AIR SERVICES. (Hansard, 13 March 1917)

§ Mr. BILLING
I wish to express my regret for again having to detain the House on the question of our Air Services, but I think it is of as great importance as the business which has just been before the House. I should like to take the very first opportunity I have of congratulating the Under-Secretary of State for War on the frank statement which he made in the House this afternoon. Had we had such a frank statement from his predecessor twelve months ago the position of our Air Service would have been very different to what it is to-day. I would like to point 1048 out that, on his own admission the hon. Gentleman was quite unable to give any further facts than those he stated which I am quite sure satisfied this House, that the answer which he gave to my question had been very carefully prepared. I have had some experience in preparing answers to questions when I was at the other end, and I can readily imagine who prepared the answer to that question for the hon. Gentleman to come to this House and read. The answer was prepared by the Director of Military Aeronautics, and I would like to point out that out of his own mouth he stands condemned. If we review the answer quite briefly, what is the first thing we find? It is that in the last six weeks 7.6 of our pilots have been killed, 8.3 have been wounded, and 4.2 are missing. I asked the hon. Gentleman whether he could tell me whether that average was taken on the whole of our Air Service, naval and military, including the thousands of airmen and machines which are in this country, or whether it was taken on the machines and men in France, and, if so, whether it was taken on the fighting efficiency of those men and machines in France. Assuming that the Director-General of Military Aeronautics made the very best case that he could in answer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir H. Dalziel), it is a very serious statement. It means that we have lost in six weeks 20 per cent. of our men, because the total comes to 20.2 per cent. of the personnel of the Air Service. It means that if this goes on in this way then in six weeks the whole Air Service will be wiped out. That is rather an alarming statement.
The Director of Military Aeronautics cannot say that he has not been warned. It is twelve months ago to-morrow that I 1049 first presumed to warn him from the floor of this House, and I and other hon. Members have continually warned him, that certain machines were inefficient, and that certain methods which he was employing in France and in this country were inefficient. Yet he persisted in this administration. What is the position to-day? I would like to suggest to the hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench that the majority of these fatalities can be directly attributed to by machines by being sent up in which I said twelve months ago that our men were being murdered. I stand here twelve months later, and I say even on this very day that men are being murdered by being sent up in these machines. Our men are to-day being sent up in BE 2 gun spotting. These machines are utterly incapable, armed and equipped as they are, of rising over 5,000 ft. They are sent up with two 20 lb. bombs, and two guns fitted on them. The guns, however, are not adequately fitted for fighting. These machines are sent six miles out into the enemy's lines. Only recently I had two or three cases brought to my notice of men sent out gun-spotting, and with them they had two of what are called chasing machines, but they lost the chasing machines, they stopped over the lines at the mercy of the German airmen, and they were eventually shot down. Quite recently two fell in flames in our own lines. I do protest that after twelve months of warning the administration of our Air Service should still permit of this type of machine being used when we have the finest types in the world in this country. We have machines faster than any the Germans have at the front at the present time, while we are sending men up in machines to engage Germans when they have to meet machines which are forty or fifty miles faster and can climb three feet to their one, and which are also properly armed and properly equipped. I want to call the attention of this House to the administration that permits it.
I have frequently said that the administration of Sir D. Henderson is a menace to our Air Service and to this country. I could give the hon. Gentleman lists of the men who surround the Air Service, which is being conducted on party lines, and the intrigue, because it is suppressed, is none the less real. The intrigue in the Hotel Cecil now is worse than ever since the outbreak of war. There are even outward and visible signs. The Royal Naval Air Service (Military Branch) happened 1050 to go in the Hotel Cecil and took up its-quarters there first, and when the Royal Flying Corps came in later they were welcomed with the notice, "Royal Naval Air Service—No Thoroughfare." The other side at once put up a notice,. "Royal Flying Corps—Whoa!" But this is an outward and visible sign of the intrigue which permeates the whole service. We are told we are substituting as quickly as possible other machines for those by which the lives of our men are being thrown away uselessly. But what are the facts? Quite recently an order has been placed for 250 more of these machines with 90 horse-power engines. They will not be delivered for months, and if they were in use to-day these 90 horse-power engines would have to meet 200 horse-power engines of the enemy. On the other side we have the private constructor.
I put a question yesterday as to when the Sopworth tri-plane chaser—one of the Puff machines, as they are called—was first offered to the Admiralty and when it was ordered. Also how many we have got now in the service of these machines, which can make rings round those turned out by the Government. What was the reply? That it was not in the interest of the country that a reply should be given. If the answer had been that it was not in the interest of Sir David Henderson, I think the answer would have been more correct. That machine was brought out in April, 1915. When I was in France at the time that machine was being tested, and the Nieuport was brought out in competition with it. That machine was offered to the Government and sent down to Farnborough to be tested. It was messed and muddled and played with, and yet its performance was perfectly extraordinary, flying about 2,200 ft. in the first minute and reaching a speed of 117 or 118 miles an hour. That was in April, 1915. As a matter of fact, in October, 1915, I understand that the Royal Flying Corps laid down two squadrons of them, on paper. I challenge the hon. Gentleman on the Government Bench to say that there is one of those machines in France to-day. I will challenge him to say that there is one of them that has ever been delivered. Their delivery has been held up while we were taking delivery of these Government-designed machines, which are responsible for the loss of the supremacy of the air—if we ever had it—in France-to-day.
1051 What happened only yesterday? I put down that question, and the order, I understand, has been cancelled. The whole order has been deleted. Hundreds of these machines have been laid down. Of none of them has delivery been taken. What is going to be done with those machines? Are they to be burnt, like we burnt thousands of them? When I asked the hon. Member on the Front Bench yesterday how many orders he had deleted in the last twelve months, he replied that it was not in the public interest to tell me, because, he said, that if Germany knew how many we had burnt they would know how many we had. I fail to follow at all that course of reasoning. We have been buying machines in hundreds. When the Navy had the first call on the 200 Rolls engines they built a series of bomb-droppers that cost the -country some thousands of pounds each. Because the Army could not get possession of the engines they eventually got possession of all these new machines. They sent their pilots down to Eastchurch and they got into these brand new machines, flying them to Farnborough, where they pulled the engines out and burnt the whole lot. They are doing that the whole day long. If any new expert gets temporary power at one of these offices he immediately burns everything the last man built. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"]
What is the position as between the two Services? Will the mastery of the air ever be won on partisan lines? There is a naval expert who sits in one room at the Hotel Cecil and a military expert who sits in another room. The stresses, strains and calculations which one expert demands he insists upon. The Navy passes that machine as fit for active service, but if it is handed over to the Army, they immediately scrap it because they say, "We do not approve of these spring lines or that wire." To show that there is no love lost between them, when the Army hand a machine over to the Navy they act in exactly the same manner. The requirements of one Service are entirely different to the requirements laid down by the other Service. I would appeal to the House to take this matter seriously now. We do not want any more public inquiries. We have had quite enough of the fallacy of public inquiries. A Committee of this House might well inquire into the matter —not a Committee appointed by the 1052 people who are in question, but a Committee appointed by the House might inquire into the administration and command of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service with considerable advantage to the cause for which we are fighting. General Henderson—presumably it is he who makes the statement—says: The situation in the air on the British front in France at the moment is as undecided as during the winter months. I understood that during the winter months we were supreme in the air. He said later: The situation is very similar to that which obtained in the same period last year, when at that time the Germans, reinforced and rested during the winter, put up a serious opposition. If that is all the advance we have made in twelve months I am sorry. I think if he had said while we rested the Germans worked and prepared it would give a better answer to what is taking place in France to-day. At the opening of last year's campaign the main German concentration was before Verdun. That is a contradiction in terms. Here, I admit, that last year although we were beaten out of the air for a considerable period in the spring, the main German air offensive was at Verdun, and we claim the supremacy of the air to-day. We do not take into consideration that the German air service is not only keeping the British air service at bay, but the Russian and the French, which is a far greater air service than ours, and it is keeping the air service of Italy and what little Roumania has got and all the various Allies. I do not know whether I shall ever be able to impress upon the House the importance and the urgency of taking up this problem seriously. I do not want to repeat the many arguments I have put forward in support of that, but I appeal to the Under-Secretary to inquire very closely into the actual conditions obtaining in France at the present time, and I tell him that I shall raise this question of the air on every available occasion until such time as we have regained that supremacy which for a few brief months, after as many months' agitation, we gained in the summer of last year.

§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson)
I have no reason personally to complain of the remarks which my hon. Friend has made about me. I endeavoured, in the answer 1053 which I gave to-day, to give the facts of the case as honestly and as concisely as I possibly could within the limits of a question and answer. But while I am grateful to him for his generous appreciation of what he terms my honesty in my statement, I must say that appreciation is considerably detracted from when I find him making a most violent and bitter attack upon a colleague of mine on the Army Council. He has spoilt what might or might not be a good case fey his exaggeration of statement. He has accused the Army Council of murdering British airmen. I defy him to produce one single instance of the murdering of a British airman in France or in this country. The hon. Gentleman made the same statement before in such a way as to force the Government to appoint a judicial inquiry.

§ Mr. BILLING
Not judicial at my request.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
I am within the recollection of Members of this House. The hon. Gentleman forced the late Government to appoint a judicial inquiry, presided over by a High Court judge, with assessors who were men of skilled knowledge in engineering. He was asked to substantiate the accusations which he made in this House, and nobody knows better than the hon. Gentleman that he failed, and completely failed, to substantiate those accusations. Notwithstanding that lesson which he received at the hand of the judicial tribunal, for which he himself pleaded, he comes forward again and makes the same rash and reckless statements. I can assure my hon. Friend that it does grieve anybody who is anxious that these gallant fellows who are fighting for us at the front should not be handicapped when we find the hon. Member coming forward at this time of night and rashly and recklessly making statements which only serve to impede their gallantry and break down their morale for which they have become famous all over the world. I again ask the hon. Member to come forward and substantiate the statements which he has made.

§ Mr. BILLING
I shall have very much pleasure in giving my hon. Friend privately a great deal of information which I prefer not to give in this House.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
I must say, speaking on behalf of the Air Service, that I am 1054 afraid the evidence which my hon. Friend would bring forward would receive the same fate at the hands of a judicial inquiry as did the evidence which he brought before the other judicial inquiry.

§ Mr. HOGGE
They had not the power to call witnesses.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
We are told now it was not a judicial inquiry.

§ Mr. HOGGE
I say there was no power to call witnesses.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
That fact does not make it any the less judicial. It was for the hon. Member to substantiate the case that he had put forward. He had the power and the opportunity before that inquiry, not only to appear himself with all his facts in support of his statements, but he could produce any evidence he liked. There was no attempt of any sort or kind at that inquiry to prevent the hon. Member coming forward himself with all his facts and bringing forward any witnesses or any evidence he cared to bring before that Committee. That Committee was presided over by one of the most distinguished of our judges, Mr. Justice Baillache. I do not know whether the hon. Member would like us to have another inquiry into the statements which he has so rashly made before the House to-night.

§ Mr. BILLING
I should, indeed.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
The hon. Member said a few minutes ago that he did not want one.

§ Mr. BILLING
Not a judicial inquiry. I want an inquiry by experts who understand aviation and who have seen flying.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
What sort of inquiry does the hon. Member want? He knows perfectly well that he was satisfied with the judicial inquiry when we promised it, and when we promised to appoint a High Court judge to preside, with skilled assessors to assist him.

§ Mr. BILLING
No; I protested fiercely against it.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
In any case the hon. Gentleman came forward and submitted himself to that inquiry, and I hope that he was satisfied with the result. He 1055 went on again to attack Sir David Henderson. He is probably the only man in this country who is supposed to know anything about the Air Service who has gone out of his way to attack Sir David Henderson. Everybody in the country knows that the splendid efficiency of the Air Service is due in the largest measure to Sir David Henderson. He has grown; up with our Air Service. If yon were to ask anybody in the Air Service to-day, 1056 whatever his position, one and all would admit that the one great benefactor of the Service, who has made it the splendid Service which it is, and has made it the envy of the other branches of our Armies, as it is to-day, is Sir David Henderson.