ARMY AND R.A.F.

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 121, 18 November 1940, Page 8

ARMY AND R.A.F.

CO-OPERATION SCHEME

A JOINT COMMAND

LESSONS LEARNED

(British Official Wireless/)

(Received November 18,1 p.m.))

RUGBY, November 17,

The importance of co-operation between the air and land forces is one of the lessons learned from the present war, and an Air Ministry and War Office announcement, which states that these Service departments have to "consider how best to secure the most effective basis of co-opera-tion between the Army and the R.A.F.," is an important contribution to present-day tactics.

The announcement continues: "The principal feature of the new arrangements is the decision to set up a command of the R.A.F. to be called the Army Co-operation Command, which will comprise siftl squadrons allotted to Army formations in the United Kingdom, together with associated training units.

"The primary function of this command will be to organise—experimental in all its forms—co-operation between the two Services. The operational employment of the squadrons will rest, as hitherto, with tho commands of the Army formations to which they are allotted.

"The Army Co-operation Command will be under an air officer commanding in chief and a senior army officer is to be appointed as head of the air staffs. The air staffs of the command and the formations will consist of Army and R.A.F. officers in roughly equal proportions.

"The formation of this command is the outcome of a system of co-opera-tion which has been steadily built up between the two Services over a long period and the new organisation has been designed in accord with the lessons of recent operational experience. • "The Army Co-operation Command, with its joint staff, will work in constant association with the Army and Air Force commands concerned. It will ensure rigid development of Army co-operation."

LONDON, November 17,

The new plan, of co-operation between the Army and the. Air Force, which carries with it some changes in command, was foreshadowed by the Secretary of War, Mr. Eden, in the House of Commons last Tuesday, and is a policy advocated in the past by Lord Trenchard and other experts. The new command is to start as from December 1.