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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 2075.PDF
DECEMBER 9TH, 1948 FLIGHT 679 MANNING THE RAF/ Better Pay, Accommodation and, Above All, Discipline, the Key to the Solution nd J IN Parliament and throughout tRe country there is arising anxiety as to the circumstances in which theR.A.F., only a few years ago the most popular of the three Services, now finds itself short of trained men and recruits. At the end of the war the prestige of the Royal Air Force was immensely high. Throughout the whole world the Service was regarded as efficient, gallant, and - the biggest single factor in the winning of the war. In France in particular, in spite of the heavy blows which the R.A.F. had dealt their cities, French men and women were almost lyrical in their praises of, and sentimental in their affection for, "la Raf." To-day we see a Service undermanned, and with air- craft many of which, for want of proper maintenance, are falling into innocuous desuetude—to use a Kipling phrase. How has this come about ? Here let me say that I am voicing my own opinions, which to-day have no official sanction, and which are entirely my own business. But I must, of course, draw on my past experience to deduce the lessons which that experience should teach. When, in 1943, I became an Inspector - General of the R.A.F., it was my duty ex- tensively to visit the R.A.F. Stations and to report to the C.A.S. on the state of their discipline and morale. On the whole the situation was good. The scare which had resulted in my mission was largely unfounded, but cer- tain things did emerge, and one more than any other: This was the immense effect upon a Station of the Station Commander's character, probity, enthusiasm and sense of discipline. The moment I arrived on a Station and had a look round I knew what I was going to find. If the Station was clean the airmen smart and contented, and the transport in good order, then I knew that I should find a Station Commander of high calibre. Where, in my investigations, I found conduct sheets filled with entries of minor crime, and where the behaviour of the W.A.A.F. left something to be desired, it was a foregone conclu- sion that the Station Commander was not up to his job. Royal Air Force discipline has gone through some strange phases. In the old R.F.C. the discipline was of the Guards Brigade order. Our first Ad- jutant, Lt. Barrington-Kennet, came from the Grenadiers, and there were several other officers of the same type. In addition, the Royal Engineers, from whom a large proportion of our men were drawn, have a great tradi- tion, and discipline is one of their strong points. In the result, the T ORE) DOUGLAS OF KIRTLESIDE •LJ said not long ago that the R.A.F. is in danger of " dying on its feet.'' We have asked Sir Philip Joubert to give our readers his views and the benefit of his long and distinguished Service career. He transferred from the Army to the Royal Flying Corps in 1913, and among the many posts he has held in the R.A.F. are Deputy- Director of Personnel, Instructor at Imperial Defence College, Commandant R.A.F. Staff College, C.-in-C. Coastal Command, In- spector-General II of the R.A.F., and Deputy-Chief of Staff. Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Joubert. By : AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR PHILIP JOUBERT, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., R.A.F. (Retired) ... effect upon a Station of the StationCommander's character, probity, en- thusiasm and sense of discipline. In three years this new Pay Code hasbeen found quite inadequate to meet the needs of officers and men. To put it quite bluntly the Air Ministry failed in their attempt to establish a strong nucleus o' trained regular airmen.... Broadly speaHng there are 8,000married quarters and some 40,000 families entitled to live in them. What we want is more and not less discipline . . • administered by offi- cers and n.c.o.s trained properly in the art of man management.... ' At no time since the war broke out have I noticed a serious effort to train officers properly to look after their men. small party that went to France in 1914, some 100 officers and just over 1,000 men, were disciplined and loyal. During the 1914-18 war that small body was to be increased to 33,000 officers and 300,000 men, mostly drawn from civil life, or with only a veneer of Army training. Consequently the discipline deteriorated very badly m the last years of the war. It took the R.A.F.—the "heir to the R.F.C.—till the late twenties to get rid of the effects of this tremendous dilution. By the middle thirties the Service was once more disciplined, efficient and contented. The R.A.F. was sufficiently popular to enable us to pick and choose our recruits. Lord Trenchard's ———— careful planning had produced a valuable nucleus of long- service men, and the rates of pay and the amount of accom- modation available for married families were not open to serious criticism. By 1934 the Service consisted of some 3,000 officers and 30,000 men. Towards the end of 1944 this had increased to appreciably over a million officers and men. Once again, the effect of a tremendous dilution was to be felt, and towards the end of the war the standard of discipline, and of general efficiency, had markedly deteriorated. Even in 1943, as I knew from my per- sonal observation, this rotting process had started. I have said that Lord Trenchard's planning had pro- duced a nucleus of long-service men of real value. When the war broke out, recruitment for long service was stopped. In nine years the natural run-off of that nucleus has re- duced it to a fraction, and it is only just beginning to be replaced by some men who have re- engaged for further service, and by boys coming out from Halton. Of the war emergency men there is this to be said: A big proportion of them were highly skilled men who had done a long apprenticeship and a number of years in industry. They gave of their best during the time they were with the Service, but they were not very tolerant of dis- cipline, and they were very much inclined to think in terms of factory hours and factory B IT
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