FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1949
1949 - 0436.PDF
278 FLIGHT MARCH IOTH, 1949 STRENGTH OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE Debate in House of Lords Reveals Great Uneasiness : Government Reply Unsatisfactory THE lact that there was to be adebate on defence "in anotherplace" the next day, and one onthe Air Estimates shortly, was used by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Hender- son, as an excuse for not telling the House of Lords anything about the R.A.F. in the debate held on March 2nd. VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD (formerly Sir Samuel Hoare) moved a resolution " That this House presses upon His Majesty's Government the urgency of strengthening the Royal Air Force in the interests of Home Defence, Western Union, and Atlantic security." Lord Henderson did little except utter the usual platitudes about the Government agreeing, being fully aware, etc. The defence strategy of the Western Powers was criticized by Viscount Templewood as a modern Maginot Line out of keeping with all the dominating lessons left by the war. He quoted General Eisenhower's dictum that "the decision of a future conflict would be determined by our ability to act and react in the first sixty days." He then turned to the subject of secrecy. In many years' association with Defence Departments, he remembered no Govern- ment as secretive as this. They had not followed the previous practice of taking the leader of the Opposition into their confidence. All they had had was a series of White Papers; he had never seen such White Papers—they were so white that there was not a spot of red blood nor an inch of bone in any of them. When he was Secretary of State for Air he never failed to put before the country the programme and the number of squadrons existing and proposed. The present secretiveness, plus statements by the Air Minister that standards of morale in the R.A.F. are not entirely satisfac- tory at present, was having the worst possible effect on the work of rebuilding the R.A.F. They did not ask for cer- tain technical details, but they did ask tnat the public should be told what is our Air Force programme, how it is go- ing to be carried out this year, and how long it will take to complete. Recruitment If voluntary recruitment was to suc- ceed, the public must know enough to realize the urgency of the problem. The dominant Air Force in the world was the American, and if anyone had the need to conceal its strength it was America. But America had not done so. The result was that whilst in this country there was secretiveness and bad recruiting, in America there was pub- licity and good recruiting. The number of voluntary recruits had been so great that standards had to be raised and num- bers restricted. Basic pay was high, extra pay was given for hazardous ser- vice, insurance, premiums were reduced, and pay allowances were exempt from taxation. In this country we would have to reconsider this question of pay. In a debate last November the num- ber of squadrons needed had been sug- gested by him and by ¥iscount Tren- chard. Viscount Templewood now thought that we should have a pro- gramme comprising 180 squadrons to represent the British Commonwealth. If it were clear to the world that we had this great Force, he said, Western Europe would breathe a sigh of relief. VISCOUNT TRENCHARD agreed with every word Lord Templewood had said. He begged the Minister to think over the question of secrecy and to resume pub- lication of the Air Force List. We should never get young men to join the R.A.F. until they knew the Government was determined to have such a Force for the defence of the country as would do its job. He thought there was nothing wrong with the morale of the R.A.F., and it was the privilege of the Service to grumble. Economy On the subject of economizing, Lord Trenchard said there should be one Air Force. Was the Fleet, he-asked, as vital to-day against an enemy that is not a naval Power in any sense of the word? In connection with National Service Lord Trenchard said nothing under three years was any good. For the regulars he thought there should be varying lengths of service. Service pay should be increased. If they wanted the right man in the R.A.F. they must pay more than in the other Services. Mechanics were highly skilled and should be more highly paid. Any mistake made by a mechanic, whether in peace or war, was lethal. That re- sponsibility alone justified greater pay. Turning to the question of equipment, Lord Trenchard said that while he hoped they were pressing on with the produc- tion of jet machines, he urged that they should keep in production a steady flow of Lincolns and Lancasters. Disaster lay ahead if we did not build up and maintain a Bomber Force more powerful than was the one we had at the begin- ning of the last war. VISCOUNT PORTAL OF HUN-GERFORD stressed the deterrent effect of air power. He agreed it could defeat the movement of great armies, but only in cases where land forces were also engaged in the opposition and able to profit by air supremacy on their side. He agreed that we should give the R.A.F. better pay and conditions and then, at one stroke, we should remove the whole of the re- cruiting problem. He pleaded for " pre- fabs " or something of that sort to be given to the Air Ministry and erected very quickly. That would attract many good and experienced N.C.O.s to re- enlisting. He suggested the Navy should let the Air Ministry do its shore training and housekeeping, and thought in the future the Admiralty would be far too busy with other matters to be bothered with anything so out of date as aircraft carriers. LORD VANSITTART said Stalin is con- templating war just as clearly as Hitler did. Hitler could have been stopped, and so can Stalin. A powerful Air Force was the cheapest and easiest way of doing it. VISCOUNT SWINTON partly agreed on overdoing secrecy regarding first-line strength, although he would not divulge the strength of reserves. Before the German war we were right in concen- trating on fighters, but to-day th« emphasis was different. The first line of defence was attack, and that meant an adequate bomber force ready for immediate action. We had the lead, in quality, in bombers and fighters before the war. He was sure it was not the fault of the designers and constructors 'if we did not still possess that lead. He asked the Government '' Have we now a two-seater jet night-fighter? If not, when shall we have one? " Referring to the Statement on Defence he asked for a clear statement as to whether our shadow factories are in being, with their tools and plant on a care and mainten- ance basis, ready to function. In the absence of figures relating to strength in aircraft, it was difficult to assess the waste of manpower, but he thought the proportion of aircraft to numbers of personnel was bad compared with 1939 (100,000 men, 2,400 first-line aircraft). LORD GIFFORD suggested not enough was being done to encourage recruiting from the Commonwealth. As the only naval officer to speak that day, he won- dered how far Lord Portal wanted to go. If he meant that preliminary training of the Royal Naval Air Service might be: combined with that of the R.A.F., no- body would quarrel with him, but he would like to ask whether he thought his brother, Vice-Admiral Portal would agree to handing over Lee-on-Solent and all 'his naval air stations to the R.A.F. Quality THE EARL OF SELKIRK emphasized the importance of quality. '' There is no- thing," he said, "of greater importance in the Air Force than the quality of the personnel. If you lose quality you might just as well shut down the Air Force altogether. "The present trouble appeared to be that those men who had provided the quality had found more advantageous careers outside the R.A.F. He did not want to present pay and conditions simply as an attraction, but it was essen- tial that they should not be a positive deterrent. He also had something to say about security. When A.F.C.s were awarded for the Berlin Air Lift, no mention was made of the units to which the men be- longed. Had the identity of squadrons become a matter of security? It was impossible for a man to be proud of an organization whose identity could not be revealed. He wanted to know if the knowledge obtained by research was be- ing applied, and quoted the statement in the Finletter report that '' a second-best Air Force is almost as bad as. none at all." LORD HENDERSON, Parliamentary !! IO
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
