kellogg Pact did not carry much practical conviction to people's minds. But when one came to more definite,limited, and precise arrangements, he believed that a greater measure of confidence could be reposed in them. At any rate, we should be very foolishto neglect them. We should strive to secure an international convention confining our air warfare to military and naval objectives and to the zonesof field armies. He hoped the House would not be led by very easy argu- ments to suppose there was no validity or virtue in such arrangements. Allthe experience of the world showed that they had played their part even in the most hideous quarrels of nations, and any nation which refusedto enter into discussions to regulate air warfare would be left in a position of grisly isolation, proclaiming its intention deliberately to make war as ascientific and technical operation upon women and children by the terrorisa- tion of the civil population. It Would be a very wise thing for us to get asmany nations as possible to join in a convention which would exclude, on paper at any rate, this method from the area of recognised Warfare. Ifnecessary, we must even give up " police bombing," even if we were faced with the old difficulty of maintaining order in the mountainous valleys ofIndia without the facilities of an air arm, if there were a World consensus of opinion against the bombing of undefended areas. It would be to ouradvantage to make the sacrifice in order to secure a much greater gain. It would be asked " Would such agreements ever be kept during the fury andagony of war ? " It was not possible to speak with absolute assurance. We should never be justified in trusting our safety to such conventions.But every war was not a general War in Europe. When two Powers were engaged in a narrowly balanced struggle, the opinion of neutrals became ofimmense importance. We would not assume that international conventions would not play a useful and valuable part if another War should break out." Even taking the lowest view of human nature, nations at war do not usually do things which give them no special advantage, and which grievouslycomplicate their own position. No convention of the kind of which I have been speaking would be of the slightest use between the great Powers unlessit was based on parity. That is the key to any convention which can be negotiated. If one side had an all-powerful air force and the other only a veryweak defence, the temptation to use the weapons of terror upon the civil population might well far outweigh any detrimental effects on neutral opinion.If, however, the two sides were in an equality and in the position to do equal and simultaneous harm to each other, then the uselessness of the crimewould reinforce its guilt and horror, and the evil effects upon the actions of neutrals. ... If both sides feel that they suffer equally from a breach of aninternational agreement and neither side can see how it can gain an advantage over the other, it seems likely that these conventions will be respected."That was the argument for parity and immediate parity. Parity Was the third of the lines which we ought to follow. The fourth was to develop byevery conceivable means the effective punishment and destruction by an active and efficient home defence of any invaders -whomight come to our shores.It ought to be possible by making good arrangements on the ground and in the air to secure very real advantages for the force of aeroplanes which wouldbe defending its own air and which could rise lightly laden from its own soil. By those means we should be able to impose deterrents on an invader, imposedeterrents on a potential declaration of war, and gradually, by attrition, to bring attacks on us to smaller dimensions, and finally to an end. Germanywas arming fast and no one would stop her. No one proposed a war to prevent Germany breaking the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was ruled by ahandful of autocrats, Who had neither the interests of a dynasty to consider nor the restraints of a democratic Parliament and constitutional system.Nor had they the restraint of public opinion. " I dread the day when the means of threatening the heart of the British Empire should pass into thehands of the present rulers of Germany." No nation playing the part we played in the World has a right to be in a position where it could be bla-k-mailed. MR. BALDWIN did not admit that Mr. Eden's tour had been a failure.It had not yet brought its fruit, but he had not yet given up hope of a con- vention that would give equality in air strength, which he believed was thefirst requisite for avoiding the danger. The great peril from the air was the attempt of any nation to get a knock-out blow in early. If We got equality, thechances of a knock-out blow almost disappeared, or would become so risky that people would think twice or thrice before undertaking it. The realdanger to peace Was a very strong air power on the one hand and a defenceless city on the other. He stood by the speech he had made some time ago, butsome people had leapt to the conclusion that if what he said was true there was no object in air defences at all. Obviously that was not the case. Itwas quite true that the bomber would always get through any defence that could be visualised to-day, but the greater the force to oppose it, the greaterthe chance of casualties among the bombers, and therefore the more thought before invasion took place. Added to that, if there were the possibility ofretaliation at once, that again reduced the danger. He did not believe that the world was yet ready for the international police force. His lastpoint was that if the convention failed, neither he nor the Government Would relax efforts to start work next morning to get an air convention alone amongthe countries of Western Europe, even if they could not get in some tha were far away. He agreed most warmly with Mr. Churchill with regard toagreements for the definition of specified areas for bombing. He ended his speech with the following striking sentence :— " I say that if all our efforts fail, and if it is not possible to obtain this equality in such matters as I have indicated, then any Government of this country—a National Govern- ment more than any, and this Government—will see to it that in air strength and air power this country shall no longer be in a position inferior to any country within striking distance of our shores." COL. WEDGWOOD said that the danger was from Germany. The objectof air warfare was to attack aerodromes and petrol tanks, and We ought to scatter ours about the country. LIEUT. COL. MOORE-BRABAZON said that if you lost control ofthe air at the beginning you would never win a war. He asked for a larger proportion of the defence money for the Royal Air Force. MR. TURTON moved that more aerodromes should be provided for civilflying in this country. He asked municipalities to startMR. EVERARD seconded the motion,aerodromes in a small way. LORD APSLEY complained of the regulations for the licences for aero-dromes. He hoped there might be a more speedy system of traffic between aerodromes and the centres of large cities. : SIR PHILIP SASSOON, in reply, endorsed the view that every largecentre of population ought to have an aerodrome of its own. He gave some details, and Mr. Turton withdrew his motion. REAR-ADMIRAL SIR M. SUETER said that the Chief of the Air Staffought to have resigned rather than accept the figures in the Estimates, Which were totally inadequate for the defence of the country. MR. LOVAT-FRASER raised the question of the noise caused by aero- planes. WING-CMDR. JAMES said that there ought to be a complete reorganisa-tion of the Governmental direction of the Services to secure the necessary co-operation, without which the Services would only fight for their own hands. MR. SIMMONDS said that fears had been expressed that the companyformed by the railways and Imperial Airways would put other internal air lines out of business. He asked had the Air Ministry a plan for expandingthe Air Force if it should be necessary. He suggested that squadrons should be sent to show the flag in Canada. MRS. TATE asked that if the Disarmament Conference failed and thereshould seem no likelihood of success from the Air Convention in a short time, the Government would bring forward supplementary Estimates and notWait till next year to consider the matter again. She asked if it would not have been more economical to spend a larger sum each year instead of lettingourselves fall so far behind in our air development. CAPT. J. MACANDREW said that in the war, the side that had the best machines had the air supremacy for the time. CAPT. I. FRASER said that he thought the discussions abroad would bemore fruitful if Europe knew that Great Britain really meant air parity. SHI GD7FORD FOX suggested that the Government might help toincrease our number of pilots by encouraging Imperial Airways to have ser- vices more than once a week to South Africa and the Far East. CAPT. CUNNINGHAM-REn> spoke in favour of interceptor fighters.He said that we had a machine Which could go up four miles in 17 minutes, Which included Waking the pilot, getting the machine out, and warming upthe engine. He said that it would not be easy for hostile bombers to hit vital 260
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
