Great Britain. Royal Air Force - The Battle for Britain: interservice rivalry between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, 1909-1940

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2015 by Anthony J. Cumming

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cumming, Anthony J.

The Battle for Britain: interservice rivalry between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, 190940 / Anthony J. Cumming.

pages cm

Summary: The Battle for Britain is a provocative reinterpretation of both British air and naval power from 1909 to 1940. Anthony Cumming challenges the view that the Battle of Britain was a decisive victory won solely by the Royal Air Force through independent airpower operations. By re-evaluating the early stage of the Mediterranean conflict and giving special emphasis to naval battles such as Calabria and Taranto, Cumming argues that the Royal Navy played an equally important role in defeating Hitlers early advances, buying critical time until the Americans could make a decisive contribution. His argument holds that the RAFs role as an independent arm has been exaggerated and that contemporary strategists can learn from investing too much confidence in independent airpower.Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61251-835-0 (ebook) 1. Britain, Battle of, Great Britain, 1940. 2. World War, 19391945Great Britain. 3. Interservice rivalry (Armed Forces)Great Britain. 4. World War, 19391945Naval operations, British. 5. World War, 19391945Aerial operations, British. 6. Air powerGreat BritainHistory20th century. 7. Sea powerGreat BritainHistory20th century. 8. Great Britain. Royal Air ForceHistory20th century. 9. Great BritainHistory, Military20th century. 10. Great BritainHistory, Naval20th century. I. Title. II. Title: Interservice rivalry between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, 190940.

D756.5.B7C85 2015

358.413094109041dc23

2014044410

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

Photos are from the U.S. Naval Institute photo archive unless otherwise indicated. Maps created by Charles Grear.

CONTENTS

A irplanes, compared with ships or armies, are relative newcomers to the battlefield. As with all new weapon systems, they were viewed with suspicion and some antagonism by the senior military officers of the day. Luckily, thanks to the pioneers of the Royal Navy Air Service (RNAS) and Royal Flying Corps (RFC) their virtues became more readily accepted, but even towards the end of the First World War there was still sufficient resistance to encourage those pioneers that only the formation of a separate service devoted to the delivery of war from the air would enable the aircrafts proper place in our national armory to be sustained and fully recognized. However, the creation of a separate service did not much change the way in which aircraft were used in support of the sea and land battles.

But with the peace and the inevitable contraction of all three services the battle for resources became the dominant factor. So it was not surprising that the doctrine of airpower was created to justify the status quo and to convince ministers that the use of the airplane in isolation could meet many of the strategic military requirements, at the time principally imperial policing.

In this book Anthony Cumming provocatively challenges the more extravagant claims for airpower. In doing so he goes out of his way to emphasize that the courage and professionalism of the Royal Air Force since its formation are not at issue, but perhaps some of the claims for the strategic achievements of airpower can be debated without for one moment disputing the selfless bravery of those who have played such a pivotal role in serving the country in World War II and after.

So with nearly one hundred years of the use of the aircraft in battle it should be possible to challenge some of the shibboleths that surround its use. I wonder, had the admirals and generals of the first decade of the twentieth century been less resistant to the airplanes use, a fear born no doubt of which cherished weapon system it might replace on the battlefield, whether there would have been the political exasperation that led to the creation of a separate service. It is all too easy to shelter behind the indivisibility of airpower, but the joint operational philosophy that is now so firmly embedded into our command and control structures seems to me to make indivisibility redundant. Looking to the future, when many exponents of airpower are beginning to question whether the manned combat aircraft will maintain its battlefield preeminence in the face of remotely piloted vehicles that bring less political and logistic baggage, does one really need a separate service to operate and support this capability?

I doubt whether there is the political or military appetite to address such issues for fear of where it might lead, but this book does shake the tree and allow us to see what fruit falls to the ground.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir David Benjamin Bathurst, GCB, DL

I t would have been impossible to write this book without the generous help of numerous individuals and organizations. My grateful thanks go to the staff of the National Archives, Kew; the Imperial War Museum, London; the Liddell Hart Archives, London; the Churchill Archives, Cambridge; and Torbay Councils Library Service for their courtesy and understanding on numerous occasions. I must specifically mention Simon Gough, archives officer at the Parliamentary Archives, London, who rendered invaluable service by finding and copying important government statistical information onto DVD for my use. John Vice at the House of Lords also gave me important information regarding the use of material quoted in Hansard, and I must state that this book contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v1.0. Grateful thanks must also go to Richard Kennell (now retired) and Jill Smith at the Britannia Royal Naval College Library, Dartmouth, for their generous book-borrowing privileges and, more important, their friendship and support since the beginning of my MA over thirteen years ago. As always, I wish to thank G. H. Harry Bennett, associate professor at the University of Plymouth, for his continuing encouragement of my writing career and for reading the manuscript. Since publication of