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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0563.PDF
FLIGHT, 23 March 1951 THE NAVY ESTIMATES 347 Naval Aviation Matters Discussed in the Commons: Statement and Debate OPENING last week's Debate on the Navy Estimates,1951-52, the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary tothe Admiralty, Mr. James Callaghan, said the net cost of the Navy this year was £278,000,000. This compared with a sum of £193,000,000 for which the House was asked on the previous occasion. There would be a further estimate later in order to support the programme laid before the House by the Prime Minister on January 29th. After discussing expenditure, Mr. Callaghan said of the navalrearmament programme that by late next year as much as 30 per cent of the labour force in the shipbuilding and ship-repairingindustry ought to be engaged upon the work of the Navy. He then turned to the work of the Service during the year, referringin particular to affairs in the Far East. When the Korean trouble started, he said, the Far Eastern Fleet was a thousand miles fromits base and doing a summer cruise. Within three days it was on station, and within six days it was engaged in operations andhad sunk half a dozen North Korean E-boats. Within eight days sorties were being flown from H.M.S. Triumph, the lightfleet carrier attached to the Fleet. A really outstanding feature of the naval side of the operationshad been the work of H.M.S. Theseus. The ship's company had worked in such a way that no aircraft had ever been unserviceablefor longer than two hours, and they had had the remarkable and unprecedented record of 1,300 deck-landings without a failureand without an accident. When an accident had at last come, it was a minor one in very rough weather. Mr. Callaghan alsoreferred to the forced landing in a damaged aircraft made by Lt. Leonard, R.N., of H.M.S. Theseus, and to his rescue from behindenemy lines by a United States helicopter. He felt sure the House would wish to express their appreciation of this fine example ofco-operation between two nations. Technical needs of the Navy was another subject to be dis-cussed. In answer to a question put by Mr. Callaghan to the Controller of the Navy, he had been told that whereas a televisionset had about 20 electronic valves in it, the latest piece of naval equipment for anti-aircraft purposes had 2,000 valves, 25,000 othercomponents, and needed 20,000 drawings in order to produce it. Regarding new ships, Mr. Callaghan said that the Eagle, thelatest and biggest aircraft carrier, was at the moment undergoing her sea trials. Work was being pushed ahead also with the ArkRoyal and with the four Hermes-class light fleet carriers. These four carriers would be able to operate the latest aircraft existingor being developed. When the new three years' programme was completed, the Navy would possess altogether 232 new ships. Turning specifically to the question of Naval Aviation, Mr.Callaghan said that at our war-time peak we had 11 fleet and light fleet carriers and to-day we had 12, an increase of one. As he hadstated earlier, there would be some additions to this number under the rearmament programme—the Eagle, the Ark Royaland four Hermes carriers—so that we should then have a total of 18 carriers, plus three in the Commonwealth navies, making 21 inall. That compared with the 11 which we had during the peak of the war. He thought it was a substantial addition to NavalAviation, and it was a development which he certainly regarded as being in the right direction. We were up against great problemswith the heavier and faster aircraft which we were now getting. They threw a greater strain on the arrester gear on the deck andalso created a problem about the height of the hangars. This Would involve a process of modernization and conversion to someof our existing carriers. He thought that during the 'thirties and early 'forties the Navysuffered from the fact that so many of its aircraft were adaptations of machines from the Royal Air Force. What were good aircraftfor the R.A.F. did not necessarily meet the requirements of the Navy. He should like to tell the House that we had comingalong now a series of tailor-made planes for the Navy—aircraft which could search and strike and fight. The Sea Hawk jetfighter would be coming into use during the financial year about which he was now speaking and it had a performance which hebelieved would rival that of any landplane. In addition, there was the Wyvern, which was coming into use this year—a turbo-prop strike aircraft. Very great importance attached also to the G-R. 17, an anti-submarine type which had been specially designedfor carriers. It was a three-seater and, he believed, would be found capable of doing really important work in its field whichtad not been done before. Meantime, we had the Attacker which would be coming intooperation this year. That was really an interim machine—what we really wanted to rely upon, said Mr. Callaghan, was the SeaHawk—and also the Fairey Firefly. One other type he had for- gotten to mention was the Venom, which was a night fighter foroperation from carriers, and that would be coming into operation at the end of 1952. There were also newer types at present onthe drawing-board. Helicopters were engaging the Navy's attention in quite apractical way. Hon. Members might have seen some photo- graphs of the experiments in flying helicopters off the deck of theFort Duquesne, a Fleet auxiliary vessel, and it was hoped that helicopters, together with the G.R. 17s, would be able to makegreat use of the sonobuoy, to which reference had been made in one or two debates in the past. Sonobuoys, with whichexperience was steadily being gained, were dropped either from an ordinary aircraft or from a helicopter; they could be droppedat different places, and used for listening to submarines which could not be seen. They relayed what they heard to the helicopteror to the ordinary aircraft, and in that way the sonobuoy was a very useful and very formidable means of defence for any convoycoming behind. It would enable us to improve and develop our methods of dealing with submarines. There was at the moment a shortage of naval pilots. This was,he thought, due to the lack, in the past, of the aircraft that we should have liked to have had, and it was now hoped that, as aresult of the new aircraft that were coming along, pilots would be forthcoming in much larger numbers. On this question of pilots, Mr. Callaghan emphasized that aboy coming into the Navy now as a pilot came in as an executive officer in the Royal Navy. It was a career and the rates of payand conditions were good. The rate of pay for a married lieutenant on full flying duties, and aged 25, was about £985 a year. Inaddition, a ration allowance was made for anyone living away from an air station. National Service boys would be welcomed, tooand the Navy was prepared to give a number of commissions to National Service boys who were ready to fly. THE DEBATE In answer to a question from SURGEON LT. CDR. BENNETT regardingorders for Fireflies of a late mark, Mr. Callaghan said that the new mark was a three-seater that would do the anti-submarine job exceedinglywell until the G.R. 17s were produced in large numbers. It was an interim machine, but had quite a long life in front of it. MR. J. P. L. THOMAS said that it was obvious that, in future opera-tions, Naval Aviation would have to play an increasingly prominent role not only in defence of the fleet and of convoys against air attack,but in offence against submarines. For these reasons, it was all the more disturbing to read about the serious shortage of officers for flyingduties. He was glad that the aircraft that they flew now could compete on equal terms with anything that the R.A.F. could produce. Mr.Thomas went on to discuss matters affecting pilot recruitment—married quarters, the prospects of a flying job in civilian life, the formation ofan aircrew reserve for the Navy. Later, he said that the larger our Continental contribution became,the more powerfully it was equipped in mechanization and with tanks, the heavier our bombers became, and the faster our fighters flew, sotheir dependence on the Royal Navy for the safe conduct of fuel and supplies increased.As was the case during the debate on the Air Force Estimates, members expressed fears on the question of co-operation (and recognition offriendly ships and aircraft) between the Navy and the Royal Air Force. MR. J. P. W. MALLALIEU thought that it was pretty clear, whether weliked it or not, that the safety of the realm in the future would chiefly depend oa the R.A.F., which seemed to be taking the senior place. Hewas quite certain that this, which was an inescapable fact, would be deeply resented by some people in the Navy who looked upon theR.A.F. as an organization for cultivating moustaches. It was very important that in any future war the R.A.F. should be able to distinguishbetween a ship that was friendly and one that was not. SURGEON LT. CDR. BENNETT contributed several ideas and well-considered arguments on the subject of the contribution which aircraft could make. He said that the future of the Navy was bound up morethan merely partially with the use of air power to combat submarines. He quoted past records of submarine sinkings.He referred at considerable length to an article, "Tasks of Naval Aviation," written by the Director of Air Warfare of the Admiralty.He felt that almost every word of the article seemed entirely related to the ideas of 1938. Whatever the aircraft might be, it was, thought Cdr.Bennett, the semi-official estimate of the Admiralty that only within 400 miles of terra firma could it be expected to carry out the lion's share,if not the main task of patrol against submarines. He could hardly believe that this was so in these days. The Catalina, he believed, had a Concluded at foot of page 349)
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