AIR AS FIRST LINE

Evening Post, Issue 79, 2 April 1936, Page 10

AIR AS FIRST LINE

THIS COUNTRY?S ADVANTAGE

THE JUNIOR AUXILIARY

A CRITIC WHO SPOKE OUT

So many-sided are the problems of defence and so wids haa been the range covered by the correspondents who have written of '"Air as the First Line"—and their number is proof that a keen and serious interest has been awakened—that the first principles of the original article have perhaps, to some readers and contributors, become confused by the weight of associated, but not directly bearing, views and facts.

In comparison with the problems of defence in other countries and Dominions those of New Zealand are not complex. New Zealand, which till now has rested in a comfortable ease of mind that her security -is well safeguarded by sea forces other than her own, or, alternatively, in the lazier but still easily-satisfied frame of mind that in any case she herself can1 do little about it, is today realising that the world is a large and troubled place and that the difficulties in greater countries are so pressing that she cannot lean upon the Mother Country, but must stand up, the smallest of the Dominions though she may be, and look after herself. With that realisation, happily, has come a second realisation, that New Zealand today, by employing air defence, the one effective first line within her 'means* can stand up on her feet, play her part in Empire defence, and look after her local defence by answering threat of attack by assurance of defence, and relieve Britain of one Empire responsibility.

The four points of the original article were these:—

tion of aviation these ~ extracts ' ars taken:— ■'''.''[■■

1. Those island countries which are removed from mainlands by tens or hundreds of miles have, through the tremendous . development of aviation since the war, lost the. first security which the water gave.them.

2. Those island countries, small and sparsely populated though they may be, set thousands of miles from any possible enemy base, have gained in security immeasurably by that development of aviation, for, for the first time, it has become possible for them to protect themselves.

3. New Zealand's far • isolation becomes itself a weapon of the highest value, for no enemy ship of war, from whatever point it may set out, could risk appearance off the New Zealand coast and face the risk of damage with harbours and dry docks, essential for repairs, at least 2000 miles away:

4. Provided that the Air Defence Force of New Zealand is made effective and not .left devoid, of any striking power, as, practically speaking, it is today. >

There is no othsr British Dominion (if there is any country) so placed upon the globe as is New Zealand, so difficult of defence if reliance is placed upon outside assistance or upon sea forces (for we simply cannot' afford these), nor any other country to whose security from attack the new air arm offers so much for an expenditure which can be afforded. Nor could many other countries so truthfully say that money spent upon an air arm would be money spent for defence and defence alone. POINTS WHICH ARE ESTABLISHED. It has been stated that aircraft can sink battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, and, not so .easily (though seven were bombed :to the-bottom between 1914 and 1918), submarines. It has also been denied that aircraft can' sink modern battleships. Nothing but deadly trial will reconcile those differing opinions, so let it be said—to save ink and paper in argument—that it may not be possible 'to sink battleships. Still, ,the incontrovertible fact remains that battleships, however perfected and weighted down, will still be badly damaged, and that, cruisers, lighter craft, and unarmoured vessels of any convoy can be sent to the bottom by placed or "near missing" bombs I from the air.. That much, at least, is established.

Nor is there room for much disagreement over the statement that New Zealand cannot afford to maintain naval forces sufficiently strong to give safe protection. The New Zealand Naval Division is a contribution to the British Navy as a whole; it is not primarily a measure, of local defence;

It is established, too, that aircraft can penetrate gun defence, and antiaircraft gunnery at sea is inevitably less effective than gun defence on land. Anti-aircraft gunnery has. made great advances since 1918; so have aircraft. The history of armaments is the story of an alternation of. superiority, first of attack, then of defence. The superiority today is with the aircraft, not with the gun. I

It has been stated with some confidence since this- controversy was opened that an attacker's air force cannot come in strength equal to that which New Zealand should afford, unless it be by aircraft carrier, the most > vulnerable of all war vessels, a big crate for many eggs, reachable from land if its aeroplanes can reach land. And if an aircraft carrier should some day menace this country, of what prime defensive value would be coast dfrfence guns so easily avoided and a spattering of anti-aircraft guns at a few points on the coast? If such a menace exists it alone is the strongest argument: for air defence. . AIR FORCE WITHOUT AIR POWER. There is a further main point which has been : made bluntly in this series of articles, and to it no reply has been given by any contributor to disagreement with the writer. ' It is that the New Zealand Air Force is not a force at all, for the money provision made (or it by past Governments has not been sufficient to permit a planning- and expansion and even that small provision has not been fully expended. More than half of the total strength of aeroplanes are out of date or unsuitable, and machines of first line service value, recently purchased at a cost of approximately £70,000, haye been made impotent for other than the purposes of pageantry and of training (limited almost to pre- ! liminary exercises) by lack of armament and equipment, and that, moreover, in a year when the vote made by Parliament was underspent by £69,000.

The air arm, which is given at least equal standing with the older arms in Great Britain, in America, in Continental countries, in Australia, South Africa, and other British countries, has" in this Dominion, uniquely situated to make air defence most effective, a third place indeed. It has a minor share of defence expenditure. It is administered as a sideline of land force defence. A CASE FOR AIR EQUALITY. The late Brigadier-General W. Mitchell, former Assistant Chief of the United States Air Corps—the officer who publicly insisted that aircraft could sink batleships, proved it, was later dismissed, and, on his death, was honoured as one of America's great soldiers by a tomb at Arlington—was outspoken on this-subject of air control. ■ .:■

He advocated strongly such a system as that of Great Britain, under a separate Air Ministry, and as strongly condemned the submergence of the air arm under non-aviation control. From the case he stated for equal recogni--

"The time has come when aviation must be developed for aviation's sake and not as an auxiliary to other existing branches. Air power has rudely upset the traditions of the older services. It has been with the greatest difficulty that this new and dominating element has;gone forward the way it has. ■ : ■■ ■ ■

"Just, as the Navy thinks first of battleships and makes aviation secondary to them, the Army thinks..of the infantry and' also''makes aviation a secondary matter. In the development of air power one has to look ahead and figure out what is going, to happen, not what has happened. That is why the older services have been psychologically unfit .to develop this arm to the fullest extent practicable with the methods and means at hand.

"The older services to which' aviation was attached at first were entirely incapable of visualising: avia» tion's progress, particularly in its civil and commercial applications, which must work hand in hand with its military use. . ■ .

"So long as the budget for the development of aviation is prepared-by the Army, Navy, or: other agency of the Government, aviation will be considered as an auxiliary and'the requisite amount of money, as.compared with the older services, will be subject to the final decision of personnel whose main duty is not. aviation. Thi3 has resulted in 'ah incomplete, "inefficient, and ultimately expensive system of appropriating money.: "Air forces must be designed ■ primarily to attain victory in-the ' air against a hostile air force ■ and then to destroy enemy establishments,;: either on land or'water. Air-; power should have an entirely separate budget .'from the Army and Nayyi" ' Brigadier-General Mitchell' summed up the need,"as 'tie-saw' iV'thus:^ "Inefficient military aeronautics, undeveloped civil and-commercial-aero-nautics, arid curtailed and interrupted experimentation are a direc.t result'of the lack of: —

"1. A department ;to handle the whole of the air question, co-equal with the Army and Navy.

"2. A definite aviation policy.

"3. An organisation, : both military and civil, to fit the aviation policy. "4. A method, of providing suitable personnel1 for all air undertakings. "5. A single system of procurement and supply of all air undertakings. "6. A system, of instruction and inspection for all air elements. "Until these fundamental principles

. are put into effect," he- wrote, "air power .will. continue to .flounder in the slough of aeronautical despond."

Another -excerpt from' his •.writings fits the case of this Dominion • precisely:— .''.•;■

"An island, instead of being easily starved out, taken, or destroyed iby navies as was the case in the past, becomes tremendously strong because it cannot be got at by any land force?, and, while supremacy of the air is maintained, cannot be taken by , sea forces." • ....-.:■•■■.■'.■ ' ,V .