COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
At Glosters the situation could hardly have been more different.
With the Germans out of the race they were the leading company in jet
aircraft development, with the prospect of strong sales at home and
abroad for years to come. There would be all the engineering related
attractions of development flying, the challenge of the El/44, and the
exciting new world of transonics.
My posting as a lecturer to the BAFO School of Army Cooperation
would have been a challenge too. As an ex gunner officer with a
ground attack and photo reconnaissance background there was much
that I could have contributed. I had even begun to sort out some ideas
on the subject.
There would need to be an introduction. A touch of history. Close
support by fighter aircraft was not new. Strafing the trenches with
machine guns and small fragmentation bombs had become a recognised
pursuit during the Great War. Army cooperation had ceased to be
limited to reconnaissance and artillery spotting. But not for long.....
In the years after Versailles the RAF had to fight for survival and
the case for strategic air power, which helped to win the day, created
a very different set of priorities. Even the dive bomber, developed as an
important part of the armoury in Germany and the USA, was almost
totally ignored in Britain.
RAF bomber and fighter squadrons were given perfunctory training
in direct support, but this was never a primary role, nor could aircraft
be spared in any numbers. Wlien war broke out the small number of
army cooperation squadrons equipped with Hawker Hector biplanes, or
the more recently introduced Westland Lysander, were expected to
provide whatever ground attack sorties the army might need, ft was a
forlorn hope.
The shock success of the Luftwaffe's close support tactics in 1940
brought about a change of heart. Army Cooperation Command was
formed at home, before the year was out, with a brief to 'organise,
experiment and train.'
In 1941 a mixed South African/RAF Air Component, supporting
the ground forces, made an important contribution to victory against the
Italians in East Africa. But it was the Desert Air Force, working hand
in glove with the 8th Army in Cyrenaica, that set the pace for inter
service cooperation and ground attack.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, the pressure was really on, to create
and train another tactical air force in time for the invasion.
The first Order of Battle for 2nd TAF was issued on 9th December
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