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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 0719.PDF
MAY 2OTH, 1948 FLIGHT 555 What are the Chances? Some Thoughts on Short-Service and Permanent Commissions, and the Qualifications Desiredw HATEVER hardship may be caused inside the ser- From the point of view of the officer himself, flying vice by the renewal of the Short-Service aircrew fighting, overseas service and the command of men would policy, it would be as well if those who hope to seem to be the attributes and experience most likely to fit mm tor the position of an officer in such an organization. By get commissioned as Short-Service G.D. Officers, and later aspire to permanent commissions, could be given some idea of what their chances are, and by what standards their eligibility will be judged when the time comes. The Royal Air Force, alone of the fighting services, seemed unable, during the war, to give commanding officers^ an intelligent idea of what aspect to approach the problem irom. I am particularly referring to the commissioning of aircrew, and the selection of such officers tor permanent commissions after the war. When I entered the R.A.F. with a Short- Service Commission in the G.D. branch in 1936, it was laid down that each entry would have one chance of selection for a P.C. by a written examination and their C.O.'s recommendation, during their last year. The 1936 entries n&ver sat for their examination because these were cancelled in 1939, and selection started again in 1944 from the whole surviving non-regular officer strength, but the age limit was then 30 years on January 1st, 1944. Therefore, any such officer who entered the R.A.F. in or after 1936, and who was born before January 1st, 1914, as I was, had never been eligible for a P.C. I served the R.A.F. through its ten most cataclysmic years under a complete misapprehension that the Service would abide by its recruiting promise of one fair chance for each entrant. When my application was refused the reason given was that the need for a proper age grouping of successful can- didates placed an unavoidable limitation upon the number of older officers who could be absorbed. Some older officers have been absorbed, but in this very narrow field the par- ticular "cleft stick" group to which I belong has had to compete with those senior to 1936 who must, therefore, have already had one chance before the war. But even in this doubly-slender chance, it is hard to understand why the horse I backed didn't come home, and this makes me wonder by what standards the selections were made. Sorts of Discipline Before joining the R.A.F. I had seen seven years in the .Merchant Navy, and some periods of service with the peace- time Royal Navy as a R.N.R. Sub-Lieutenant. I was familiar both with the sort of discipline which makes men work, and that which makes them fight. Everybody knew that the R.A.F. must have its own special kind of disci- pline, but nobody seemed to be very clear what it should be like. The simple patriarchal military virtues of courage, justice and affection that were found in the regimental officer of history, and which in the Royal Navy had been superimposed upon the age-old sea discipline ("Pump you beggars, pump! ") seemed difficult to fit within the R.A.F. framework. Yet if one could find the right for- mula, now that the war had stopped that dreadful exam- ination, the war years, if spent in following that ideal, "light to produce a perfect G.D. officer with a P.C. "in ;!K- bag." This was my reasoning in 1939 and early 1940. In all •sechanized branches of the armed forces technical train- ing had often to be insisted upon at the expense of military training, and the unspoken resistance to military ideas was always aggravated in the R.A.F. (at least before the ad- vent of those brave fellows, the R.A.F. Regiment and the Servicing Commandos) by the fact that the airmen would never have to fight. Yet the service was full of men who were unused to military restraints and authority, and the "'ily justification for holding them in that restraint was 'lie foundation of military law, under which fighting men •mid be controlled. R. C. O. LOVELOCK W/C, R.A.F.O. They were the fonts from which he must drink most deeply. Following this theme, one developed a clearer vision alto- gether. The only real justification for rank was responsi- bility for men ; one had to distinguish between being an officer or an office-holder, by which I mean filling an estab- lishment without the corresponding contact with the number it was worth. In the same way, the only justification for wearing wings was to be still capable of flying an aircraft of some sort. Another exacting precept of the pure military philosophy was that one might never order a subordinate to do a thing that one could not or would not do oneself. Obviously it had to be confined to the things in which one was trained, to one's own branch or trade, but where there was any danger in it, it had to be embraced utterly. Leadership in Small Doses In circumstances where airmen didn't fight, and aircraft operated singly, as in the Coastal Command A/S squad- rons, there was only too little scope for the exercise of these basic qualities of leadership. A Wing Cmdr. O.C. of a boat squadron, for instance, might have three or four hundred all told under his command, but not more than twelve at a time could comfortably be taken into action, even in a Sunderland. The distinction sought in actual operations must be balanced by a really zealous and human administrative ability on the ground. The respon- sibilities of even the .most junior section officerr when in- vestigating a charge, in representing the law were enormous. This dualism always made one compare unfavourably with those gallant fellows who lived only for operations, and one admired them, too, but that cult alone was not the answer to the make-up of the perfect G.D. Officer. In late 1944, with the invasion well launched, service in S.E. Asia was often spoken of as a dreadful possibility, and a few junior staff officers at least were frantically busy Screwing their chairs to the floor and calling for larger establishments. But with such a tremendous slice of the British Empire still in enemy hands, no man, married or single, who was trained to fight could dismiss this fact easily. I then thought I would try my hand at "Whispering Death" (the "Rocket Projectile Beaufighter "), and was given a squadron in the Arakan. On those jungle strips, denied all contact with civilization and the lure of the " 48/' the ground crews were closer to the flying men than ever I have seen. "Is your hut all right, sir? " said a voice in the semi-darkness when the M.O.- and S.W.O. were helping blaspheming erks to extricate themselves from a 40-bed basha which had collapsed in a- cyclone. "Flat as a pancake," I was glad to reply, "they have no respect for rank in heaven! " Even so, much more could have been done to limit the demobilization unrest which brought no credit to the R.A.F. in S.E. Asia and cannot be condoned, if only the principles which govern men had been better understood by more officers within units. The pursuit of this ideal of service led me through three tours, and the command of four operation squadrons, yet it wasn't what the R.A.F. wanted. When I appealed con- stitutionally against my rejection, I was greeted with the same old bureaucratic imbecility, " The Need for a Balanced Post-War Air Force, etc." It just wasn't true, because at least two more senior officers contemporary with me have since been surreptitiously re-absorbed after demobili- zation. Ominously enough, neither replied to my letters.
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