Coastal Command

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 March 1952.

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Photo of Wing Commander Edward Shackleton Wing Commander Edward Shackleton , Preston South 12:00, 18 March 1952

I do not know whether the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to conduct government by impartial inquiry, but certainly that is not a device which will commend itself to his own Front Bench. Let me give an example of the advantages of unified Air Force control over a system in which we have two separate air forces, one Naval and one Royal Air Force.

At the height of the U-boat war, following a decision taken, I believe, at Casablanca, there was a change in priority, and Coastal Command were given first priority. At that time, Bomber Command was stripped of squadrons, which were sent into Coastal Command. Some were put straight on to operations, even though they were untrained, and they sank submarines; and others were re-trained and re-equipped and became an integral part of Coastal Command. Despite what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, that was all the easier because they were part of the same Service, and it is in this matter of re-inforcement and of the switching of air power that the great strength of unified control lies.

But it was not only a question of switching squadrons from bomber command. At the height of the battle in the Bay of Biscay, the Germans were so concerned about the destruction of their U-boats that they put Ju. 88's into the Bay to fight off the anti-submarine aircraft. We retaliated by bringing Beau-fighters into Coastal Command to provide protection for our aircraft. Indeed, the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows that when he sailed down the Bay of Biscay on his very gallant exploit he did so under the protection of Coastal Command. The Germans retaliated, again, by bringing in Messerschmitt 109's in order to try to jump our aircraft off the Scillies, and we had to switch squadrons from Fighter Command to give additional protection.

The purpose of this argument is to show that even if the Navy were given control of Coastal Command, they would still be dependent to a very large extent indeed, and to an extent which would neutralise the arguments which have been advanced by hon. Members opposite, on the co-operation of the Air Force.

Let us look for a moment at some of the other roles. The hon. and gallant Member for Merton and Morden suggested that he would be content for photographic reconnaissance to remain in the Air Force, but that apparently is not the view of the hon. Member for Darwen. In my opinion, one thing we cannot afford is to have two independent photographic reconnaissance units. The job of reconnaissance will switch according to the priority of the day and the need of the day They may be required to bring back information about whether the Scharnhorst or the Gneisenau are at Brest, or they may be asked to bring back information for the Army or of Bomber Command; and that is a case in point where a centralised Air Force must fulfill this role.

Let us consider the anti-shipping role. During the war, all three Commands of the Air Force were involved in this role. At the beginning, with the disappearance of land fighting in Europe, Blenheims from Army Co-operation Command became redundant and were switched to an anti-shipping role. Then they were needed for anti-submarine work and switched to that, and No. 2 group of Bomber Command took on the responsibility. They were very successful, but the battle became too hot and we had to call in strike wings, including Torbeaus and Beaufighters, many of whom were on anti-flak protection, and they carried out the role.

In certain circumstances it was necessary to pull Fighter Command into the anti-shipping role, in attacks on shipping and E. boats off the French coast, and at no period in the war could we say that any part of the Air Force would be engaged exclusively and permanently on anti-shipping. I suggest that this is a very strong argument in favour of the unified Air Force because of the impossibility of foretelling the particular role which any Command would have to fill.

The hon. Member for Darwen mentioned mining. As is known, most of the mining during the war was done by Bomber Command, and when the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau went up Channel they were damaged by mines laid by Bomber Command. In fact, one of them never put to sea again and was subsequently destroyed by bombers. I cannot allow to pass the suggestion that it was the fault of the Air Force that these ships were allowed to go up the Channel or that it was a result of the failure of reconnaissance through the system which we used.

Grave mistakes were made on that occasion—very grave mistakes. I confess that I was the senior intelligence officer at the station which was responsible for finding out whether these ships were coming up the Channel. I can claim, therefore, to speak with a little knowledge on the subject. Grave mistakes were made. The A.S.V. aircraft which was supposed to be patrolling off Ushant had an A.S.V. failure. We were using the Mark II A.S.V.; it was withdrawn and not replaced but the failure in that case cannot be laid on the Air Force because the Navy had operational control. The two Services were sitting side by side, but nevertheless grave mistakes were made and I do not believe the incident does any credit to either the Navy or the Air Force.