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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1690.PDF
444 FLIGHT OCTOBER 7TH, 1948 MATION Royal Air Force and Naval Aviation News and Announcements THE FLEET EXERCISES: Among units of the Home Fleet participating in the biggest post-war Naval manoeuvres were the carriers Theseus (in the rear) and Illustrious. The battleship Duke of York is shown leading them in this aerial view. Fireflies and Sea Furies with wings folded may be discerned on the flight deck of Theseus. LORD TEDDER ON THE R.A.F. Present and Future Problems : The "Straight Left" and the "Right Guard" ,'.'•4' THEKE follows, in extenso, anaddress by Marshal of the R.A.F.Lord Tedder, delivered on Sep- tember 27th before the Headmasters'Conference at Oxford. In the view of Flight this is the most lucid and inspir-ing pronouncement of its kind yet uttered. '' In these days one sees and hearsmuch as to the possibility of yet another war. You will not, I am sure, expectany prophetic utterance from me on this .issue. No, we (and by ' we' I do notmean only we military, I mean the British people) are faced by a much moreimmediate and practical problem. You will remember bow at San Francisco somethree years ago that far-seeing states- man, General Smuts, christened the new-born United Nations Organization with the phrase ' this is peace with teeth.'At that time there were many who did not see or understand the deep wisdomand truth of that saying; there were others who refused to see. Times haveindeed changed, and I imagine there are few people in this country now who donot realize that we must look to our ' teeth' if we are to maintain a peaceworth having. In these days of power politics, naked and unashamed, the fateof the impotent is tragic indeed, as we have seen within the past few months.That is the problem that faces us. It is an immediate problem because of currentinternational affairs; it is also a long- term problem, since it is clear that powerpolitics are with us for some time. "Not an easy problem. 'Power' isnot merely so many armed forces and so much military equipment. Real power is a composite of moral and material fac-tors, of economic and military strength. Excessive military expenditure mightwell lead to economic weakness, which itself would result in losing the peace.That is one delicate balance that has to be reached. Then in the military expen-diture itself another difficult balance has to be reached—between the expenditureon preparations for defence against war on land, at sea, or in tho air respec-tively. A few moments ago I expressed my dislike of indulging in prophecy butsome gazing into the future is essential— our defences must be organized for thepresent and for the future, not for the last war but one. Though we must haveone foot firmly placed in the present, the other must be reaching forward to thefuture. "Priorities" _; " You will remember that in a state-ment on defence a year ago in the House the Minister of Defence gave an orderof priority: first, research and develop- ment; secondly, air defence, including astrong air striking force; thirdly, defence of sea communications. You may havenoticed in the White Paper on defence which was issued later, the word pri-ority had disappeared. The use of the word priority was open to misconstruc-tion, it is often taken to be exclusive, which in this context would be absurd.There must be a balance between the allocations of manpower and materialof the land, sea and air forces respec- tively, priority being given to certainaspects of defence in the form of empha- sis. That balance depends on correct assessment of the lessons of World WarII, coupled with appropriate adjustments to meet the clearly foreseeable future.Now, more than ever before, the armed forces of the country must be approxi-mately of a size and composition which has public support and is in generalaccord with public ideas as to what is necessary. If the public were to acceptthe advice of some military writers who still write of World War II in terms of1917-1918 I should be worried; I sus- pect, however, that the British public,with that uncanny and unerring instinct of its own, has formed its own shrewdjudgment, and that that judgment will not be far wrong. "I think there are few people nowa-days who would challenge the view that the R.A.F., supported by the A.A. guns,is now very literally your first line of defence. Attack from the air is not onlythe most dangerous threat to which we would be exposed in the event of war,it could be most sudden and could develop to a dangerous scale mostquickly. Air defence must therefore come first. There is, however, one aspectof the structure of air defence which I have sometimes in the past found to bemisunderstood, even in high official circles. I have met the view that airdefence in the air is carried out solely by fighters; I have even heard theopinion expressed that fighters are the only aircraft needed for air defence.Both these views are, of course, demon- strably false. It was Bomber Commandthat delayed the V weapons attack for many months, greatly reduced the scaleof fhe attack both before and after it A 14
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