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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 0303.PDF
FEBRUARY 1943 FLIGHT 119 Fleet Air Arm Debate Lords Discuss Its Out-of'date Equipment and Disagree on Question of Responsibility THE Fleet Air Arm and its out-of-date aircraft werethe subject of a spirited debate in the House ofLords when Lord Winster rose to ask the Govern- ment what measures should be undertaken to see that this Service was equipped with the most modern aircraft we could give them, and to " move for Papers." The main points made by Lord Winster were that not only was the Fleet Air Arm equipped with " extremely bad aircraft" when war broke out, but that it was still so ill-equipped to-day as to be robbing the country of opportunities at sea and at the same time "inflicting very unnecessary perils upon the pilots." While it would re- quire a great deal of knowledge and information before one-could decide whether the responsibility for this state of affairs lay with the Admiralty, the Ministry of Aircraft P/oduction, or elsewhere, it was the War Cabinet which had to decide how we were going to win the war and, there- fore, the responsibility must, in the ultimate issue, come back to the War Cabinet. Lord Winster also suggested the factors which influenced the matter; there was the very great difficulty with which the Navy had had to contend from '' the older generation of officers whose minds were not sufficiently flexible to enable them to appreciate the full impact of the air weapon upon sea warfare—it was the old story of the Admirals trained in masts and yards who resented the introduction of steam. Another difficulty was that because Admiralty orders had always been small compared with those of the R.A.F., the Fleet Air Arm had had to rely upon "some of the smaller firms of the industry," and out of the very small percentage of industry available for the work of the Fleet Air Arm, very big difficulties seemed to have arisen in regard to two firms. Labour Idle There was*no secret about the fact that the workmen at Faireys were complaining about having to stand idle yet being refused permission to go elsewhere. There had been strikes, discussions, and acrimonious meetings with the management, and all these things had been reported • to the M.A.P., to the Air Ministry and to the Admiralty in December, 1941. A year later things were stated to be still astounding and deplorable ; the Fleet Air Arm were flying in obsolete machines yet men were still standing idle and were refused permission to go where there was work for them to do. He did not know what happened, but shortly after Sir Stafford Cripps became Minister of Aircraft Production he visited a certain factory in the Home Counties—they had not been told where—and found it necessary to appoint a managing director to take com- plete control of that factory; and this was the fourth year of the war! If that factory was Faireys, then he thought it still more important that some explanation should be given, and we should be told why Sir Richard Fairey remained in America. He had been there since 1940, em- ployed, Lord Winster believed, in work for the British Purchasing Commission. "I have no doubt his work is considered far more im- portant than work with his firm here in England," said Lord Winster, " and no one would wish to presume to say on which side of the Atlantic Sir Richard Fairey should be, but I think it should be made very clear, if, indeed, it is the case that he is doing more valuable work in America than he could do with his own firm in England, because a great deal of misapprehension and criticism exists upon that point, especially because the firm of Fairey seems to have fallen into a very considerable state of disorgani- sation during the absence of Sir Richard Fairey in America. Another Fleet Air Arm Factory was Blackburns, and it was a matter of great regret among the workers there that their war effort seemed to be so very disappointing. He had heard no criticism of the management or organisation at Blackburns, but he had heard of a real feeling of frus- tration at the fact that they, a Fleet Air Arm factory, have no up-to-date, efficient aircraft to manufacture for the Fleet Air Arm. He would not go into details of the work they had been doing, but he would ask this very simple ques- tion: "Is it the case that the firm of Blackburn has got an efficient, up-to-date aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm at the present moment? " F.A.A. Priority Other points made by Lord Winster in the course ol his. speech were that the Fleet Air Arm must have very much higher priorities than it had hitherto enjoyed ; that the aircraft specified by the Admiralty had in many cases been required to fulfil iar too many purposes and had been hybrids; that the story of the dive-bomber was a very melancholy one indeed, so far as operations at sea were concerned, and reflected very little credit on those con cerned ; and that, in reference to the 'orpedo bomber, the development of which had been allowed to lag behind, all the Minister of Aircraft Production could say in July, 1942, was, " We have a new type coming along for the Fleet Air Arm." It would be inteiesting to know if it had come along yet I Saying that he had endeavoured to speak with modera- tion, and, he hoped, with discretion, Lord Winster added "1 must, in conclusion, make it quite clear that I do feel that the present equipment of the Fleet Air Arm implies grave faults on the parts of some responsible people, for otherwise it could not be the case that the Fleet Air Arm, with the tasks which it has imposed on it to-day, should be given such wretched weapons with which to perform them." Lord Beaverbrook followed Lord Winster and began by saying that he thought there was a considerable case made against the Government, but there were some other features he wanted to present to them. First of all there never had been any priority difficulty so far as the Fleet Air Arm was concerned ; the maintenance and spares for the Fleet Air Arm was in the charge ot the Admiralty and he thought it was most wonderfully well done and an example to other Services. He did not take the pessimistic view of the equipment ot the Fleet Air Arm that his noble friend had presented to the House, and he would ask the distin- guished industrialists in the House to bear him out when he said-that the aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm and all other types of aircraft depended for quality on the firms produc- ing* them. The responsibility of the firm also prevailed in the matter of design. Private Venture Types '' The work of the firm is almost invariably a private venture," said Lord Beaverbrook, "the design is a private venture, put forward by private enterprise, by private capital." And he instanced the design and development of the Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster and Mosquito. It was true that the Ministry issued the specification, but that was usually improved by the firm, frequently amended, and sometimes rejected ; in the case of the Spit- fire and Hurricane, the designs produced by the firms did not at all resemble the specification issued by the Air Ministry. / Engine design was entirely in the hands of the firm. Subsequent development of prototypes, both in engines and aircraft, depended also almost entirely on the firms, not on the Ministry ; they were in the hands of the fac-
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