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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1446.PDF
46 FLIGHT JULY gra, 1942 feeling, because as a matter of fact I wrote that publication. Maj. Thorneycroft said that air superiority does not mean possessing more aeroplanes than the other side. That has very little to do with it. It does not mean even knocking out of the sky a few more of the enemy machines llian he knocks of ours. It is the ability to produce the right type of machine in overwhelming numbers at the right place at the right time. I cannot help feeling that in some respects my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air has not bent his great ability to solving this problem as he might have done. I do not want to get into the old dive-bomber question that was raised and threshed out many times in this House, except to say to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing- Commander James), who says they are not much good, "Then why has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State ordered them? " Bombing Supply Lines Maj. Gluckstein: It has been men tioned already, but I think it ought to be stressed over and over again, that the right way to redress the balance against us in North Africa is the incessant bombing of the supply lines of the enemy. If it is necessary to take bombers from home in large numbers and fly them to North Africa to make sure of achieving that purpose, they are available; if we have to stop our bomb ing attack on Germany for the time being, we must do so. It would be un fortunate, but the other is more im portant. As one who has been himself dive-bombed in this war, I think it is a great mistake to attach too much im portance to dive-bombers. Their real value is when they are used with a proper lighter cover. Dive-bombers without proper fighter cover are money for jam, and any fighter pilot will tell you that it is his idea of heaven on earth to be able to deal with dive-bombers not pro perly protected. We should not have been able to use dive-bombers in any event until quite recently, because we should not have had the air superiority to enable us to do it. Now we have it, and I hope we are going to receive delivery of the dive-bombers. .lfa;. Gates: I have been hoping for some time past that the Secretary of State for Air would take an early oppor tunity to refresh the memory of the House as to the tremendous part that the Royal Air Force is playing in the war. A lot of people have the impression that the Air Force reached its peak when it won the Battle of Britain, but there is much more to the story than that. The Air Force is the only weapon at the moment, with the exception of a few Commando raids, with which we are tarrying the war to the enemy in Western Europe, and a case could be made out to show that it saved Australia from the horrors of invasion. But the story would come far better from the Secretary of State for Air. I am certainly not attacking the Air Force. My case'is simply that the Armv muse have air components under its im mediate command, and these air com ponents must be an integral part of the Army, having grown up and gone up to school with it. The Army must train the » arms concerned in milita'ry methods and practice, and simultaneously the Army must be trained in the proper use of an THE DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT air weapon. As to whether this Army air service shall be created out of exist ing personnel and machines of the R.A.F., or whether the Army shall take a leaf out of the Navy's book and form its own Air Arm, is a question of ways and means for the House to decide and I am not concerned with it at all. But if my remarks have persuaded any hon. Members, and certainly the Government, that, possibly the ideas of the House on the employment of the air weapon, this tremendous weapon of the war, are in need of overhaul, and it may be revision, I think the Debate will, after all, have been beneficial to the Allied cause. Viscount Hinchingbrooke made some observations concerning co-operation be tween the Army and the Air Force. The Secretary of State for War had said the previous day that discussion between Departments was at an advanced stage. To-day the Germans have an air corps to every army corps, I understand. They allow a corps in the air for a corps on the ground. Are our discussions on this sub ject proceeding on that basis? For what are the facts? We have not got co ordination or anything like it. We are assured that we have close co-operation in Libya. The Minister of Production referred to that in his speech to-day, but I do not think that what he said was entirely satisfactory. We have read accounts of bombers being switched from Benghazi to bomb enemy supply columns. We have heard of fighters being switched from the skies to the strafing of ground troops. But these may be changes which take place as the result of simple directions from the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, covering the general conditions under which the air craft operate. It is not necessarily the tactical use of aircraft to aid the forward battle. Have squadrons of light bombers and cannon fighters been put under the direct command of brigadiers in forward areas? Was there direct wireless com munication between them and brigade headquarters, so that their efforts could be directed to the vital spot in the fleet ing moments when those aircraft were overhead? These are some of the ques tions that ought to be answered before it can be said that we had co-ordination in the Middle East. We certainly have not got co-ordination in this country; we have only the rudiments of co operation, and this country is the train ing ground for action overseas. Still Two-dimensional It is amazing to me that, after 25 years of thought on this subject, the art of generalship still lies so largely on the two-dimensional plane, and that this ele ment of the air has not been brdfcght into military calculations to the extent that army officers and men, down to the most junior ranks, regard air support in the same manner as they do the other weapons with which they are provided. The Foreign Secretary, in the same speech 18 years ago, urged that every infantry officer should have had actual experience with the Air Force. How far we are to-day from that ideal! Liaison between (the Army and the R.A.F. is at a very low ebb; or, perhaps I should say, at the very beginning of a flood tide, because efforts are being made to improve it. We must hope that those efforts will continue. The War Cabinet must overcome a certain shyness which exists between the Army and the R.A.F. It is uphill work, at the lower level, to improve that liaison, and I have had direct experience of that in the last few months. We need a wand to be waved from above. There is supposed to be a sort of wand in the hands of an organisa tion called Army Co-operation Com mand. But it is no use there at present. The War Cabinet must take it out of their hands and wave it vigorously over the sister Services. Army Support I am well aware that the policy of mass air raids on Germany has been ap proved by the War Cabinet, and I would not advocate for a moment its dis continuance in present circumstances. But I think we should have an endorse ment by the Prime Minister, if possible, in this Debate of the estimates made and the figures given recently by the Com mander-in-Chief Bomber Command and broadcast in the Press and presented to cinema audiences throughout the coun try. 1 am aware that strategic bombing suits our geographical situation and fits in well with the magnificent land efforts of the Russian Army; but we have an enormous Air Force now, a great variety of types of equipment, and steadily mounting production. Surely some part of this could have been diverted by now to supply some of the needs of th^ Army. I do not know how strongly the generals are pressing and I do not pre sume to speak for them, but I do claim to speak for the more junior officers and men, who cry out in hunger for this essential arm, who cannot justify the efforts being expended on their training without it, who cannot prove the quality that is in them without it, who cannot turn defeat into victory without this vital adjunct to their equipment. During the second day's debate Mr. A. Bevan made a strong attack on the Government. On the subject of air strategy he complained that even now there were aircraft factories idle chang ing over to long-range bombers. The country knew that the long-range bomber was not a decisive weapon of war. Sqn. Ldr. Grant-Ferris was certain that the dive bombers we were getting -were general-purpose bombers, a fact which he welcomed. Major Fnrness thought it was the gen- >* eral feeling among officers that our present bombing policy was wrong. We should have used our Air Force against Italy and stopped supplies to Rommel. Mr. Hore-Belisha argued that the Army should have control of its own air arm. Mr. Churchill, in replying to the De bate, recalled the heroic defence of Malta, and said at one time our fighter strength was worn down to a dozen fighters. We continued to reinforce them from the Western Mediterranean and Egypt. Hundreds of aircraft had been flown in from carriers, including Ameri can. He stated that the Army enjoyed superiority in the air throughout the battle, and confirmed that the dive bomber was not to be regarded as a decisive factor. The Prime Minister mentioned the equipment which had gone to the Middle East, which included O.ooo aircraft. He wished we had had 1,000 transport aircraft, but to build them would have reduced our far trom adequate bomber force.
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