WORK FOR AVIATION

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 111, 6 November 1935, Page 16

WORK FOR AVIATION

SIR SEFTON -BRANCKER

It is five years since the RlOl went down and burst into flames near Beauvais on her attempt to travel to India. With her perished all save seven of her 51 passengers and crew, including Lord Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, and Air Vice-Marshal Sir W.. Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, writes Major C. C. Turner in the "Daily Telegraph." i Sir Sefton Brancker; left much material for a biography, and this is included in a book compiled by Captain Norman Macmillan. ; Sir Sefton was one of a small group of Army officers who, in the early days of flying, saw its military value, and soon became' convinced that the. technical difficulties it then laboured under would be overcome. With Brancker to see and- believe was to do. He had tremendous vitality, and until the end "was at heart a schoolboy." A man of great simplicity of character, "he could do no harm to anyone; he was the soul of honour." ' He took no thought' for personal safety. Nor did he care for anybody's opinion. Intensely serious in his work, he was, in recreation, "up to every mischievous prank which his own inherent devilment or that of others might suggest." He was so unconventional that at times mischievous tongues were set wagging; but they left him unmoved. Before he qualified as a military pilot at the Central Flying School the medi--cal. officer wrote on his paper: "He is so short-sighted'that he will be a danger to himself'and everyone else if he. is allowed to fly." Indeed, he never was- a-good- pilot, although- he continued to pilot until the end. At the outbreak of war he was the Senior Officer in charge of Aeronautics at the War Office.1 It, fell to him to shape the military organisation and growth of the Flying Corps. .He tells the story himself, and it is full of incir dent, of dealings with high officers and Ministers, and of an undismayed grap? pling with appalling difficulties.-'. ■ . KITCHENER'S ROLE. ; 'It fell-to Brancker to have .to "stand up to" Kitchener, for.whom.he exf presses the greatest admiration, hold* ing that he towered above all the rest. Kitchener, too, instinctively understood aviation. • ' . ' . j At the outset Brancker told,him that the new armies must have fifty squad^rons. The departments were cynically unbelieving as- to the possibility.- -Thereupon Kitchener wrote on the'minute sheet: "Double this.—X." ' In the struggles which led to the creation of the separate Air Ministry, Brancker played a great part; and after the war, when efforts were made to return to the old wasteful system, he brought all his force to bear on the same side. After the war Sir Sefton was no less vigorous in the cause of commercial flying, which, he was convinced, would make for international friendship. But he distrusted the League of Nations on the ground that it sought to internationalise civil flying, and to curtail armaments. If Brancker's proposals soon after the war had been adopted, British air lines would have been organised over many European routes, and we should not today .have so big a leeway to make up. As Director of Civil Aviation he was' brilliantly successful. On , the Continent his name worked magic. From country to country he flew, making the ways smooth and overcoming difficulties. His small, slim figure and debonair air, his monocle, his quizzical expression, his ready smile and joke belied the great man which essentially he was. The chauffeur of the British Embassy car who once drove Brancker from Paris to Le Bourget is reported to have remarked: "You can hardly believe he's an important man. I bet. they talk more about his eyeglass than him when he dies." Brancker was not a great airship enthusiast, but he believed that the airship would serve the big ocean routes i during the development period of fly-ing-boats. He had mixed feelings about the proposed flighty the RlOl to India, and fully expected it might be countermanded when he went to Cardington to board the ship.