Debate on the Address.

Part of Orders of the Day — King's Speech. – in the House of Commons at on 10 November 1936.

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Vice-Admiral TAYLOR:

I propose to deal with the subject of the Naval Air Arm, which has already been referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Sir R. Keyes), because I feel, in reference to the Government's rearmament scheme, that there is no subject to which they could devote themselves, with greater advantage to Imperial defence generally, than the creation of a Fleet Air Arm which would be both efficient and sufficient for the duties which it will be called upon to perform in time of war. At the outset I should like to say, categorically, that no well-informed man can deny that if efficiency in the Naval Air Arm is to be achieved, it must be an integral part of the Fleet, and, further, it must be completely under the control of the Admiralty. I should like—and I make no apology for doing so—to go somewhat into the detail of events leading up to the amalgamation and the results which have accrued from practical experience in the working of the scheme.

It is well known that during the War there was serious cut-throat competition between the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps over the supply of materials, and also in matters of design and personnel—but particularly in regard to material. This question was practically settled by the Cowdray Board. The real reason for the formation of the Royal Air Force and the amalgamation of the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps was that it was necessary to have an organisation to counteract the air raids on this country, particularly on London. The Air Board, having once been formed, became the centre of interest in air matters, and out of that board grew the Air Ministry, to become the Air Ministry as it is to-day. The Smuts Committee of 1917 was really responsible for the creation of a separate Air Ministry, and it is important to remember that the specific purpose of its creation was to counteract the air raids on this country. The amalgamation was, in point of fact, a political matter, and I suggest that the real requirements of the Navy in respect of the Fleet Air Arm were sacrificed to considerations of the necessity for dealing, during the War, with the air raids on the country.

Since the creation of the Royal Air Force there is not a shadow of doubt that successive Boards of the Admiralty and Commanders-in-Chief of the Fleets have been profoundly dissatisfied with this dual system, and have not ceased in their endeavours to regain control of their own air arm, but so far without success. At the time the amalgamation took place—my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North, has already referred to it, but I repeat it—there was under the complete control of the Admiralty no less a force than 2,800 air machines of all kinds, with a personnel of 55,000, and from 40 to 60 aerodromes scattered about the coast—no mean force. What has the Fleet Air Arm got to-day? It has 217 sea-borne aircraft—not one more, and that number includes the aircraft provided for in the 1936 programme. The few squadrons which it is possible to create with this limited material have to be confined absolutely to Fleet work, nothing outside it for the defence of trade in the approaches to the narrow channels or on the high seas. There are aircraft, a, totally inadequate number, under the Air Ministry for dealing with that aspect of the matter, but though they are working in co-operation with Naval units not a single man of the naval personnel is in those flying boats, not one; they are all manned by Royal Air Force personnel. What do they know about the work from the Naval point of view? I regard that as a deplorable state of affairs.

I should like to deal with the matter of material under this dual system. One of the advantages always claimed for the amalgamation was that it would do away with cut-throat competition, accelerate the delivery of aircraft and increase efficiency generally. That is what was confidently hoped, but the practical results have shown that the Admiralty have not always received what they required from the Air Ministry and that the delivery of the machines has always been deplorably slow. That is an indisputable fact. In short, things have been the exact reverse of what had been expected. The Air Ministry have endeavoured to work on the principle of standardising types of machines, and I do not say that is wrong, but instead of building machines specially to Admiralty requirements they have, in cases, taken one of their standardised machines, altered it, added something here, and taken away something there, and thus created a hotch-potch machine in their endeavours to meet the requirements of the Admiralty.

The natural and inevitable result of that procedure has been that the Naval Air Arm has received machines with a decreased efficiency and a sacrifice of performance, and they have not come up to the standard of requirement of the Admiralty. The Fleet Air Arm and the Navy in general have had to be satisfied with machines which were of a lower type than the requirements laid down. No hon. Member could consider that position satisfactory. I understand that the deplorable practice of taking a standardised machine and altering it has now been largely rectified, and that types of machines are being specially built to meet Admiralty requirements, but it has taken the Ministry longer to deliver some of these specially made machines than it takes the Admiralty to have a battleship designed and built—some seven years. That is hardly a satisfactory state of affairs.

This shows the difficulty which the Admiralty have experienced in the past, in obtaining what it requires in time of peace. In war time, however, there will be the additional and very real danger of the Fleet being deprived of its Air Arm because there happens to exist a temporary crisis elsewhere; important operations may have taken place on shore where there has been great wastage and destruction of planes and pilots, from the personnel of the Royal Air Force. To justify that suggestion I would remind hon. Members that the Fleet Air Arm is regarded officially as an integral part of the Royal Air Force, and was so alluded to by the Prime Minister some two years ago. That was a most serious statement for the Prime Minister to make. If the Fleet Air Arm is anything it is an integral part of the Fleet, and unless the efficiency of the Fleet is to be sacrificed,materiel and personnel cannot be removed from it, whatever the cause may be. The Navy might just as well be called upon to surrender the guns of the Fleet because there is a shortage of guns on shore.

This danger to the Fleet Air Arm, a very real danger, of being crippled in war time because materiel and personnel upon which it relies have been diverted from Naval use to meet an urgent crisis elsewhere, applies with equal or even greater force to the supply of care and maintenance artificers for the machines. Most of them are Royal Air Force ratings and are not Naval ratings. It should be possible for hon. Members to visualise a situation of great wastage ashore in which the Royal Air Force would be forced to refuse to comply with the demands of the Admiralty, with regard to the care and maintenance artificers.

So far as materiel is concerned, this amalgamation and dual system of control have proved disastrous to the Fleet Air Arm, and I submit that it will inevitably break down and become impossible in time of war. As regards personnel, whatever the argument may have been in 1918 for the amalgamation of these two flying services, the existing system, whereby all naval officers who fly have a dual commission and hold two ranks, one in His Majesty's Navy and one in the Royal Air Force, being at one time under naval discipline and at another time under Air Force discipline—being, in fact, asked to serve two masters—is a most unsatisfactory compromise. That is the position, and I unhesitatingly say that even a naval officer, who, in most circumstances, can come up to the scratch, is unable to satisfy and efficiently serve two masters.

So unsatisfactory has this question of personnel proved to be in practice, that the Admiralty have great difficulty in obtaining sufficient naval officers to volunteer as pilots. There is a shortage of naval officer pilots to-day, and the shortage is increasing. So far as I can see, the shortage will continue to pile up, notwithstanding the fact that flying in all its forms has a particular attraction for the young man of to-day. Seventy per cent. of the pilots of the Fleet Air Arm are naval officers, and they ought to regard that branch of the Service as offering great promise for their future in their own Service; but it does not do so. Flying officers in the Fleet Air Arm, belonging to the Navy, are not satisfied that their chances of promotion are as good as those of their brother officers in other specialised branches of the Navy.

Suppose that a naval officer joins the Fleet Air Arm and is not promoted in the Royal Air Force. His flying career will soon come to an end, and his failure to get promoted, quite possibly due to no fault of his own but due to the intense competition in the Royal Air Force, will not, I submit, add to his chances of promotion in the Royal Navy. There is not a shadow of doubt that the Fleet Air Arm is very unpopular, under the existing system, among the officers of His Majesty's Navy. That is a deplorable condition of affairs, but it is true. The remaining 30 per cent. of the pilots are Royal Air Force officers, and they, not unnaturally, regard service in the Fleet Air Arm as a sort of side-show. It is not at all popular with them; that also is an undeniable fact. Therefore, so far as officer pilots are concerned, we have the unpopularity of the existing system among both the officers of the Navy and of the Royal Air Force. Can any hon. Member agree that that is a condition of affairs which should be allowed to continue?

The Balfour Declaration is understood to have guaranteed to the Admiralty that. all the Royal Air Force officers detailed for work with the Fleet Air Arm would spend four years with the Fleet, but, as a matter of fact, they seldom spend more than two. I believe it is a fact that the Admiralty consider that it takes four years for Royal Air Force officers to make themselves efficient in Naval work. They have then reached the point at which they are of real service to the Fleet which has trained them. What unfortunately happens is that, at the end of two years, which is half the amount of training laid down for the Royal Air Force officer, they may be despatched to any part of the world. They are taken away from the Fleet Air Arm and sent anywhere over the world. They are lost to the Navy; they are lost to the Fleet Air Arm; they are not there in an emergency, and there is not a shadow of doubt that they would not be sent back again to the Fleet Air Arm if war broke out. What a waste of effort; what a waste of time; what a waste of efficiency, in all of which the Navy suffers.

With regard to this matter of pilots, I wish to refer to a question which has already been referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth. Up to the present time the Air Ministry has absolutely declined to allow naval petty officers to qualify as pilots, and yet the Air Ministry does not hesitate to send non-commissioned officers to pilot naval machines in naval aircraft carriers. That is an astonishing position. As a naval officer, I consider that it is a direct insult to that magnificent body of men, the naval petty officers. The naval petty officer is a man who has proved himself to be above the average. He is a man who is efficient from a seamanlike point of view, a man who can take charge, who has initiative. He has to pass a high educational standard before he can be promoted to petty officer, and I have yet to learn that the naval petty officers are in any way inferior to any non-commissioned officer. That, however, is the position. I can only say, as a naval officer, that it disgusts me to think that the Air Ministry has adopted that attitude. There is not a shadow of doubt that under Admiralty control they would welcome naval petty officers qualifying as pilots for their machines. They would be satisfied that they would be efficient, and, apart from that efficiency, these naval officer pilots, unlike the Royal Air Force officers, who are sent away from the Fleet Air Arm, would always be there if they were required. I think that the case for the Navy to have 100 per cent. of the pilots in the Fleet Air Arm naval is unanswerable.

I would like now to deal with the operational side. I am sorry I am taking so long, but I feel very keenly on this matter, and it is most important. One of the principal objects of our Imperial defence is the safeguarding of our trade routes; in other words, the security of our shipping in the narrow and on the high seas from enemy attack. Up to the advent of the Air Arm, this duty had to be entirely carried out, of course, by His Majesty's Navy. Now, with the coming of the Air Arm, it will work in co-operation with the ships of the Navy, and will be most effective in doing so. But, although this is a naval matter, the responsibility for ensuring that there are sufficient aircraft of the proper type for this specific purpose lies entirely with the Air Ministry. The protection of trade routes and merchant shipping by utilising the Air Arm is not the function of the Fleet Air Arm as at present constituted; it is vested in the Air Ministry so far as every type of shore-based aircraft is concerned. It is an Air Ministry responsibility; and, in addition, no practical measures are in being for their efficient operational control.

I would remind the House, in connection with these shore-based aircraft, that there are no naval ratings whatever in the flying boats; they are all Royal Air Force ratings. Nor has the Admiralty any authority whatever as to the manner in which the Roal Air Force personnel working in flying boats in conjunction with the Navy are trained. Everyone, of course, knows the immense value of aircraft in the defence of merchant shipping. It is essentially a naval matter, and during the War the Admiralty utilised some 600 aircraft. To-day the Admiralty do not possess one single flying boat, and flying boats are a most important type of machine in the protection of merchant shipping from attack. Flying boats under the control of the Air Ministry only work with His Majesty's Fleet on very rare occasions, instead of being in constant touch and co-operation with the units of the Fleet, as they would be quite naturally and obviously if they were under the control of the Admiralty. For efficiency in this most important work of safeguarding our shipping, constant practice is the chief essential. To-day it is conspicuous by its absence; it is not there. The operations of the Navy and of the Air Force, so far as the local defence of sea approaches to ports and focal points is concerned, are so inextricably interwoven that a common organisation is essential.

Aircraft and surface craft must work in the closest co-operation and control. It is impossible in this matter that the movements of ships arising out of the reports of aircraft sent out on patrol should be under the Air Force. The Air Force cannot order His Majesty's ships to sea because of a report made by one of their aircraft that an enemy cruiser or an enemy ship has been sighted. It is quite possible that the first report from an aircraft on patrol telling the authorities that an enemy vessel has been sighted may be only the prelude to a much stronger force behind, and it is quite possible that the first report of the sighting of one ship or two ships may lead ultimately to a major operation of the Fleet. It is obvious that the movements of ships consequent on these reports cannot be under the control of the Air Ministry, and, therefore, it follows that the local defence of ports and focal points, so far as their sea approaches are concerned, must be completely under the control of the naval authorities.

From what I have said, I think it must be quite clear that under the existing system a most vital factor in the security of merchant shipping at sea is almost completely unprovided for — a most serious position. If our merchant ships cannot rely on security, we cannot continue a war, we cannot continue to live. It is most vital that we should give proper security to, and that proper arrangements should be made for protecting, our merchant shipping from attack at sea. I suggest that this serious omission from our defence system must be made good without delay, and that that can only be done by providing the Admiralty with flying boats and any other aircraft that they may require to co-operate with naval forces in the defence of shipping at sea.

The Admiralty must also have vested in them the sole and undisputed control of their organisation, training and operation. There should be no question about it whatever. I do not know which Minister to ask. Who is responsible? What force is there, not only in narrow waters but in the various most important. focal points which are scattered about the trade routes all over the Empire? Have any defence arrangements for merchant shipping with aircraft been made at all? What are they? The system in force to-day, such as it is, just works in spite of and not on account of the system because of the loyal co-operation of the officers in the two Services. In war-time it will be found to be impossible. Controversy must inevitably break out as to whether the war is mainly Naval or mainly Air. The supply of pilots and materiel would once more form a constant bone of contention between the Admiralty and the Air Ministry.

Experience has shown that the present dual system of control is a failure—I put it no higher than that—and no modification of details will affect the broad principle at stake. To tinker about with details is no good at all. When the original measure was brought before the House, it was clearly stated by the Prime Minister that experience would be necessary in order to prove whether the system was good or not. We have had that experience. We have had quite enough of it. The matter calls for immediate decision. The Admiralty of every other great naval Power in the world takes exactly the same view with regard to their Naval Air Arm as the British Admiralty does, and in the case of the United States and Japan, which have far and away the most efficient Naval air arms in the world, infinitely greater than ours, the complete control of the Naval Air Arm is vested in the Admiralty.

It is not conceivable to my mind that the Air Ministry, with the immense expansion of the Air Services—they will go on expanding—and the enormous responsibilities which they already have to bear, can possibly undertake, in addition to their own duties, others which are essentially Naval and which they are not qualified to undertake because they do not know Naval work. It is not their job. Everyone must know what a tremendous advantage it would be to Imperial Defence and to the Navy and what therefore both would gain by the change. What. would the Air Force lose? Is it only a question of amour propre? If so, such a mater should not stand for a moment in the way of Imperial Defence. I suggest that the Air Ministry should agree to this change, which is vital to our Imperial Defence. Finally I would ask, is it satisfactory to the Government that this canker should eat into the heart of the Navy, undermine its efficiency and foster growing ill-will between the two great. Services?