The Empire Air Training Scheme: Identity, Empire and Memory

The neglect of British politicians to develop air power persisted despiteconstant prompting from the military. The literature in Britain warning of the dangersof aerial war and the need to develop British aerial defence was substantial during the1920s and 30s. Air correspondent to The Times in 1922 Brigadier Groves proclaimedthe necessity of air power, predicting in Our Future in the Air, that air defence wasfundamental to national and imperial safety. Observing government actions to reducesquadrons, Groves was dismayed at the vulnerable situation this would create forBritish defence, realising the dangers of aerial attack on Britain and he pressured theBritish Government to take action. 13 A.O. Pollard had witnessed the devastation oftrench warfare and was convinced of the superiority of air power. 14 He extolled that ‘ina hundred ways the Royal Air Force had shown what it could do.’ 15 The air battles haddemonstrated British superiority over other forces. ‘New technological developments,’declared Pollard were essential to home defence ‘to protect us against air attack by thestrongest air force.’ 16 By the late 1930s proponents of air power were confronting theappeasement policies of the British government and its denial of German air powerand they were more impassioned in their pleas for action. In The Royal Air Force,written in 1937, Air Marshall Sir Leslie Gossage argued the vital necessity for airpower development. The task was difficult, he wrote, when many held the view thatthe production of aircraft material was ‘nothing but a disastrous and wastefulcompetition.’ 17 He argued there should be far more emphasis on air power for thedefence of the Empire. 18 Air Commodore L.E.O. Charlton published over a dozenbooks on the necessity for air defence, from 1927 to 1947, making him a majorlobbyist of the period. In 1935 in War From the Air he wrote vividly, ‘Flying startedits military career Cinderella-like, under the jealous scrutiny of its two gailycaparisoned sisters, the Army and the Navy. It had to gate-crash into favor and now it13 Groves was one of the first of a growing chorus to voice concern at the devastation of air attack. Themoral issue of legitimate targets was being discussed in world-wide conferences. Concern was alsoexpressed at the failure of governments to respond. See Paul Whitcombe Williams ‘Legitimate Targetsin Aerial Bombardment.’ The American Journal of International Law 23, 3, 1929.14 Ibid. 189.15 A.O. Pollard, The Royal Air Force: A Concise History London: Hutchinson & Co. 1934. 217.16 Ibid. 225.17 E.L. Gossage. The Royal Air Force London: William Hodge 1937, 15.18 Ibid. 9.28