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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 0437.PDF
MARCH IOTH, 1949 FLIGHT 279 Under-Sec retary of State for Foreign Affairs, replied for the Government. He Spoke for 35 minutes and said nothing whatever worth saying, except that the. Government agreed with Lord Temple-' wood's Motion and was fully alive to the need for, and actively engaged in, deve- loping and strengthening the Royal Air Force. The Government still thought it unwise to give information which would be of value to an ill-wisher. VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD congratulated the Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Arthur Henderson) upon having so loyal, so efficient and so pleasant a brother (Lord Henderson). He did not think he had ever heard '' No'' said at such great length or so pleasantly. They understood there was to be a Defence Debate in another place the next day, and presum- ably there would be a debate on the Air Estimates next week or the week after. They must therefore reluctantly re- tain their anxiety till then, but he gave warning that they would look for much more specific answers than they had had. He had two or three comments to make on what Lord Henderson had said. He had stated that we were spending £34 million more thij year on the Air Force, but until further details were made known it was impossible to say whether this was a sign of grace or merely an ex- ample of. extravagance. ifVhat they did see was a huge number of men and women in the Service, and a further army of civilians, but they could not tell whether this great army, much greater than anything contemplated in the past, Was being properly and ecpnomically em- ployed. If they knew the number of bomber, fighter and transport squadrons, they would have some test of this huge expenditure of men and money. Secrecy On the subject of_ secrecy, Lord Templewood said Lord Henderson had told them the Government would not give information so long as other coun- tries did not give it. Did anyone imagine that Russia was ever going to publish information about anything? It meant, therefore, that this country would never have any information of that kind. " I very much hope," Lord Templewood said, "That the noble Lord will point out again to his brother—with all the force that comes from one brother to another—that unless the country is given more information we shall never stimu- late the. stj^it of recruiting; we shall never, get WK air sense stimulated in the people; arfft we shall never be able to get the Air Force into the same position as that which the Navy occupied half a century ago." As to pay and allowances, Lord Templewood said the efficacy must be judged not by general principles, nor by selection of figures from this or that document, but by the actual results in providing enough skilled men for a very technical service. He looked at such sin- ister facts as the fact that Cranwell to- day, for the first time in the history of the Air "Force, was only two-thirds full. He looked on the further fact that, on the admission of Lord Henderson him- self, Halton was only half full. That made him think there was something wrong with the conditions in the Air Force, and that the right men and boys were not being attracted in sufficient numbers. His friends and he would await results, and then hope to resume the discussion. DEFENCE DEBATE Doubts Expressed Concerning Any Real Policy : Are Huge Sums Being Frittered Away? THE debate on Defence whichoccupied the House of Commonson March 3rd cannot be said tohave achieved any very notable results. Mr. A, V. Alexander, Minister of De-fence, made a speech lasting more than an hour, but added very little to theinformation given in the Statement on Defence published recently (Flight,February 24th). He emphasized that the larger portion of expenditure on researchand development is devoted to new types of aircraft. MR. OLIVER STANLEY complained thatafter hearing Mr. Alexander's speech he knew little more than he did after read-ing the White Paper, just as he knew practically nothing more after he hadread that paper than he did before he ever looked at it. He found no indica-tion as to what was the real state of the defences for which we were payingso highly. What began as defence against a potential enemy might quitewell end as defence against a potential critic. The question they were all askingwas: was there a plan behind all this, and if so, how were we getting on withit? There was no mention of bombers in the White Paper, and when taken in con-junction with the reports on the air exer- cise before Christmas, this cause'd doubtas to whether we had an adequate striking force. Mr. Stanley doubted that the Ministryof Defence was really working as it was intended to work. Under the old system,each Service put up its Estimate separ- ately. The new way was to be throughthe Ministry of Defence, with a co-ordin- ated coherent plan for the Services as awhole. It seemed the old way was still being followed. MR. FRANK BYERS thought the infor-mation given the House was far less than that which potential enemies musthave in their possession. He referred to the manpower figures, which were am-biguous and misleading, and pointed out Lhat in the R.A.F. 35 per cent or morewill be National Service youths of under R 11 20. This was a direct result of conscrip-tion and of relying on the National Ser- vice principle. MR. A. R. W. LOW complained thatthe Minister of Defence was still wedded to the long-term policy, which was men-tioned first in the White Paper. The impression was that the long-termfeatures of defence still had priority over the short-term features. MR. E. A. A. SHACKLETON did notthink that giving the number or estab- lishment of squadrons in the Air Forcewould help in assessing the efficiency of our defences. Availability, service-ability and other matters were the real test. " MR. A. CRAWLEY thought there waslittle doubt that the Russians had 400 first-line modern bombers, not jetbombers but so fast that only jet fighters could put up a defence against them.We could not afford both fighters and bombers, and he thought we ought toconcentrate on fighters, above all jet- propelled night fighters. Our two day-fighter types were the best, but we did not have them in adequate numbers.He made the statement that we were developiag as many prototype jetbombers as prototype jet fighters. He even suggested that consideration shouldbe given to America using our fighter types. The American types were fasterbut did not climb fast enough, and could not be used in this country because ourrunways were not long enough. In bombers, too, we should co-ordinateour efforts. If Bomber Command used American bombers, fitted with Britishjets experimentally, it would make more sense than if we competed with oneanother. He thought the Government was thinking along these lines, but didnot believe they were taking action ener- getically enough and fast enough. BRIGADIER PRIOR-PALMER agreed withthis view, except for the light and medium bomber classes, which would berequired for use over battlefields, and which types of aircraft we were emin- ently suited to produce in this country. MR. RONALD CHAMBERLAIN did notexpect information about technical de- tails, but he regretted the needlessobscurity as to an overall plan and the general direction of defence. BRIGADIER A. H. HEAD said they werebeing asked to give the Minister of De- fence £750 million and 1,500,000 men.With that much money and those men, why had there been produced so littlethat could fight? The White Paper was a series of disconnected statements witha lot of ad hoc measures for each of the three Services. The House did want toknow that there was a plan. MR. KEELING referred to the statementby Lord Henderson last November, in which was recognised the dominant im-portance of air power. The Minister of Defence had not repeated that statementin his White Paper, nor did the White Paper show any sign that it was goingto be translated into action. He asserted that as Western co-operation grew, sodid the case for increasing British air power. It would encourage our Euro-pean allies and it would reassure France. Russia had almost inexhaustible suppliesof men, which she did not hesitate to use prodigally. The only way we couldnullify that advantage was by air power. A strong bomber force, instantly readyto attack enemy bases, war industries and rocket sites was alike the strongestdeterrent to an aggressor and the best hope of victory if war came. THE PRIME MINISTER did little to allaythe fears of the critics. To Mr. Keeling he replied that the absence of any referenceto the priority of the Air Force in the White Paper did not indicate any changein the emphasis placed on the import- ance of the Air Force. On the question of secretiveness, Mr.Attlee repeated the claim that before the last war the Germans benefited verymuch from excessive information. There was danger there, and if incomplete in-- formation was given to the House, it was likely to have a misleading effect.
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