AIR TRANSPORT AND R.A.F.

By NIGEL TANGYE

CONSIDERABLE alarm is being expressed in all quarters at the shocking number of fatal accidents involving R.A.F. Trans- port Command and that section of Bomber Command which has been detailed by the Air Ministry to assist in the transport of passengers. Having, slowly through the years, come to regard fly- ing as a safe mode of travel, the public has been pulled up sharp in its progressive air-education by the impact of one fatal accident after another. The damage that has been done to potential public support to aviation, essential to Empire development, by the recent record of R.A.F. Transport Command will take a long time to repair. Furthermore, the aspersion that is cast on the gallant R.A.F. air-crews ordered to carry out tasks for which they are not properly equipped is something that no one can fail to deplore. It is there- fore necessary to insist that the existing state of affairs is due to errors in Air Ministry policy, and that anxiety for the future can, by appreciation of what has happened, be dispelled.

As one looks back on the composition of the R.A.F. in September, 1939, it is almost incredible that there was no air transport organi- sation within It. At the outbreak of war the only transport aircraft that were available for furnishing communications between England and the Continent, and between England and the Dominions, were forty civil machines, in varying degree of modernity and obsolescence, belonging to British Airways and Imperial Airways. Admittedly, the Air Ministry had not been helped by the meagre allocations from the public purse that were voted from time to time by an ignorant and unimaginative Parliament ; but that does not excuse the total lack of appreciation by the Government's military air advisers of the necessity for a military air transport cadre organisation. They had only to look to Germany for instruction on this point. The Lufthansa Company was liberally equipped with the redoubtable Junkers 52, and within a flash they were serving in their hundreds the voracious appetite of the armed forces. We know now, and knew at the time, how much they were responsible for those lightning cohquests that shook the very foundations of the world.

With the fall of Singapore we found ourselves with no swift means of communication to Australia, a stultifying state of affairs that might not have come about if the R.A.F. had been equipped with long-range aircraft to serve Empire communications in a way commensurate with its responsibilities. With the development of the North African campaign, the need for an air transport organi- sation in that area was seen, and a group formed to endeavour to supply the demand. It was not, however, until 1943 that the Direc- torate of A;r Transport was appointed in the Air Ministry. From that moment the Air Ministry became alive to the urgency of the requirements, but also from that moment showed a dismal lack of reality in application. The Director of Air Transport was un- versed in the intricacies of his subject, or, indeed, in its funda- mentals. His small staff were likewise quite inexperienced and ill- equipped to deal with the brief. One of the first papers, for con- sideration by the Air Staff, that emerged from the Directorate was an appreciation of the role air transport could play in the pro- jected supply of R.A.F. squadrons to be deployed against the Japan- ese. Needless to say, its recommendations revealed a deplorable lack of knowledge of the subject, and, to anyone with even elemen-

tary experience of the matter, was a source of alarm and despon- dency in view of the anxiety its puerility evoked.

There were a number of experienced air-transport men who could have been put in charge, but at that time—and ever since so far as the highest posts in R.A.F. air transport were concerned, the

Ministry showed a stubborn reluctance to appoint anyone but a regular officer completely new to the subject. Lest this generality should be held against me as a weakness, I would have suggested, as more appropriate, a man who holds exceptional qualifications as an air transport executive, a courageous pilot, and who was, inci-

dentally, the very capable A.O.C. of the transport group in Egypt to which I have already referred. His name is Whitney Straight. The first Director of Air Transport was moved on and another officer nominated to take his place. This officer likewise had no experience of the specialised subject which he was called upon to direct.

The first Commander-in-Chief of the new R.A.F. Transport Com- mand (formed in 1943) was Sir Frederick Bowhill. He was beloved by all who served under him and, though having only limited know- ledge of his new task, had that essential prerequisite, an open mind. Sir Frederick had done magnificent work in organising the ferrying of aircraft across the North Atlantic, and there was every reason for confidence that he would be successful in building up R.A.F. Trans- port Command by combining his own talents and sense of leader-

ship with a disposition which allowed him to ask for, and taker advice without imagining it was infradig to do so. Early this year Sir Frederick was retired, having reached the age limit.

In war a commander, inevitably and rightly, so long as it is within reason, regards the loss of his men and women by killing as a

normal price which has to be paid for the conduct of the operation.

With the coming of peace the life of the individual is once more sacrosanct, and a Commander's outlook must be re-orientated into thinking in terms of men and women first and the operation second.

Transport Command, in endeavouring to carry out a trooping pro- gramme formulated by the Cabinet as far back as March, has killed in the last seven weeks more than one hundred people, all of whom

were ordered to fly to their destination. I am aware that that is a brutal way of putting it. I am conscious of the fact that people

who are not pilots, who have no knowledge of the Service, who

have had no experience of air transport, and who, like all of us, think the world of the R.A.F., argue that the air-crews of Transport

Command have a big job to do and they are only carrying out their

duty ; it is therefore unfair to criticise. I am aware of all that. But I 'would ask these people to think of the luckless corporals and

sergeants and lieutenants and captains, and, indeed, the aircrews,

who are ordered to fly in old aircraft of a Command which has a record of safety worse than any air line probably since the beginntng

of time. I would refer them to a contemporary safety-record achieved by the British Overseas Airway Corperation, which, in spite of tremendous difficulties, has flown 250,000p00 passenger- miles in the last twelve months without a single fatality.

There are many reasons for the fatalities for which Transport Command are responsible. Aircraft and engines are getting old,

maintenance is not what it was, owing to lack of spare parts and to discontent among ground crews awaiting demobilisation, the trooping programme is a tremendous one, a number of the best pilots are already demobilised, others may be resentful at being posted to Trans- port Command from one of the Operational Commands, training can only be short, owing to the urgency to get pilots, and so on. There is, however, not one reason why the accidents should not be stopped instantly by Transport Command Headquarters, through the Air Ministry, admitting that it is flying where angels fear to fly and without the experience of a cherub. Only Service pride is involved, and this appalling price will continue to be paid so long as the Air MinistrS, fails to face up to the admission that it has taken on more than it can manage. It need not admit that expert advice has very rarely been sought, if at all.

Transport Command Headquarters, and the Air Ministry, arc sheltering under the good will of the public to the R.A.F. The Command's protection from public scrutiny should be in no way similar to that of Bomber, Fighter and Coastal Commands, whose detailed activities, for security reasons, must be enveloped in secrecy. Transport Command is performing a civilian function (it even takes fare-paying passengers) and its control should be open to the public view—particularly and urgently so, since it has revealed itself so costly to the nation. It is too late for civil aviation to take on its immediate task. The programme must therefore be cancelled or reduced to within limits which the Command can perform with safety. The future must be planned afresh, with the Command limited to a cadre force. Until public opinion forces this issue, the fair name of the R.A.F. will be smirched, and increasing multitudes will resolve never to fly British ; for the multitudes do not dis- criminate between the misplaced amateur efforts of Service direction and the safe efficiency of experienced civil enterprise.