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292 ai r p o w e r in 20 t H Ce n t u ry do C t r i n e s a n d em p l o y m e n t - nat i o n a l ex p e r i e n C e s Air Force and the young but growing Swedish Air Industry. The Air force played an important role when the SAAB Company was created in 1937. 6 The result of this close work between the political sphere, the Air Force and the industry can be shown with some figures: Between 1933 and May 1939 Sweden imported 45 planes and from August 1940 to April 1943 another 118 were bought, it total 163. The vas majority of these were bought from Italy, especially Capronibombers. Some planes were also bougth from Germany and the USA. In Sweden, during the period from October 1937 to September 1943 not less than 414 planes were manufactured, that is three times the amount that Sweden was able to buy from other countries. This build-up resulted in a transformation from a very weak Air Force at the time of the outbreak of the war in 1939 to a strong and efficient Air Force in 1944-45. This was fundamental for the continued development of Sweden´s Air Force in the 1950´s and 1960´s. 7 The first doctrinal feud in the med 1930´s took place between the new Air Force and the leading admirals of the navy. Torsten Friis accepted to be CIC of the Air Force on May 4, 1934 and only a little more than a week later the minister of defence wrote to him about some questions raised by the CIC of the Navy admiral Fabian Tamm. Among these questions were the dispute wether the defence budget should prioritate a bomber Air Force or heavy artilleriships. The minister, Ivar Vennerström, didn´t make an open choice of his own in this feud between the Air Force and the Navy, but at least he showed some sympathy for the naval point of view. Vennerström told Friis that his opinion was that the roots of this dispute were to be found in “some kind of romantic bomberviews that has tended to spread to much.” These words by the minister could be regarded as a criticism against the tendency towards a bomber doctrine in the Air Force, but it is more likely to have been ment to be an attempt to ease down the antagonism within the Armed Forces. Torsten Friis also tried, from his very first day in office, to ease the tensions and create a good relationship towards the Navy. That work seems to have been rather successful. As one important step he saw to that the most pro-bomber officers in his own force expressed themselves with a little smaller letters. However, and this is important, this was only a matter of official tactics, not at any point a concession towards the standpoint of the admirals. 8 6 For the development of the Air industry see Klaus-Richard Böhme, Svenska vingar växer. Flygvapnet och flygindustrin 1918-1945 (In Swedish: Swedish Wings growing. The Air Forces and the Air industry 1918-1945), Stockholm 1982. 7 See Böhme 1982 and Erik Norberg, Flyg i beredskap. Det svenska flygvapnet i omvandling och uppbyggnad 1936-1942 (In Swedish: Air Forces in preparedness. The Swedish Air Force under reconstruction and built-up 1936-1942), Stockholm 1971. 8 For the rivalry between the Air Force and the Navy see Anders Berge, Sakkunskap och politisk rationalitet. Den svenska flottan och pansarfartygsfrågan 1918-1939 (In Swedish: Expert knowledge and political rationality. The Swedish Navy and the question of armoured ships 1918-1939), Stockholm 1987.
do u H e t o r n o t do u H e t. sw e d i sH air po w e r do C t r i n e in t H e 1930´s a n d 1940´s 293 When Torsten Friis became CIC in 1934 a Parliamentary Defence Commission that had started it´s work in 1930 almost had reached it´s conclusions. The result was published in 1935 and was to a large extent used in the 1936 Defence Resolution of the parliament. Several influencial defence politicians were strongly in favour of an Air Force with a strong emphasis on it´s bomber capacity. This was reflected in the Parliamentary decision. The essence in the Air Doctrine as reflected in the Defence Resolution 1936 was a strong bomber force. It´s main purpose was to stop an enemy Air Force by attacking it´s bases. The Air Force also argued strongly for the use of bomber planes against enemy naval units, as an important part of the invasion defence. In August and September 1934 the Air Force for the first time trained divebombing against ships, as an obvious attempt to show the diversified usefulness of bombers. The fundamental problem for all those involved in thinking about Air doctrines in the mid 1930´s was: how to prevent a stronger enemy from bombing and destroying Sweden´s cities and industries. In this Sweden din´t differ from any other European dountry at the time, and most influencial officers and politicians were of the same opinion as the British prime minister Stanley Baldwin put in in 1932: “The bomber will always get through.” Secondarily came the question wether Sweden´s Air Force could be of any use against an invasion fleet across the Baltic Sea. Both these problem led to a doctrine which without any doubts can be described as douhetism. Both Giulio Douhet and the Englishman Percy Groves were read and discussed in Sweden in the mid 1930´s. But their thoughts were not uncritically adopted. This is reflected in the words used by captain Gustaf Adolf Westring, the Swedish officer that had the best knowledge about Douhet and his thought, when he in August 1935 commented the Italian writer: “This is just plain theory and have because of that maybe not so much importance, but it can always be of some little use.” But in realy, the influence of Douhet or at least thoughts very similar to those of Douhet were very influencial in Sweden during the 1930´s and were of criúcial importance in the development of both doctrine and the creation of a bomber fleet for the Swedish Air Force. In the tradition of Giulio Douhet also Percy Groves argued for the use of bombers, not against the enemy bases but against the home land and the war enemy. This was an operational doctrine for a large power, not for a small power like Sweden, whom likely would be inferior in number in a future war, presumable against Germany or Soviet-Russia. As a consequence of that the Swedish Air Force made specific “bombing files” for potential targets in the east. The military planners in Sweden regarded it as certain that the Soviet Union before launching an attack against Sweden, had to pass through the until the summer 1940 formally still independent Baltic countries (however they had been forced to allow Soviet military bases from the autumn 1939). This men that the Swedish Air Force planned for strikes against the harbours in Tallinn, Paldiski,
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