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Air Power Studies Centre

South-East Asian Commitments 1950-1965

The Proceedings of the 1997 RAAF History Conference

Held in Canberra on 7 November 1997

Edited by John Mordike

O Commonwealth of Australia 1998

Disclaimer

The views are those of the authors and conference participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defence, the Royal Australian Air Force, or the Government of Australia.

Release

This document is approved for official release.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

RAAF History Conference (6th: 1997: Canberra, ACT) South-east Asian commitments 1950-1965: the proceedings of the 1997 RAAF History Conference held in Canberra on 7 November 1997.

ISBN 0 642 26516 X

1. Australia. Royal Australian Air Force - =story - Congresses. 2. Air defenses - Australia - History - Congresses. 3. Air power - Australia - History - Congresses. I. Mordike, John Leonard. 11. Australia. Royal Australian Air Force. Air Power Studies Centre. 111. Title.

Published and distributed by:

Air Power Studies Centre RAAF Base Fairbairn ACT 2600 Australia

Telephone: (02) 62876563 Facsimile: (02) 62876382 e-mail: apsc@pop.cc.adfa.oz.au

l 1 l

CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Abbreviations

Opening Address Air Marshal L.B. Fisher

The Ge~opolitical Setting: Australia's Involvement in South-East Asian Conflicts 1948-1965 Dr Peter Edwards

The Malayan Emergency Dr Michael Evans

Organisation and Development in the Royal Australian Air Porce 1950-1965 Dr Alan Stephens

RAAF Museum - The Historic Aircraft Restoration Program Mr David Gardner

RAAF Training and Education 1948-1965 Dr John Mordike

Confrontation in Malaysia 1963-1966 Air Vice-Marshal R.V. Richardson (Ret'd)

Ubon Air Vice-Marshal R.E. Trebilco (Ret'd)

Closing Comments Air Marshal L.B. Fisher

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Papers have been printed as presented by authors, with only minor changes to achieve some consistency in layout, spelling and terminology. The transcripts of the discussions which followed the presentation of the papers have been edited for relevance.

I wish to thank Mr John Hunter for undertaking the task of transcribing the Conference proceedings. It was a task well done. My thanks also to Mrs Sandra Di Guglielmo for her dedicated editorial assistance and her valuable administrative support.

John Mordike February 1998

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Air Commodore Brent Espeland

Air Commodore Espeland joined the RAAF on 24 January 1966 as a Cadet Aircrew. On successful completion of No. 19 Academy Course and No. 75 Pilots Course, Air Commodore Espeland was posted to No. 36 Squadron to fly C-130A aircraft before undertaking No. 63 Flying Instructors Course in 1975. He subsequently held several flying instructional posts which culminated in his appointment as Chief Flying Instructor, Central Flying School in 1980.

Air Commodore Espeland attended the Canadian Force Command and Staff College in 1981 before taking up a staff appointment within the Directorate of Personnel - Off~ceer Following promotion to Wing Commander in 1983, he enjoyed a three year tenure as Military Secretary and Comptroller to the Governor-General before returning to flying duties as Commanding Off~cer of the Central Flying School from 1986 to 1988. During part of this period he also held the position of Officer Temporarily Commanding RAAF Base East Sale.

With the introduction of the PCl9A aircraft into service with the RAAF, Air Commodore Espeland assumed the appointment of Leader of the Pilot Training Design Team with Support Command. He then attended United States Air War College before returning to Australian in 1990 as Director of the Air Power Studies Centre. In August 1991, he took up the dual post of Officer Commanding RAAF Fairbairn and Commandant RAAF Staff College and held these appointments until January 1994 when, with the formation of the Australian College of Defence and Strategic Studies, he moved into the position of Deputy Director of Studies (C) on promotion to the rank of Air Commodore.

Air Conunodore Espeland assumed his present appointment as Air Officer Commanding Training Command with effect 11 December 1995. During his career Air Commodore Espeland has sewed as wingman with, and later leader of, the RAAF Aerobatic Team, the Roulettes. He has also held joint command through his appointment as Orange Force Commander in Exercise Kangaroo 92. In 1989 Air Commodore Espeland was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to the Royal Australian Air Force.

Dr Peter Edwards

Dr Peter Edwards is the Official Historian of Australia's Involvement in South-East Asian Conflicts 1948-1975. He is the author of Crises and Commitments: The Politics and Dijdomacy ofAustralia S Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948-1965 and A Nation at War: Australian Politics, Sociery and Diplomacy during the Vietnam War 1965-1975, as well as being general editor of the series. A former Rhodes Scholar and Harkness Fellow, he has published extensively on 20th century

international history, especially Australian foreign relations, Europe between the two world wars, and Australian-American relations. Dr Edwards is currently the Executive Director of the Australian Centre for American Studies, located at the University of Sydney.

Dr Michael Evans

Dr Michael Evans is a historian in the Land Warfare Studies Centre. He read history at the Universities of Rhodesia and Western Australia and war studies at King's College, University of London. He was also a Visiting Fellow in security studies at the University of York in England. He was a national serviceman in the Rhodesian Army and later a regular major in the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA). During his ZNA service he was responsible for formulating the Army's War Studies Program for the professional development of former guerilla commanders. His most recent publication is an Australian Defence Studies Centre Paper entitled Western Armies and the Use of Military History since 1945.

Dr Alan Stephens

Dr Alan Stephens is the RAAF Historian, based at the Air Power Studies Centre in Canberra. Before joining the Centre he was a principal research officer in the Federal Parliament, specialising in foreign affairs and defence; prior to that he was a pilot in the RAAF, where his postings included the command ofNo. 2 Squadron in 1980-81.

He is the author or editor of numerous hooks and articles on security, military history and air power, and is currently writing a general history of the RAAF. He is a graduate of the RAM Staff College, and of the University of New England, the Australian National University, and the University of New South Wales.

Mr David Gardner

Mr David Gardner began his working career as an Airframe Mechanic with the RAAF in 1967. He sewed on a number of operational squadrons, working on aircraft such as the Dakota, Neptune, Airtrainer, Iroquois, Chinook, Phantom, F-l l l and his beloved Canberra.

The hallmark of David's service career was his dedication to duty and loyalty to the Air Force. He was widely regarded as an innovative skilled technician and in 1983 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his work in solving major fatigue problems with the Canberra fleet.

David was appointed Curator of the RAAF Museum in 1986. During the past 11 years he has taken the Museum from a dusty collection of artefacts to a world class aviation museum, showing the proud history of the RAAF. This development culminated in 1996 with the opening of the Museum's new Heritage Gallery, designed and produced by David.

Not content with simply developing the Museum, David has continued to work on aircraft. In the process he has been granted authority to conduct maintenance on all airworthy aircraft owned and operated by the Museum, including the Fokker Triplane replica, Sopworth Pup replica, Tiger Moth, Winjeel, Harvard and Lockheed Ventura.

Mr Gardner has also become an expert examiner of historic aircraft and components under the National Cultural Heritage Act and a valuer of historic aircraft and components under the Taxation Incentives for the Arts Scheme. He holds a Graduate Diploma in Museun~ Management and recently completed a Master of Applied Science degree in museum studies. He has recently commenced part-time studies as a research scholar with Materials Research at Deakin University. In 1995 he was named Museum Achiever of the Year by Museums Australia (Victoria).

Mr Gardner retired from the RAAF with the rank of Warrant Officer in March 1997 after 30 years service. He continues to serve as the Senior Curator at the RAAF Museum as a Professional Officer with the Public Service.

Dr John Mordike

John Mordike was formerly an officer in the Australian Army. His military career spanned 17 years of commissioned service and included several regimental and staff appointments. During this period, he spent one year on active service in Vietnam. After leaving the Army, he was appointed in a civilian capacity as a historian in Amy Office. He is the author of An Army for a Nation: A history ofAustralian military developments 1880-1914. John is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, and the Universities of New England and New South Wales.

Air Vice-Marshal R.V. Richardson (Ret'd)

Air Vice-Marshal Richardson was educated in Melbourne before he began RAAF pilot training in 1961. After completion of fighter operational conversion at Williamtown he flew Sabre aircraft with 77 Squadron in peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, and North Borneo for two and a half years during the Indonesian Confrontation crisis. He also spent eight months in Thailand flying with No. 79 Squadron.

Following a flying instructional tour and test pilot training at the Empire Test Pilot's School in the United Kingdom, he spent over 14 years test flying a1 Aircraft Research and Development Unit. While ARDU Flight Test Squadron Commander, Air Vice-

vii

Marshal Richardson spent three years as the evaluation test pilot on the New Tactical Fighter selection program, culminating in the selection of the FIA-18 Hornet in 1981.

He has held appointments as Director-General Manning, Air Officer Commanding RAAF Training Command, Assistant Chief of Staff - Personnel and Resource Management, and three months as Deputy Chief of Air Staff. Air Vice-Marshal Richardson transferred to the General Reserve in June 1997.

During his 36 years in the RAAF he flew over 5,000 hours in military aircraft and qualified on 25 types. He also has over 250 hours in numerous sailplanes. In 1993 he was elected a Fellow of the US-based Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and in 1995 he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia.

Air Vice-Marshal R.E. Trebilco (Ret'd)

Air Vice-Marshal Trebilco joined the RAAF in January 1945 and retired 37 years later on his appointment as Administrator of Norfolk Island. He served as a linguist in the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan in 1946-47 before resuming an intempted aircrew career at No. 1 FTS at Point Cook in 1948. He flew Tiger Moths, Wirraways and Dakotas on course and converted to Mustangs at No. 21 Squadron at Laverton before being posted to No. 77 Squadron at Iwakuni in Japan in December 1949.

He completed a tour on Mustangs and a further one on Meteors during the Korean War. Between intelligence and other staffappointments, he had tours on Vampires, Sabres and Mirages at both training and operational units. He is a graduate of the US Armed Forces Staff College and the Royal College of Defence Studies and was AOC Support Command and then CAFP prior to retirement.

Following his period as Administrator of Norfolk Island, he spent a further four years in Japan as Vice-President Overseas Telecommunication Commission. He lives on the Gold Coast, but remains active as a committee member of the Queensland Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and as chairman of the Queensland committee to raise funds for the long-overdue National Korean War Memorial.

viii

--

ABBREVIATIONS

ACS AHQ ANZUS AOC cm CAFAC CAR CAS CAVU CO CT DLP DIR ETA FEAFHQ FPDA GC1 GOC HE JOC MRLA NASMA NATO NCO OC OR ORP PGM PKI PP1 RAF RAAF RMIT RSTT R/T SAS SEAC SEATO SOE TOC UK US USAAF USAF WAAAF

Airfield Construction Squadron Air Headquarters Australia New Zealand United States Air Officer Commanding Citizen Air Force Chief of Air Force Advisory Committee Civil Aviation Regulation Chief of the Air Staff Clear and Visibility Unlimited Commanding Officer Communist Terrorists Democratic Labor Party Dead Reckoning Estimated Time of Arrival Far East Air Force Headquarters Five Power Defence Arrangements Ground Controlled Interception General Officer Commanding High Explosive Joint Operations Centre Malayan Races Liberation Army National Air and Space Museum North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Non-Commissioned Officer Officer Commanding Operational Research Operational Readiness Platform Precision Guided Munitions Partai Kommunis Indonesia Plan Position Indicator Royal Air Force Royal Australian Air Force Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RAAF School of Technical Training Radio Telephony Special Air Service South East Asia Command South-East Asia Treaty Organisation Special Operations Executive Top of Climb United Kingdom United States United States Army Air Forces United States Air Force Womens Auxiliary Australian Air Force

OPENING ADDRESS

Air Marshal L.B. Fisher

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to welcome you to this sixth RAAF History Conference, which examines the subject of South-East Asian Commitments 1950 - 1965. Let me say how pleased I am to see so many of you here today. I believe the registration for this conference is about 250 people and that has generally been the number that have participated in recent years.

For a long time, RAAF history was neglected but in recent years we have generated this enthusiasm for the subject. These annual history conferences have been an important part of this process of arousing interest. There have also been a number of first class histories published in recent years and there are many more on the way. Furthermore, there has been a growing interest, both public and Service, in the RAAF Museum at Point Cook, which has clearly become an outstanding display of RAAF heritage. If any of you have not visited the Museum recently, I recommend that you do so. You will not be disappointed. The RAAF Museum's mission is to preserve and promote RAAF heritage and, accordingly, they have made a financial contribution to today's proceedings. Thank you for your support.

Today's conference deals with the important period in RAAF history from 1950 to 1965. As we will hear today, it was a period in which the RAM became a truly professional force, growing in stature and capability. It was also a period when attention started to turn again to South-East Asia. Speakers today will tell us about the Air Force's early commitments to this strategically important region. In a very real sense, however, today's conference is not the end of the story. It is very much a prelude to a more sustained and larger RAAF commitment to the war in Vietnam. And this will be the subject of next year's conference.

It is therefore appropriate that our first speaker, Doctor Peter Edwards, sets the scene for this conference. Doctor Edwards is the Official Historian of Australia's involvement in South-East Asian Conflicts for the period 1948 to 1975, a period which covers the developments and deployments we are looking at today as well as the war in Vietnam. Other speakers are Doctor Michael Evans who will speak on the Malaysian Emergency. Doctor Alan Stephens will talk about RAAF Organisation and Force Development, and Doctor John Mordike will speak on the subject of RAAF Training and Education. Air Vice-Marshal Bob Richardson's subject is Confrontation, and Air Vice-Marshal Ray Trebilco will look at the RAAF presence in Ubon. In addition, Mr David Gardner, who is Senior Curator at the RAAF Museum, will present a paper on the historic aircraft restoration program.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support given by today's speakers to the promotion of interest in RAAF History. I look forward to your presentations in a day which I am confident will not only be enjoyable, but will also make a valuable contribution to the RAAP's recorded history. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, enjoy the day.

THE GEOPOLITICAL SETTING: AUSTRALIA'S INVOLVEMENT IN SOUTH-EAST ASIAN

COMMITMENTS 1948-1965

Dr Peter Edwards

'Malaya' and more recently 'Malaysia' have often been evocative words in Australian politics. In recent times they have been associated with currency crises; before that with diplomatic disagreements between Australian and Malaysian leaders. If we go back to the 1940s, 'Malaya' evoked memories of the disastrous Malayan campaign of 1941-42, culminating in the fall of Singapore. But in the 1950s and 1960s 'Malaya' and 'Malaysia' were central to political debate in Australia for reasons that related to wider issues in world politics. Australia was militarily involved in two conflicts, one known as the Malayan Emergency and the other, between Indonesia and Malaysia, often known by the Indonesian term 'konfrontasi' or Confrontation. Today these two conflicts have generally been forgotten; they are sometimes confused with each other by people who ought to know better; at best they are seen as minor preliminaries to the Vietnam War. But at the time they were seen as raising issues that were central to Australia's national security and domestic politics. Why, then, were they so important?

A glance at the map offers part of the answer. Anything that happens in the region from the Malayan peninsula through the islands of Indonesia to Papua New Guinea will always be of direct and immediate interest to those responsible for Australia's defence and foreign relations. But in the 1950s and 1960s events in Malaya and (after 1963) Malaysia were seen as having much wider significance not only by Australians but also by leaders of external powers, including those whom Australia's longest serving Prime Minister called our 'great and powerful friends', Britain and the United States. This was essentiallv because Malava and its neiehbours in South-East Asia witnessed the complex interaction of two of the most important processes in world politics in that period - the Cold War and the decolonisation of the European empires. Let us look therefore at each of these topics in turn, before seeing how policy-makers put them together.

Probably few topics in contemporary history have caused as much ink to he spilled as the origins of the Cold War. Most of the arguments between participants and historians have centred on whether the Americans or the Russians deserved the greater share of the blame. In recent years, however, historians have emphasised how much the outbreak of the Cold War was shaped by the concern of leaders of countries in western and northern Europe, including Britain, France and Norway. Their fear was that the Soviet Union would extend its power in western Europe through a combination of military might and influence over local communist parties, as had already occurred through much of central and eastern Europe. Pressure from these leaders was largely responsible for overcoming American tendencies towards isolation

and the strengthening of anti-Soviet policies, culminating in the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949. In the years immediately after the end of the Second World War, how to assess and to react to the Soviet threat was the major preoccupation not only of Europeans and Americans but of much of rest of the world. In 1947 and 1948 a series of events -the enunciation of the Truman doctrine, the announcement of the Marshall Plan, the formation of the Cominform and the Western Union, the Communists' acquisition of unilateral control of Czechoslovakia, and a major crisis between the Soviet Union and the Western powers over Berlin - had the effect of drawing the lines in the Cold War irreversibly. From now on all world politics would be seen in terms of the conflict, ideological, political, economic and sometimes military, between the United States and the Soviet Union together with their respective allies, satellites and supporters. In the Soviet case those supporters included communist parties and movements around the world who were happy to proclaim their allegiance to Stalin and his colleagues in the Kremlin.

Thus when communist-led insurgencies broke out in 1948 not only in Malaya but also in Burma, India, Indonesia (then the Netherlands East Indies) and the Philippines, it was not surprising that the British government and others were inclined to see them not as conflicts of merely local significance hut as important moves in the global Cold War. According to the leaders of a British Labour Government, an expansionist Soviet Union was now meeting firm resistance in Europe; consequently Moscow, the centre of world communism, was fomenting insurrections in Asia in order to create trouble and dissension for the western powers. In the case of Malaya, this was clearly with a view to disrupting the supply of tin and rubber, strategically important materials of which Malaya was the West's major source.

But there was a major difference between the Cold War in Europe and Asia, for in the latter it was inextricably linked with the other major process in world politics - decolonisation. Before 1939 much of Asia and Africa had been controlled by the major European empires, notably the British, French, Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese. After 1945 most of their leaders were determined to return to their pre-war eminence. It was a sensitive matter for the western allies in the Cold War, for many Americans, especially President Franklin D. Roosevelt, were strongly opposed to European colonialism. During the war there had been some considerable tensions between Americans and Europeans at the highest levels. In response to American pressure, Winston Churchill famously pronounced that he had not become His Majesty's Prime Minister in order to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire. For their part the Americans wondered aloud whether the real purpose of Louis Mountbatten's South East Asia Command (SEAC) was to 'Save England's Asian Colonies'. Despite the American pressure, European determination to recover their colonial empires was strong. Even the communists in France were anxious to reassert French control over their colonies in Indochina.

But the war had done irretrievable damage to the prestige and authority of the European powers. Nowhere had this been symbolised more dramatically than by the fall of Singapore in February 1942, with the spectacle of thousands of defeated British troops being ignominiously incarcerated by the previously derided Japanese. In Malaya, throughout South-East Asia and in many other regions hitherto dominated by

the European empires, strong independence movements arose. In most cases they included both communist and non-communist elements, the balance between the two varying between countries and over time. To summarise a long and complex process, it gradually became apparent to western leaders that outright opposition to decolonisation was futile. The major challenge was to use their political, militiuy and economic weapons to try to ensure that the new governments that emerged in the former colonies were at least non-communist and preferably anti-communist. At the same time, it was in the interests of some European governments, including those of Britain and France, to portray their actions in Asia as essentially anti-communist in purpose, while their critics (including some Americans) saw them as imperialist rearguard actions designed to recover control of their colonies.

This, in very broad terms, is the context in which Australian policy-makers sought to develop policies towards South-East Asia, including the question of how to react to the out break of the conflict in Malaya in 1948. The insurgency in Malaya was clearly - led by communists, but it arose from a complex set of political, ethnic, economic and constitutional tensions within Britain's colonial territories on the Malayan peninsula and in Singapore, leaving ample room for differences of interpretation. (These tensions, and the points to which I refer in the remainder of this paper, are discussed in greater detail in Crises and Commitments, the relevant volume of The OfJicial History ofAustralia's Involvement in South-East Asian Conflicts 1948-1975') In the late 1940s and early 1950s Australianpoliticians and their advisers generally displayed two principal sets of attitudes and policies towards the various conflicts and insurgencies in South-East Asia, according to the balance they struck between the Cold War and decolonisation as the explanation of what was happening in the region. The first, associated with pats of the Australian Labor Paty and left-liberal opinion in universities, churches and the media, placed much more emphasis on decolonisation and the force of Asian nationalism, rather than on the Cold War. Supporters of this view generally argued that, sooner or later, nationalism would triumph in the various Asian countries, and that to oppose it, in the name of anti- communism or otherwise, was simply to condemn oneself to inevitable defeat and humiliation in the long run.

This was exemplified by the approach of the Australian Labor Government in the late 1940s, in which the principal formulators of foreign policy were the Prime Minister, J.B. Chifley, the Minister for External Affairs, Dr H.V. Evatt, and Evatt's closest adviser, Dr J.W. Burton. Chifley, the former train-driver, bad a strong and instinctive sympathy for those he regarded as exploited workers; Burton, the young intellectual who had recently gained a PhD at the London School of Economics, sympathised strongly with the various nationalist movements emerging throughout Asia and was hiehlv sus~icious of the Cold War oolicies of the United States and Britain: while Dr - , L

Evatt placed great emphasis on resolving international issues through the United Nations, in the formation of which he bad played a prominent part, rather than by military means

Peter Edwards (with Gregoty Pemberton), Crises andCommitmenfs: The Politics andDiplomocy of Auslrolio's Involvement in Southeart Asian Conflicls 1948-196S, Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 1992.

All three seem to have been much influenced by the course and outcome of the revolution in the Netherlands East Indies. There the Chifley Government had maintained a strong and consistent policy of support for the Indonesian nationalists against the Dutch, despite strong criticism from conservative opponents, including the Liberal and Country parties and most major newspapers, who saw the Dutch as Australia's natural allies. By the end of the 1940s it was apparent that the Chifley Government had backed the right horse. The Indonesians succeeded in winning independence from the Dutch, earning Australia an excellent relationship with the newly independenf non-communist government in Jakarta.

The success of Australian support for the nationalists in Indonesia encouraged the leaders of the Chifley Government to apply a similar analysis to the position in Malaya, although in fact there were major differences between the two countries. These related especially to the complexities of the relationship between the Malay, Chinese and Indian communities in Malaya. The support for the insurgency in Malaya came largely from the poorest sections of the Chinese community, while many of the Malay community were as unwilling to see themselves ruled by the Chinese as they were unhappy about British rule. These complexities were largely misunderstood or overlooked by Chifley, Evatt and Burton. With differing degrees of emphasis, they were generally inclined to see the insurgency in Malaya as essentially an understandable protest by Malayan workers against political and economic exploitation by their colonial masters. Consequently they resisted the strong pressure in Australia to support Britain in combating the insurgents. Initially the Government was reluctant even to allow the dispatch of small anns for personal defence to tin- mining companies in Malaya, including those with Australian owners, managers or employees. This was strongly criticised by the press and political pressure forced the reversal of this policy. Public pressure also led the Government to send to Malaya some Sten and Austen guns and ammunition, as well as mobile wireless-telegraphy sets ('walkie-talkies'). but it was clear that the Government wanted to limit its , . commitment to the minimum that public opinion would support. At one point the British Government, encouraged by some ill-advised comments from the Australian High Commissioner in London, hinted that Australian troops would be most welcome in Malaya, but Chifley made it clear that such a request would not be entestained and managed to ensure that the public never knew that the matter bad even been raised. There was never any serious suggestion that the British might request the provision of Australian air force or naval elements.

The Chifley Government thus demonstrated one attitude towards insurgencies in South-East Asia, one which proved well-advised in the case of Indonesia but less well-applied to Malaya. The other general attitude towards the issues posed by insurgencies in South-East Asia was manifested by the Liberal-Country Party government, led by Robert Menzies, who replaced Chifley's Labor administration in December 1949. As a generalisation. it is fair to sav that Menzies and the more conservative sector of Australian political opinion tended to place more emphasis on the Cold War perspective and less on the inevitable victory of Asian nationalism over - -

European imperialism. This view was also associated with an instinctive support for Britain on a wide range of political issues. This support was even stronger than that displayed by the Labor party, although the Chifley Government had been close to the

Attlee Labour Government in Britain; it was also closer than that of the Menzies Government towards the United States in many respects. Contrary to the view that is often expressed, the signing of the ANZUS Treaty in 1951 did not mean that Australia had aligned itself totally with the United States on foreign and defence policies, especially where there was a difference between British and American approaches. Under Menzies, Australia in the 1950s did not want to rely solely on the United States and took whatever steps it could to shore up the declining power of Britain, not only vis-a-vis the Soviet bloc but also vis-a-vis the United States. Australian willingness to host the British nuclear tests at Maralinga should probably be seen in this light.

There vvas therefore some expectation that the new Menzies Government would be more supportive towards the British in Malaya than the Chifley Government had been. That proved to be the case, but the difference should not be exaggerated. Menzies's approach towards supporting the British in Malaya was distinctly cautious - much more cautious, for example, than be was towards supporting the Americans in Vietnam 15 years later. Encouraged by press speculation and hints by Australian ministers, the British Government let it be known that they would welcome the provision of both Dakota transport aircraft and Lincoln bombers by the RAAF. Menzies delayed any decision. He first arranged for a visit to Australia by senior civilian and military representatives of the authorities in Malaya, then despatched an Australian military mission to Malaya, both to seek information and apparently to press the British towards adopting unconventional tactics in jungle fighting, an area in which the Australians believed that they bad developed special expertise during the Pacific War. The Government decided to send the Dakotas before the mission bad been sent, but not the bombers.

For all his caution, however, there was a clear difference between the attitude of Menzies and that of his predecessors. In his public statements, Menzies emphasised that events in Malaya, like those in Korea, Indochina and elsewhere, all had to be seen in terms of the global Cold War strategy of the Soviet Union. The significance of this perspective was underlined when the Korean War broke out, quite unexpectedly, in late June 1950. The Australian Cabinet's immediate reaction was to dispatch to Malaya the Lincoln bombers that the British had requested some weeks earlier. The Menzies Government later committed Australian troops to the Korean War, but there was no suggestion at this time that Australian troops should be committed to Malaya.

That step, and the decisive shift in the focus of Australian defence planning to South- East Asia did not come until the mid-1950s. Previously Australian and New Zealand defence planners had based their thinking on the assumption that, if there were to be another world war in the near future, as seemed all too possible, it would involve the United States, Britain and the Commonwealth against the Soviet Union. In such a circumstance Britain's role would be to deny the Middle East to the Soviet Union. Australia and New Zealand saw themselves as supporting Britain in this endeavour, and both countries committed forces to the region. In short, they saw their likely role in a third world war as essentially similar to that in the previous two, with strong echoes of Gallipoli and Damascus, Tobmk and Alamein.

The shift of focus towards South-East Asia came in the years between 1953 and 1956, largely influenced by the crises prompted by the French attempt to reassert dominance over Indochina. In 1954, at the time of the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the French were desperately anxious to convince the United States and the other western powers that their struggle against the Viet Minh was not merely a colonial rearguard action but a defence of western interests against international communism. Military planning at this time was centred on the Five Power Staff Agency, linking Australia and New Zealand with the United States, Britain and France. After the Geneva Accords had divided Vietnam, supposedly temporarily, at the seventeenth parallel, negotiations led to the Manila Treaty which established the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), an ill-fated attempt to create a local equivalent to NATO.

The events surrounding Dien Bien Phu, Geneva and the creation of SEATO have often been discussed, given their importance as precursors of the Vietnam War. What has been too often overlooked is that Australian defence planners continued to find it easier to exchange information and ideas with their counterparts in London than with those in Washington, who were concerned not to allow other countries, even close friends and allies, too much information and therefore possible influence over their strategic policies and military plans. In 1955, after lengthy negotiations, Britain, Australia and New Zealand established the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve, under which all three countries committed ground, air and naval forces to the Malaya-Singapore region. This was a major development in Australian policy, for the Australian army units, who were available after the end of the Korean War were the first Australian troops to he committed overseas in peacetime.

The role of the strategic reserve was to defend the region against communist aggression. Menzies made it clear that he saw the principal threat as coming from China, and that events in Korea, Indochina, Malaya and elsewhere in the region should all be seen in terns of a threat from China, then closely allied to the Soviet Union. The domino theory - the concept that China and its communist allies were seeking to expand their power over one country after another - lay at the heart of the Strategic Reserve's raison d'2tre. It also ensured that henceforth Australia and New Zealand would focus their defence planning on South-East Asia rather than the Middle East.

While the senior politicians of the three countries and their strategic planners had focused on the supposed threat from China, they apparently overlooked the question which most interested the Australian public - whether the Australian troops who were committed to the reserve should actually take part in operations against the insurgents in Malay. Only after some time was it stated that the forces in the reserve had a primary role and a secondary role. The primary role was to deter and to counter communist aggression in South-East Asia. The secondary role was to participate in operations against the insurgents (generally known as Communist Terrorists or CTs) in Malaya. Thus Australian troops were committed to fight in the Malayan Emergency as a by-product of, one might almost say a footnote to, strategic planning directed towards the possibility of a major war against China.

These events coincided with a tense and tumultuous time in Australian domestic politics, based on the split in the Australian Labor Party when a group of anti- communists, many but not all of whom were Catholics, left the ALP to form what later become known as the Democratic Lahor Partv (DLP). The commitment of , > , Australian troops to Malaya acquired heightened significance and sensitivity in this atmosphere. Evatt, now leader of the ALP and therefore Leader of the Opposition in ~ederal Parliament, vehemently denounced the commitment of troops, which he said would only lead to 'misunderstanding between the Asian peoples and the white race'. The distinction around which this paper is based, between the emphasis on the Cold War and that on Asian nationalism as the explanation for developments in South-East Asia, had thus taken a central place in Australian domestic politics. The issue of 'troops to Malaya' had become central to the bitter divisions in Australian politics.

In 1957 Malaya became independent, as had been promised by the British for some years. The new independent Government, led by Tunku Abdul Rahman, continued the fight against the communist insurgency and invited their Commonwealth allies, including Britain and Australia, to maintain their presence and their involvement. This severely undercut the criticism from Evatt and others that the commitment of Australian forces would only antagonise the people of an independent Malaya. By 1960 the Emergency was declared over, with the defeated communists withdrawing to the iuneles of the Thai-Malavan border. The w m t h of the Tnnku's anti-communist " U

and pro-Commonwealth statements around this time reinforced the Australian Government's view that it had struck an important blow in the global war against international commnnism and that military intervention in a former European colony in Sonth-East Asia could help to produce an independent, pro-western countTy with good prospects of economic prosperity and political stability. It was an attitude that would have great significance when Australia faced the question of intervention in Vietnam in the mid-1960s. Once again, leaders would make policy by analogy, basing their assessments of new situations on those with which they were already familiar.

In 1963 a new federation of Malaysia was created by bringing together the states of Malaya with Singapore and two British territories, Sabah and Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, where they shared borders with Indonesia. (Tbe inclusion of Brunei, which lay between Sabah and Sarawak, was also mooted but dropped before Malaysia was formed.) The Indonesians at first seemed unworried by this development, but then became sharply antagonistic and declared that their policy was one of 'konfrontasi', or confrontation. Quite what this meant was left deliberately vague, but it appeared to imply a cornbination of diplomatic and rhetorical opposition with low-level military conflict - a combination which had previously brought the Indonesians victory in their campaign to have West New Guinea (or Irian Jaya) included in their national territory.

Indonesia's confrontation of Malaysia posed difficult problems for the western powers. The creation of Malaysia was risky, for it combined aspects of the post- colonial federations which had proved disastrous in Africa with the geographical division which would prove untenable in Pakistan. But more importantly western policy-makers had once again to balance the conflicting demands of the Cold War and decolonisation, which had by the early 1960s evolved into more complex forms.

Indonesia's President Sukamo was not a communist. He had established a system of government, known as Nasakom, which involved a delicate balance of nationalist, Muslim and communist forces. Within that structure the communists, the Partai Kommunis Indonesia (PKI), was becoming increasingly powerful, and it was openly allied with the militant communism of the Chinese. Sukamo was also building up his armed strength with the support of loans from the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, he told the western world that, while he was becoming increasingly close to the communist powers, he was essentially an anti-colonial nationalist. He had the authority of leadership of the Indonesian nationalist movement to support his claim. He justified his opposition to the creation of Malaysia by saying that he was fighting neo- colonialism and imperialism which he - a great coiner of acronyms - called 'Nekolim'. The British had initially been sceptical about the proposal to form Malaysia but had become strongly sympathetic. While the creation of Malaysia was in the interests of most of the leaders and peoples of the new federation, it was also sufficiently in the interests of the British for the charge of 'neo-colonialism' to have some credibility.

This, then, was an especially complex situation. The British brushed aside the charge of 'neo-colonialism' and saw Sukamo as a megalomaniac dictator, whom they explicitly compared with Hitler. They saw his opposition to the inclusion of Sabah and Sarawak into Malaysia as merely another expression of his territorial expansionism. He had already gained West New Guinea and they assumed that he had far-reaching goals for expansion both westward and eastward, taking over Malaya, the Philippines, eastem New Guinea and parts of Melanesia. For the British, resisting Sukamo and defeating his 'confrontation' policy was of the utmost importance. At the same time they were much more dubious about the increasing American involvement in Vietnam and they resisted American pressure to become involved. This was true under a Conservative Government in London and became even more pronounced after a Labour Govenunent took office in 1964.

The Americans took quite a different view. They were often criticised for treating radical nationalists as communists, but in this case, influenced by the American Ambassador in Jakarta, they adopted an entirely different approach. They took the view that they did not want to drive Sukamo into the arms of the Communists. Consequently, while supporting the creation of Malaysia and opposing Confrontation, they urged Britain, Malaysia and their allies to be as restrained as possible in their resistance to Indonesian military measures. Essentially they saw Sukamo as a relatively minor problem on the world stage, and one that the Commonwealth countries should be able to handle without any need for significant intervention by Washington. By this time they were becoming much more concerned over the deteriorating position in Vietnam.

The diverging views of the British and the Americans posed major difficulties for Canberra. Australia's defence and foreign policies were based on the attempt to keep both powers, both of the countries that Menzies called our 'great and powerful friends'. involved in and committed to the reeion. To ensure British suuuort and . . commitment, Australia had to join in military actions against the Indonesians, including covert action on Indonesian territory. The British were constantly pressing

for larger forces and stronger action. But the Americans were urging caution, insisting that Britain, Australia, and New Zealand should do just enough to deny success to Sukamo, but no more.

Understandably, a constant theme in Australian diplomacy at this time was the need for what were called 'quadripartite talks' -that is, discussions in which the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand could agree on a strategy. The Americans, however, were particularly sensitive to the risks of appearing to form a 'white man's club' which sought to assert power in this region. This would only add weight to the claims of Sukamo and the communist bloc that the West remained essentially neo- colonialist. The Australian hope for quadripartite talks to establish an agreed strategy therefore faced constant frustration. Consequently much of Australian strategy at this time comprised the development of plans involving British, Australian and New Zealand forces to meet actual and hypothetical situations in the Indonesian-Malaysian conflict ..plans which reflected the British desire to ensure that the Indonesians were countered and deterred, while not going so far as to incur American wrath.

In general, this juggling act was handled with skill and subtlety. Confrontation was essentially in check by 1965, even before the events of 30 Septemberfl October in Jakarta which led to the downfall of Sukarno, his replacement by General Soeharto and the formal end to Confrontation in August 1966. During this tense period, the Australians managed to support the British without antagonising the Americans and even maintained diolomatic relations with Indonesia. Some Indonesian officers continued in training in Australian military establishments, even while the two countries were engaged in hostilities. It was one of the most successful examples of - -

Australian diplomacy and foreign policy in the region.

These, then, were some of the features of the geopolitics that surrounded two small conflicts in South-East Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, and which elevated the global significance of those conflicts. Policy-makers in Australia, as in many other countries, had to place these conflicts in the context of both the Cold War and the process of decolonisation of the European empires, and they had to strike the right balance between those two processes. In doing so, they often created policy by analogy, assessing events in Asia by comparison with those in Europe, those in Malaya by comparison with those in Indonesia, and those in Vietnam by comparison with those in Malaya. Australia also faced difficulties in retaining the support of both Britain and the United States. It is not easy in the 1990s to recall just how important Britain was to Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. But only if that impomce is underlined will we understand the purpose of the commitments that will be discussed in the remainder of this conference.

DISCUSSION

Air Marshal David Evans. Doctor Edwards, if I remember correctly, the attitude of the Australian Government towards the Indonesian takeover of Irian Jaya was quite different to the attitude with regard to the struggle between the Dutch and the Indonesians west of the country, even to the extent of contemplating military support for the Dutch at that stage. Would you care to comment on that?

Doctor Edwards: The attitude of the Australian Government towards the Indonesian desire for the takeover of West New Guinea was a major issue throughout the 1950s. You're quite right in saying that the Australians were very unhappy about the prospect and resisted it. It was a major theme of their policies throughout the 1950s. There was a marked change in that attitude which was associated with the change in Ministers of External Affairs in 1962. In 1960 and 1961 Menzies had been both Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs, but in early 1962 he handed over External Affairs to Sir Garfield Barwick.

Banvick was personally responsible for a major change in Australian policy when he said that the opposition to the Indonesian takeover of West New Guinea could simply not be supported any longer. One of the major reasons was the American approach to the whole issue. At that time Australia had accepted that it would have to share a land border with Indonesia, given the fact that Australia controlled the eastern half of the island at that time. Throughout the 1950s, the attempt to prevent the Indonesians from taking over West New Guinea had been a major concern that the Australians had fought for. The Indonesians saw West New Guinea as a natural part of their inheritance because it had been part of the Dutch East Indies. There is a major new history based on access to Australian, American, Dutch and other records being written at this moment by a Victorian historian named Richard Chauvel - grandson of Sir Harry - which I think will be very good and wiU outline this.

Air Vice-Marshal Pred Barnes: I wish to raise a couple of issues that occurred over the period you spoke about. One was the expulsion, I suppose, of Singapore from Malaysia and the other one was the killing of communists by Indonesians within Indonesia. I don't know whether they had much impact.

Doctor Edwards: I didn't include those issues in the paper I gave this morning, because it seemed to me that they really relate to events that come later than the period that you'll be mostly discussing this morning, although they are relevant. The first that you mentioned, the separation, if you like to put it in diplomatic language, of Singapore from Malaysia in August 1965 is sometimes regarded as the expulsion of Singapore from the federation. That did illustrate the point that I made during the paper of the fragility, the risk that was associated with the whole experiment. It was seen by many parties, including Lee Kuan Yew and the Singapore Government as being in Singapore's interests as well everybody else's that Singapore should he included in Malaysia. This would link Singapore with its natural hinterland, while giving Kuala Lumpur some sort of access and perhaps control over the internal security situation in Singapore. The Tunku and a Malay dominated government were

very anxious about the internal security situation given the uncertainty of the direction of the Chinese dominated state of Singapore. So it illustrated the fragility of the whole Malaysian experiment if you like. But otherwise it really relates to separate issues. It was also one of the factors which encouraged the Australian Government to believe that in the mid-1960s they faced an exceptionally difficult strategic situation in dealing with all of South-East Asia.

The other event that you mentioned was the killing of many hundreds of thousands of Indonesians. Some of these were undoubtedly communist, some of them were alleged to be communists, and others we do not know. We probably will never know just how many people were killed. It is certainly relevant and extremely important in Indonesia's history, and I suppose by implication, Australian-Indonesian relations. The ren~arkable thing was that it attracted so little comment at the time. Australia was so relieved to see the increasingly communist-influenced government of President Sukarno being ousted and being replaced by a government which seemed likely to be much more sympathetic to Western interests that very little comment was made about the extraordinarily bloody events that took place in the months immediately after the fnst of October 1965.

Doctor Alan Stephens: One of the critical issues seems to me to be the understanding in Australia of communism in the late 1940s and the 1950s. You referred to the perception that there was this international monolithic communist movement and that seemed to drive a number of the key policies that our government took With the advantage of hindsight we know that wasn't the case. What was the level of understanding in official and academic circles in Australia in the late 1940s and 1950s of world comment and were there noted people reading it at universities? Was the Department of External Affairs well informed? How well did we understand the phenomenon?

Doctor Edwards: How well we understood it is something we can argue to this day, I think. There was certainly a great deal of interest in it. The whole question of the communist threat was the great issue of the time. I am not so sure that it was wrong to interpret communism as in effect monolithic in the late 1940s and the late 1950s. The great danger, I think, the error in it if you like, was to see that as continuing well into much later periods by which time all sorts of rifts had begun to appear. The most important of those was between China and the Soviet Union. We now know that there were signs of that split from very early on and that it was quite severe by the mid- 1950s. There was rivalry between Mao and Stalin and there were different interests between Moscow and Beijing. That did not become evident to the world until the very early 1960s. And I think you can say that the significance of that was not well understood. It was underestimated by Australian and other Western policy-makers through the 1960s. And how to grapple with that was one of the key issues. There was a tendency to simplify it and to try to see it in good or bad terms, but the Chinese were seen as the more dangerous and the more militant. The Soviet Union were seen as less of a threat. Interestingly enough that was reversed by President Nixon later on in his famous opening to China in the 1970s. So dealing with those issues was highly sensitive, but I think it was partly because it became so much bound up with issues that were at the centre of domestic politics.

It was difficult for senior politicians to develop policies which had some degree of sophistication about them in these matters. Politicians were obliged to express 100 per cent opposition to anything that appeared to be communist. And anything that appeared to go against that had severe political impact. For example, much later Gordon Freeth as Minister for External Affairs made a speech saying that perhaps the presence of Soviet ships in the Indian Ocean was not a huge threat to Australian security. It created such an uproar that he lost his seat in the next election and it was of major detriment to the government of the day. So that was partly what made it very difficult for policy-makers to handle issues like this.

Air Commodore Tom Trinder: The American approach of softly, softly during confrontation seems to me a bit rich in relation to their arms trade. In 1961 we were in Burhank picking up our Neptunes. On the flight line I think there were 21 or 22 Neptunes that had been especially produced by Lockheed for the Dutch for employment in New Guinea. If memory serves me correctly, they didn't have any jet engines, hut they had the six 20 mm cannons mounted in the nose and all the ammunition belts ran back right through the fuselage and they were to be used against Indonesian shipping in the archipelago there. Once again, I'm a bit hazy, but the Dutch were pretty angry that they had to ferry these aircraft direct from Los Angeles to Biak via Hawaii. At the last minute the American Government said you can't use Hawaii. I think they approached the British Government to try and ferry them via Christmas Island. That was refused and they had to fly them to New Guinea travelling across the United States back to Holland and then they were allowed to bring them onto New Guinea and then the whole thing collapsed. But the arms trade seemed to have no bearing on the American policy there and I wonder if you'd like to make any comment on that?

Doctor Edwards: I was involved in a seminar yesterday which my centre, the Australian Centre for American Studies organised. We have a continuing focus on Australian-American relations and issues that relate to that. Several of the discussants there, including a leading American who held senior offices at the Pentagon under Reagan and Bush administrations, made the point that it's sometimes misleading to refer to something called American policy. If we think monolithic communism is a myth, monolithic American policy can be a myth. What the Pentagon does with the right hand and the State Department does with the left hand may not necessarily be superbly well coordinated. So I don't know the detail of the events to which you're relating, but I can well understand that something like that may be possible.

Certainly the key point is that in the hture of West New Guinea, American policy was of absolutely crucial importance. Everybody understood that. Everybody knew that the crucial factor was to what extent the Americans would support the Dutch or the Indonesians, or other parties, or what their role would be. Would they try to be peace brokers of a settlement? And a significant shift in American policy was the crucial element, in effect making it possible for the Indonesians to take over West New Guinea. Their support was the crucial element, if you like. One part of that whole process was an important mission when President Kennedy sent his brother, the Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to the region to investigate the whole issue, but

that was only part of the whole policy process. But certainly what the Americans decided to do was essentially the key factor in changing and deciding the future of West New Guinea.

MS Laura Rayner: Is there any evidence that Mr Menzies at the time saw any irony in the position that Australia was in fact promising divisions to the Middle East and facing conflict in its own region, or the region of Asia again in the early 1950s as he had in the late 1930s, early 1940s?

Doctor Edwards: As far as I'm aware, I don't think he saw any irony in it. I think he saw it as a natural reflection of traditional Australian views. Australia had always placed great importance on what was often referred to as the Imperial lifeline going through the Suez Canal and through the Indian Ocean. So defending the security of that lifeline, defending the security of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and so forth was a long standing Australian tradition. It had relevance to Australia's link, the traditional Australian links with Britain and I don't think anybody at the time saw it as incongmous. The point that I wanted to make this morning was that it took quite some time for Australian policy-makers to accept that South-East Asia was the real focus of Australian defence and strategic planning. And that did not happen until thc mid-1950s, sometime after ANZUS and a decade and a half after the fall of Singapore.

THE MALAYAN EMERGENCY

Dr Michael Evans

In his 1989 book, The Western Way of War, the American scholar, Victor Davis Hanson, has suggested that the West has a distaste for protracted and irregular warfare. In Western culture, he argues, the preference is for swift, decisive battle, an ingrained habit inherited from our Greek and Roman classical forebears.' It is a preference expressed in 20th century terms through an emphasis on techniques of industrialised warfare. Perhaps the most striking characteristic of Western industrialised warfare is a belief in the value of offensive air power - the ability to destroy an enemy by contracting both time and space - to bring about what the Italian air strategist, Giulio Douhet, once called 'swift, crushing decisions on the battlefielC.2

But as the distinguished American political scientist, Adda B. Bozeman, has pointed out, little of this Western approach to conflict is shared by the great Eastern theorists of war such as Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong.3 For such thinkers, wars are won not by swift decision but through protracted struggle. By way of metaphor, Bozeman points to the differences in the two great strategy games of Western chess and Eastern wei- ch'i In the Western game of chess, the aim is total victory through capture of the single figure of the King. But in the Eastern game of wei-ch 'i the aim is a protracted attempt to control territory. Time is long, the board is large, the struggle is continuous and the moves often non-linear.4

So it is that the soldiers and airmen of Europe and America have often failed in the wars of Maoist insurgency of the second half of the 20th century. The list of Western defeats includes the French in Indo-China, the Americans in Vietnam and the Portuguese in Africa. By way of metaphor again, one could say that a generation of Western chess players has been consistently outplayed by various exponents of Chinese wei-ch'i.5 There is, however, one important exception and that is the British Commonwealth victory in Malaya between 1948 and 1960. As Anthony Short has

I Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infontry Battle in Classical Greece, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989, pp. 9-18,

Quoted in Alan Stephens, 'The True Believers: Air Power Between the Wars', in Alan Stephens (ed), The Wor in the Air 1914-1994, Air Power Studies Cenhe, Canberra, 1994, p. 52.

Adda B. Bozeman, 'War and the Clash of Ideas', Orbis: A Journal qf WorldAffoirs, Spring 1976, XX, i, pp. 61-102.

Mao Zedong refers to the shategic logic of wei- ch 7 in Mao Tse-tung, SelecredMilita~ Writings of Mao Tse-tung, Foreign Language Press, Peking, p. 176. For a discussion of the parallel between wei- ch'i and Chinese revolutionary warfare see ScoU A. Boorman, The ProlractedGame: A Wei-Ch'i Inrerpretbn ofChinese Revolutionary Strategy, Oxford University Press, New York, 1969.

written, the Malayan campaign represented 'perhaps the greatest defeat of militant communism in Asia since the [Second World] war'.6 Alone among Western powers, Britain has the important distinction of having defeated a Maoist communist revolution.

This essay examines the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) experience of the Malayan Emergency, but it does so in the context of British Commonwealth counter- insurgency operations. Because Malaya was a British-led campaign, the Australian air experience during the Emergency can only be understood in the broad political- military context of British policy. Accordingly, four perspectives are enlployed. First, the origins of British counter-insurgency practice are examined. It is argued that Commonwealth success in Malaya can only be understood by a focus on the various elements of British imperial policing during the first half of the 20th century. Second, the setting and components of the Malayan conflict are summarised. It is suggested that, in responding to the challenge of a modem communist insurgency in Malaya, Britain was aided by a pragmatic military culture bom out of its long colonial experience of dealing with subversion and insurrection. This background was important in the creation of modem counter-insurgency in Malaya.

Third, an attempt is made to sketch the background to the use of British air power in Malaya by snapshotting the Royal Air Force (RAF) role in imperial policing and in low-level operations during World War 11. The aim is to try to assess the degree of continuity and change air planners faced in confronting the needs of Malayan counter- insurgency. Fourth, the role of air power in Malaya is analysed by situating RAAF air operations within the general framework of Commonwealth counter-revolutionary warfare practice. This is perhaps the best way to appreciate the significance of Australian air operations. Finally, the paper concludes by examining the relevance of the Malayan Emergency for 21st century warfare.

The Malayan Emergency and the Origins of British Counter-Insurgency Practice

The Malayan Emergency was the most successful Western counter-insurgency campaign of the post-colonial period. Although much is often made of its unique conditions, there is a strong connection between pre-1945 and post-1945 policies in the development of British counter-insurgency practice in Malaya. As the leading historian of British counter-insurgency, Thomas R. Mockaitis, has pointed out this connection has not been well understood by Westem analysts for two reasons. First, because of the revolutionary dimension of modem insurgency, the focus of most contemporary analysis has been on the challenge posed by Marxist-Leninist revolution. Second, Britain's pre-1945 methods have been difficult to study because they were never properly codified into a school of colonial warfare.' With the exceptions of the books by Charles Callwell and Major General Sir Charles Gwynn on

Anthony Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya, 1948-1960, Frederick Muller, London, 1975, p. 495.

' Thomas R. Mockaitis, British Counter-lnsurgencj~, 1919-1960, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1990, p. 13 and 'The Origins of British Counter-Insurgency'. Small Wars andlnsurgencies, December 1990, I, iii, pp. 200-25.

small wars and imperial policing, there is a dearth of British doctrinal work on subversion and insurre~tion.~ This lack of formal doctrine has obscured the influence that 30 years of British internal-security operations exerted on the development of counter-insurgency in Malaya. In a way matched by no other Western nation, the British possessed a broad framework of past methods and principles on which to base counter-insurgency d~c t r i ne .~

Contrary to popular assumption, then, the success of Malaya was not due simply to the talents of the two famous Directors of Operations, Lieutenant General Sir Harold Briggs and General Sir Gerald Templer, or to the limitations of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP).10 Rather, in many respects, Malaya was the critical link in the transformation from the practices of imperial policing to the emergence of a set of modem counter-insurgency principles. As Mockaitis has observed, what was unique about the Malayan Emergency was the way in which colonial practices were combined, formalised and moulded into British counter-insurgency doctrine.'' This doctrine was based on three principles: minimum force, civil-military cooperation and tactical flexibility.12 None of these principles were new. All had their origins in early 20th century colonial warfare and all had evolved separately and unevenly. But it was in Malaya that they were first fused together to form the basis of a coherent modern form of counter-insurgency.'3

The Principle ofMinimum Force

The principle of minimum force was, and remains, fundamental to success in the British approach to counter-insurgency.'4 As Charles Townshend has argued, the 'British way' in maintaining internal security throughout most of the 20th century has 'been marked by an aim of containing rather than extirpating resistance to law,

Charles Callwell, Smali Wars - their Principles andPractice, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1903 second edition; Major General Sir Charles Gwynn, Imperial Policing, Macmillan, London, 1934.

Mockaitis, B~irish Counterinsurgency, 19/9-60, p. 10

I o See for instance, the emphasis on Briggs, Templer and other personalities in Noel Barber, The Wor of the Running Dogs: How Malayu Defeated the Communist Guerrilias 1948-1960. FontanalCollins, London, 1972, and in Brim Lapping, EndofEmpire, Paladin, London, 1989, Chapter 4.

Mockaitis, 'The Origins of British Counter-Insurgency', pp. 210-1 1. For other perspectives on the British transition from pre-war imperial policing towards post-war counter-insurgency see Raffi Gregorian, "'Jungle Bashing" in Malaya: Towards a Formal Tactical Doctrine', Small Wars and Insurgencies, Winter 1994, V, iii, pp. 338-59 and Tim Jones, ‘The British Army and Counter-Guerrilla Warfare in Transition, 1944-1952'. Small Wars andlnsurgencies, Winter 1996, VII, iii, pp. 265-307.

IZ Mockaitis, 'The Origins of British Caunter-Insurgency', pp. 21 1-23.

l3 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919-1960, p. 14

l4 See the excellent discussion in 'llomas R. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency in fhe Post- Imperial Era, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995, Chapter 7.

through the use of minimal rather than exemplary force'.'S Britain's experience of early forms of national liberation warfare in the early 20th century was a key influence in the evolution of minimum force. The scandal of using concentration camps against the Boers in South Africa in 1901, the public outcry against the Amritsar massacre of 1919 in India and political unease at the imposition of martial law in Ireland during the 'Troubles' in 1920 had a profound effect on the British approach to insurrection in the inter-war period.16 Unlike the French, Germans and Portuguese, the British learned early on in the 20th century that brutal methods and indiscriminate violence were counter-productive in confronting colonial rebellion."

During the inter-war period there was a movement towards the use of minimum force. This was exemplified by the gradual replacement of the term 'small war' by the term 'imperial policing' in British military manuals.18 In an edition of Duties in Aid of the Civil Power, 1923, British soldiers were reminded that their task was 'not the annihilation of an enemy, but merely the suppression of a temporary disorder and therefore the degree of force to be employed must be directed to that which is essential to restore order, and must never exceed it'.'9 This set a pattern for the conduct of internal security operations in India, Burma and Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s. British soldiers and airmen learned to open fire or to drop bombs within a framework of legality and restraint under the rubric of imperial policing. In the early 1950s, this tradition of minimum force became a principal ingredient in the British formula for success in counter-insurgency in Malaya.

The Principle of Civil-Military Cooperation

The second counter-insurgency principle codified in Malaya was that of civil-military cooperation through joint action committees. This was not a new idea. The rationale of using military force in conjunction with socio-political measures to alleviate insurrection was well understood in a colonial context. The phrase 'winning hearts and minds' which is often associated with Malaya was not invented by either Briggs or Templet, but originated in Baluchistan on the North-West Frontier during the 1920s.20 Significantly, Briggs had sewed on the North-West Frontier during the

Charles Townshend, Britain's Civil Warn: Counterinsurgency in the Twentieth Century, Faber and Faber, London, 1986, p. 19.

l6 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919-1960, pp. 18-25.

l7 For a comparative analysis of European colonial warfare see Keith Jefiey, 'Colonial Warfare 1900- 39', in Colin hlclnnes and (;l) Sheffield (~.di). Il'urJbrs ,n h e laL*rtr,c~nh (.'s.,aun, I%eory .,nJ P?u;nice I lnu in Il)man, London, 1988, (:h~ptsr 2.

Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919-1960, p. 18

l9 Ibid.

20 Mockaitis, 'The Origins of British Counter-Insurgency', p. 215,

1930s. What was new in Malaya was that the colonial formula of 'winning hearts and minds' was adapted and applied by the British to counter-revolutionary warfare in the context of managing an orderly transition towards decol~nisation.~~

So although the system of 'war by committee' appeared to be unique when it was established in Malaya, it grew out of a post-1921 ad hoc practice of controlling insurrection through joint action by soldiers, airmen, magistrates and policemen - many of whom came from similar educational and social backgrounds. The elaborate civil-military committee system of Malaya, was the culmination of various methods designed to achieve unity of command and planning, methods which had been evolving for some 30 years.22

The Principle of Tactical Hexibiliry

The third principle of modem British counter-insurgency doctrine was tactical flexibility. Incessant irregular warfare throughout the Empire taught the British that counter-guerrilla operations required decentralised command and control based on small mobile units and efficient police intelligence. British forces came to excel at 'subaltern warfare' and this form of combat, reinforced by the strong regimental tradition of the British Army, is well-illustrated in the memoirs of John Masters.23 The architects of British counter-insurgency practice after 1945, Briggs, Templer, Field Marshal Sir John Harding and General George Erskine were all veterans of imperial policing. Significantly where small-unit operations were not properly developed - in Ireland from 1919-21 and in Palestine between 1945-48 -the British suffered political defeat.24

Until the late 1940s, the principles of minimum force, civil-military cooperation and tactical flexibility remained diffuse assumptions rather than clear tenets.2s But the appearance of modem insurgents who combined subversion, terrorism and guerrilla warfare in a revolutionary political context, forced the British to adapt pre-war practice to post-war conditions in an attempt to build an effective counter-insurgency strategy. It was in Malaya that the various inter-war elements were meshed together to help form a doctrine based on combining military force with broad-based civil action.26

For a ~ers~ec t ive on the decolonisation mocess in Malaya see A.]. Stockwell, 'Policing Durinz the . . \ lalqsn I'mrrgcnr), 1948-60 C,,mnunisni, Communal~m and L)ccolonisd~iun', in l)dv~J M. Anderson :!nJ Darid Killinxr~y leds), l'o/tcit~g dud D L ~ ~ o l ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ ~ ~ , o ~ ~ P,,/JI~L.V A' .II~~~.I / ,~ .I>I ~t+t.I 1 1 ~ - - . Police, 1917.65, Manchester university ~ress,Manchester, 1992, pp. 105-24.

22 Mockaitis, 'The Origins of British Counter-Insurgency: pp. 215-17.

23 John Masters, Bugles andA Tiger. Michael Joseph, London, 1956.

24 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency. 1919-1960, pp. 145-49.

25 Mockaitis, 'The Origins of British Counter-Insurgency', p. 221.

26 Ibid. p. 64.

The Malayan Emergency and the Establishment of Modern Counter-Insurgency

Before looking at how air power fits the context of British counter-insurgency practice, it is necessary to briefly sketch the contours of the Malayan Emergency. In Malaya, the British faced a local Maoist insurgency mounted principally by the large Chinese minority. The insurgents formed the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA) dedicated to driving t l~e British out and establishing a communist state.27

Britain, however, not only avoided defeat but developed a campaign which has become 'the textbook case in co~nterinsurgency'.~~ The introduction of a pacification program in the form ofthe Briggs Plan in April 1950 represented the welding together of half a century of irregular warfare and imperial policing techniques into a comprehensive strategy of counter-insurgen~y.~Y The Briggs Plan concentrated on defeating political subversion through a 'hearts and minds' policy based on resettlement, land reform and citizenship. Under Briggs' successor, Templer, pacification became the key operational concept linking intelligence gathering with military operations through a country wide War Executive Committee system. As Templer put it, 'the answer [to operations in Malaya] lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people'.'Q By 1954, the insurgents had been pushed into the deep jungle and by 1957 the insurgency was all but over."

The Background to the Use of British Air Power in Counter-Insurgency

Having sketched the background to the development of modem British counter- insurgency doctrine, it is necessary to examine the role which the Royal Air Force played within it. British air power played a significant role in post-1918 imperial policing and in post-1945 counter-insurgency, Indeed, in the 1920s, it was the low- level requirements of imperial policing rather than those of strategic bombing which secured the survival of the RAF as an independent service. The British Government adopted the policy of substitution of air power for manpower as a cost-measure. This gave the RAF a substantial role in imperial policing especially in the British Middle East (Iraq, Transjordan and Aden) through the doctrine of air control.32

27 Short, Communist Insurrection, Chapter 2; John Coates, Suppressing Insurgency: An Analysis of the Malqan Emergency, 1948-1954, Westview Press, Colorado, 1992, Chapter 1.

Zs Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919-1960, p. 9

2y Short, Communisl Imurrection, pp 231-53; Mockaitis, B~itish Counterinsurgency, 1919-1960, p. 12.

3o Lapping, EndofEmpire, p. 224.

" See the work of Short, Communist Insurrection, Chapters 15-20 and of Coates, Suppressing Insurgency. Chapter 5 and of Richard Clutterbuck, The Long Long War.: The Emergency in Malaya, 1948-1960, Cassell, London, 1966, and Edgar O'Ballance, Malayo: The Communist Insurgent War. 1948.1960. Faber and Faber, London, 1966.

32 Charles Townshend, 'Civilisation and "FrighKulness": Air Control in the Middle East Between the Wars', in C. Wright (ed), Warfar, Diplomacy andPolitics: Essays in Honour ofA..IP. Taylor, Hamish

The essence of air control doctrine was the use of limited or graduated force in aid to the civil power.3"ut there were many senior officers in the British Army who dismissed the idea of using aircraft in imperial policing as constituting 'a policy of frightfulness'?4 In 1922 Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, described air control as a 'fantastic salad of hot air, aeroplanes, and Arabs'.35 In August 1935 Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode, the Commander-in- Chief, India noted:

I loathe bombmg, and never agree to it without a guilty conscience. That in order that 2,000 or 3,000 young ruffians should be discouraged from their activities, dozens of villages inhabited by many thousand women, children and old men, to say nothing of those who have refused to join [the rebels] should be bombed ... is to me a revolting method of making war, especially by a Great Power against tribesmen.36

To counter the Army's charge that bombing was an inhumane method of colonial warfare, the RAF tried hard to apply aerial firepower with discrimination. It argued that its approach to air control was based on 'the use of minimum force to compel the tribe or tribes concerned to comply with the terms dictated by the government'?' In the 1920s, leading RAF figures such as Air Vice-Marshal Sir John Salmond, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) Iraq, portrayed air control as a 'non-lethal policy' by which maximum pressure could be brought to bear on Arab rebels at minimum cost of life.38

The oractice of the 'inverted blockade' which has been described as 'the air eauivalent of the long-established tactic of naval proscribement' was the prime example of the RAF's attempt to use bombing as a form of minimum force in the Middle EastJ9 An inverted blockade aimed at sealing off a disaffected area through air strikes against huts, food supplies and livestock in order to induce the submission of tribal rebels. The March - April 1934 air blockade operation against the Quteibi Arabs of Aden was

Hamilton, London, 1986, pp. 142-62; Britain i Civil Wars, pp. 93-9. See also David E. Omissi, Air Power andColonia1 Control: The Royal Air Force, 19/9-1939, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1990.

33 See Brnce Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 19/9-1976, United States Air Force Project Report, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, October 1989, pp. 4-20.

34 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency. 1919-1960, p. 29.

35 Wilson cited in Townshend, 'Civilisation and "Frightfulness": Air Control in the Middle East Between the Wars', p. 156.

36 Quoted in Sir John Slessor, The Central Blue: Recollections andReflections. Cassell, London, 1956, p. 57.

37 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919-1960, p. 29

38 Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 19/9-1976, pp. 14-15.

39 Townshend, BritainS Civil War& pp. 98-99.

one example of air control practice. In a two month operation, 28 tons of bombs and 40,000 bullets were expended against four villages and two forts, but according to RAF records only seven rebels were killed.40 However, air control was less successful outside of the desert topography of Iraq, Aden and Transjordan. During one operation on the North-West Frontier in 1928, of 182 bombs dropped, 102 failed to hit the designated target4' Air control practice was hampered by the lack of technology for precision targeting. For this reason, the RAF never overcame the contradiction between seeking pacification through minimum force and the practical need to instil fear of bombing by demonstrating the awesome power of the air weapon to tribal

World War I1 gave the British Empire's air forces great operational experience in all types of air warfare. The strategic bombing campaigns of the war sometimes obscure just how valuable air power was in unconventional and clandestine operations, especially in supply operations and arms dr0ps.~3 British air support was provided for the Yugoslav partisans and for the French maquis (resistance fighters) in Europe, usually in night operations. In Burma, the Chindit campaign was largely sustained by continuous air transport. RAF units and No. 1 Air Commando Group of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) employed gliders, C-47 Dakotas and Sunderland flying boats in air support operations for the Chindits.44 Air support also proved crucial to the operations of the Long Range Desert Group, the Special Air Service (SAS) and in the diverse activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).4s

In the decolonisation period, which lasted from 1945-65, British methods of air support in counter-insurgency were drawn fiom both inter-war and World War I1 experience.46 This is particularly evident in two areas. First, the inter-war air control policy of trying to apply minimum force in offensive air strikes through discriminate targeting, influenced the approach to the use of air power in post-1945 unconventional

Townshend, 'Civilisation versus "Frightfulness": Air Control in the Middle East Between the Wars', p. 157.

41 Omissi, Air Power and Coloniol Control: The Royal Air Force, 19/9-1939. pp. 166-67.

42 Townshend, 'Civilisation versus "Frightfulness": Air Control in the Middle East Between the Wars', p. 159.

43 M.R.D. Foot, SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive 1940.46. Mandarin, London, 1984, pp. 133-50.

44 A.H. Peterson, G.C. Reinhardt and C.E. Conger, Symposium on theRole ofAirpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: A Brief Summav of Viewpoints. United States Air Force Project, RAND Corporation, SantaMonica, California, March 1964, pp. 1-19.

45 Philip Warner, The Special Air Service, Sphere, London, 1971, Chapter 2 and Appendix I; Foot SOE, pp. 133-50.

46 Omissi, Air Power andColonia1 Control: TheRoyal Air Force, 1919-1939, pp. 212-13 points out that the experience of air policing was distilled into later peripheral warfare and counter-insurgency doctrine. Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral ConJicl. 1919-1976, pp. 36-7 points to the impact of the vast operational air experience of the Second World War on post-1945 colonial conflicts.

warfare. Second, the use of air transport which had proved so useful in World War 11, became fundamental to sustaining counter-insurgency operations in remote and inaccessible areas. These features of bombmg discrimination and versatility of air transport were fused together in the approach to the use of air power during the Malayan Emergency.

The Role of Commonwealth Air Power in the Malayan Emergency

The rise of modem insurgency after World War I1 confronted Westem air forces with the difficult and ongoing problem of targeting. As Colonel Dennis M. Drew of the United States Air University has pointed ouf 'it is almost a truism that air power is targeting, and targeting is intelligence'.47 But in post-1945 insurgency warfare, targeting intelligence became problematical for two reasons. First, modem insurgents, unlike inter-war Arab tribal rebels in the desert or Japanese regular troops in the jungle, did not operate in large formations or from visible bases. Most experts are agreed that, in counter-insurgency operations, finding the enemy is always more di icul t than killing him, and in this respect accurate intelligence is vital to success.48 Second, the post-war development of jet bombers and fighters posed difficulties for air forces in using advanced aircraft for attacking small targets in difficult terrain. These difficulties meant that, in the insurgencies of the decolonisation period, air strike became only one aspect in a broader conception of air capability - one designed to increase the effectiveness of inter-service cooperation when fighting in inaccessible areas.49

Malaya was the first modem insurgency in which modem air power was used extensively. But air operations, code-named Operation Firedog, took place under the most difficult conditions and circumscribed rules of engagement. Malaya's jungle terrain was almost featureless from the air and the enemy was dispersed and often invisible. Politically, pacification was central to counter-insurgency in Malaya Since unnecessary civilian deaths threatened to alienate and destroy the pacification programme which was based upon winning 'hearts and minds', offensive air strikes required considerable justification.50 There was a strict prohibition against air strikes on inhabited or cultivated areas. No matter how efficient procedures eventually became for approving air strikes, the enemy often melted away into the jungle before air support arrived.5' As the official British historian of Operation Firedog, Malcolm

47 Colonel Dennis M. Drew, 'Air Power in Peripheral Conflict: From the' past, The Future?', in Stephens, War in the Air, p. 267.

4s See for instance the emphasis on intelligence-gathering in hlming 'background information into contact information' in the works of the leading British counter-insurgency theorist, General Sir Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five, Faber and Faber, London, 1977, pp. 290-8 and Low Intensity Operatrons: Subversion, Inrurgency andpeacekeeping, Faber and Faber, London, 1971;pp. 188-92,194-6. -

~

49 Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 1919.1976, p. 112-17.

5O lbTd.,~pp: 40, 115.

For comprehensive accounts of air support in the Malayan Emergency see A.H. Peterson, G.C. Reinhardt and E.E. Conger, Symposium on the Role ofAirpower in.Counterinsurgency and

R. Postgate, has observed, 'from the point of view of offensive air support it is doubtful whether any air force has had to operate under more unsatisfactory conditions, from the point of view of targets and information on the results achieved, than that engaged in Emergency operations in Malaya'.52

Air power also had to be adapted to meet the needs of a joint civil-military campaign. The formalisation of the joint operations centre (JOC) system in Malaya allowed air planners to work closely with ground forces in providing offensive air strikes, tactical air transportation, positioning of airborne forces, reconnaissance and psychological 0perations.5~ Through joint operations, the Commonwealth air forces executed two major roles in the Malayan Emergency: air attack and air transport. Although air power was also used to advantage in psychological warfare operations and aerial spraying, it was offensive air support and transportation which were its two key roles.54

Offensive Air Support

In the Malayan Emergency, most of the characteristics associated with the classic tenets of offensive air support - speed of action, surprise, accurate hitting power and mobility - could not be exploited to the full for both geographical and political reasons. In the context of evolving British counter-insurgency practice, successful air attack depended on a number of factors which included high grade intelligence, accurate pinpointing of targets, good navigation, suitable munitions and reliable bomb damage assessment.i5

This combination was seldom achieved. The consequent difficulties were reflected from the outset in the uncertainty in Far East Air Force Headquarters' (FEAFHQ) over how best to employ offensive air support in low-level jungle warfare. There was oscillation between two approaches: pinpoint attack and area attack.56 During 1948,

Unconventional Warfare: The Malayan Emergency, United States Air Force Project, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, July 1963; Robelf Jackson, The Malayan Emergency: The Commonwealth's Wars, 1948-1966, Routledge, London, 1991 and Malcolm R. Postgate, Operation Firedog: Air Support in the Molayan Emergency 1948-1960. Ministry of Defence Air Historical Branch RAF, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1992, previously published with restricted circulation as Royal Air Force, The Maloyan Emergency 1948-1960, Ministry of Defence, Air Historical Branch RAF, London, 1970.

52 Postgate, Operation Firedog, p. 149

53 Ibid., pp. 34-8.

54 For assessments of the Commonwealth air role in psychological operations and aerial spraying see Hofhan, British Air Power in Peripheral Confict, 1919-1976, pp. 53-7; Postgate, Operation Firedog, pp. 51-2; 114-21 and Drew, 'AiPower in Peripheral Conflict: From the Past, The Future?', pp. 245-8.

ss Postgate, Operotion Firedog, p. 40; Drew, 'Air Power in Peripheral Conflict: From the Past, The Future?', pp. 241-2.

56 Postgate, Operation Firedog, pp. 40-1.

before guerrilla groups were aware of their vulnerability from the air, pinpoint attack was used to destroy identified insurgent cadres and their base camps. But in jungle conditions, pinpoint attack was always difficult since it was so dependent on reliable ground intelligence. For example, in May 1952 there were 145 ground force contacts but only once was air support brought successfully to bear.57 Area attack, which involved flushing insurgents out and driving them into ambushes prepared by ground force stop groups, was often the only means of mounting offensive air operations. By the time improvements in target location and marking technology appeared in the mid-1950s, MRLA forces were gradually withering in numbers and effectiveness and only occasionally rated as pinpoint targets.58

The critical phase of the Emergency was between 1950 and 1952 when the administration was still reeling from the first two years of insurgency. During this period, one of the few tangible ways to demonstrate that the counter-insurgency campaign was holding its own was through air operations. In this context, air strikes, particularly throughout 1950, recommended themselves as a policy of continual harassment to Briggs as Director of Operations. He saw them as a means of maintaining operational momentum until the administration was ready to launch a methodical pacification program. As Briggs noted in December 1950, 'offensive air support piays a very vital role in the main object of the Security Forces, namely the destruction of bandit morale and the increasing of the morale of the civil population'.sg

It was Australian air power which provided the core of offensive operations in Malaya. Significantly, two senior RAAF officers Air Vice-Marshal F.R.W. Scherger and Air Vice-Marshal Valston Hancock held the posts of Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Malaya for periods during the Emergency. From June 1950 until September 1958, No. 1 Squadron, RAAF, of Lincoln medium bombers formed the backbone of the Commonwealth air strike force.60 The piston-engined Lincolns of the RAAF, armed with their load of 14 450-kilogram nose-fused high explosive (HE) bombs, were the most efficient attack aircraft used in Malayan conditions. They soon established themselves as the principal means of applying continuous offensive air support during much of the Emergen~y.~' Between 1950 and 1958, No. 1 Squadron

581hid., p. 57. From a 1948 strength of about 10,000 guerrillas, the MRLA was reduced to an estimated 300 active fighters by 1958. See Drew, 'Air Power in Peripheral Conflict: From the Past, The Future?', p. 240.

'' Cited in Peru Dsnnls ;and Jcffrc) Grey L'n,~vgsn;), and ('onJronr~l!6,, Au~lruhon .llrlrlug. Onc,rdrr<.,a in .\i.il,nu orzd Rortt2o IY51,./960, lllc Oflicial llisron ot'A~.ntr.ha'r ln\olvement in Southeast ~ s i a n Conflicts, 1948-1975, Vol V, Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 1996, p. 38.

Alan Stephens, Going Solo: The Royal Australian AN. Force, 1946-1977. Australian Government Printing Service, Canberra, 1995, p. 249.

61 Ibid., pp. 250-1.

flew almost 4,000 sorties dropping 17,500 tons of bombs - halfthe total bomb tonnage used in the campaign. But these efforts killed directly only 23 guerrillas. including 16 in one strike in Southern Johore. Australian Lincolns also played a significant role in supporting the largest air-ground operation of the emergency, Operation Termite in Perak during 1954.62

The high point of air offensive activity occurred in 1951-52 when the Briggs Plan was struggling to gain momentum. FEAFHQ estimated it required 1,500 bombs per month at a cost of 125 pounds each - in total 187,500 pounds per month to maintain operational effectiveness.6' This level of munitions expenditure against dispersed insurgents did not recommend itself to many in the Air Ministry. The AOC Bomber Command, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyd, thought that the Malayan air offensive was futile. In November 1950 be recommended to the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Sanders, that the RAF's Lincolns be withdrawn. He argued that the Briggs Plan put the burden of success on ground forces and not on the air force.6"

But the Commander-in-Chief, FEAF, Air Marshal Sir Francis Fogerty, believed it was too risky to reduce offensive air operations in Malaya. He argued in late 1950 that air support was vital in giving the Briggs Plan time to work on the ground. 'At present', he wrote, 'the most effective method and frequently the only one we can adopt to kill and harass the enemy and prevent him from regrouping in the jungle is by striking at him from the air'.65 Fogerty was supported by Briggs who emerged as a leading advocate of offensive air power in the Malayan counter-insurgency effort. Briggs believed that jungle bombing kept the insurgents on the move and drove them into the arms of the ground forces66 Nevertheless, in early 1951, Bomber Command's views prevailed and Britain withdrew the Lincolns of No. 100 Squadron, RAF.67 AS a consequence, a heavier workload fell on the RAAF's No. 1 Squadron.

The problem for Briggs and Fogerty was that, in the absence of large body counts or positive bomb damage assessment, Air Headquarters Malaya (AHQ) struggled to justify the expenditure of bombing resources to the Air Ministry. At the end of 1950, out of 1,641 guerrillas killed, only 126 were estimated to have been killed from the air.68 In June 1952, to counter continuing poor statistics, the AOC Malaya, Air Vice-

62 Postgate, Operation Firedog, p. 72; Stephens, CoingSolo, p. 249; Dennis and Grey, Emergency and Confrontation, p. 42.

Dennis and Grey, EmergencyandConfrontation, p. 35.

Ibid, p. 37

Ibid

Ibid, pp. 37-8; Postgate, Operation Firedog, pp. 43-5.

67 Three RAF Lincoln bomber squadrons, Nos. 83, 100 and 148, undertook tows of duty during the Malayan Emergency.

Jackson, The Malayan Emergency, p. 78

Marshal G.H. Mills, came up with an ingenious 'space and time formula' to justify jungle bombing. He argued that air strikes could only be evaluated in terms of the success achieved by the ground forces being supported at the time. Air attacks or air supply drops contributed to ground force kills if such operations took place either within ten miles of a kill, capture or surrender (the space element), or occurred no more than 28 days after the use of air power (the time element).69

On this basis, during May 1952, bombing attacks could be said to have contributed to 26.3 per cent of 118 communist insurgent kills while supply drops assisted in 4.1 per cent of the month's total. The difficulty with these statistics was that they were derived from 47 strikes and 201 sorties and the dropping of several hundred bombs.70 More authoritative operational research (OR), collated during 1952, yielded several more useful conclusions. First, it demonstrated that area bombing to prevent guerrilla movement was the most effective employment of offensive air support; but it warned that, for this method to be successful, it required close coordination with ground forces. Second, OR showed that those Commonwealth battalions which eliminated the most insurgents did not rely on air strikes alone, but made the most use of air power in general terms. Third, the study showed that on average, air support assisted in about 50 per cent of total guerrilla eliminations of which strikes made up 33 per cent and supply drops 17 per ~ent .7~

The significance of these statistics is that they reveal that the Commonwealth air effort in Malaya cannot be seen as an independent campaign, or as part of a discrete air strategy. To have any operational validity, all air missions have to be viewed in'the context of an inter-service counter-insurgency strategy. The importance of this context has, however, not reduced the controversy surrounding the use of air strikes during the Malayan Emergency. Were they, as so many in the Air Ministry, the Army and some within the RAF and the RAM believed, a monumental waste of good munitions? Or did they as Fogerty, Briggs and others in the Malayan administration argued, prove valuable in the prosecution of the overall campaign? Since the evidence is incomplete and conflicting, the offensive air campaign will probably always be open to differing interpretations. Its critics remain convinced that it was a waste of resources; its supporters have had to mount a defence with inadequate evidence of bomb damage.

For the prosecution there are the views of participants such as the British Army counter-insurgency specialist, Major General Richard Clutterbuck, and Air Commodore C.H. Spurgeon of the RAAF. Their views are reinforced by the work of more contemporary analysts such as those of the British air power specialists, Air Vice-Marshal Michael Armitage and Air Commodore (later Air Vice-Marshal) Anthony Mason and of a leading Australian soldier-scholar, Lieutenant General John Coates. Clutterbuck has dismissed offensive bombing as amounting to little more

69 Dennis and Grey, Emergency andConfrontotion, p. 39

70 Ibid.

7i Coates, Suppressing Insurgency, pp. 172-3

than 'senseless swiping' at a fleeting enemy.72 Armitage and Mason consider that the expenditure of 35,000 tons of bombs and nearly 10 million rounds of cannon and machine gun ammunition as achieving 'meagre results [which] were out of all proportion to the extensive effort engageC.73

Lieutenant General Coates, a former Australian Army Chief of the General Staff (CGS), has suggested on the basis of interviews with two former Directors of Operations in Malaya - including Templer - that, 'offensive air power was neither the match winner nor even the equaliser in breaking the insurgents' will to fight'.74 In 1994, Air Commodore Spurgeon, a former Commanding Officer (CO) of No. 1 Squadron, RAAF, described the results of his tour of duty as resulting in a return of 'one dismembered elephant and countless monkeys. We had also destroyed about 35 per cent of the foliage of Malaya by flying around in circles at night at low level dropping one bomb every 30 minutes.'75

For the defence, there are the views of participants such as General Sir Harold Briggs and the RAAF's Air Commodore A.D.G. Gamsson, along with those of the official historian of air operations in Malaya, Malcolm R. Postgate, and the writer Robert Jackson. All believe jungle bombing can be justified provided it is seen in the context of counter-insurgency. The basis of their stance is that, while offensive air support failed to kill large numbers of insurgents, it did help drive the communist cadres into the jungle so preventing them from engaging in political subversion. As already noted, Briggs' was convinced that a policy of continual harassment through air action, helped prevent guerrilla consolidation and reorganisation. To Briggs the objectives of the air offensive were always much wider than a crude recording of numbers of kills. As one commnnication from the British Government to the Australian Government in February 195 1 stated, 'General Briggs is of the opinion that the bombing by the Lincoln aircraft has the very valuable effect of keeping bandits on the move and driving them from the jungle areas into the arms of the ground forces'.76

A similar view was adopted by Air Commodore Garrison in 1994. Rebutting the views of Air Commodore Spurgeon, Garrisson suggested that the aim of offensive air support was, in fact, to protect the resettled New Villages from subversion by insurgent cadres. The intention was to keep the 'CTs [communist terrorists] off balance all the time ... to keep the CTs on the move all the time'.77 Malcolm R.

72 Clutterbuck, The LongLong War: The Emergency in Malnya. 1948-1960, p. 161

73 Air Marshal M.J. Armitage and Air Commodore R.A. Mason, Air Power in the Nuclear Age, 1945- 82, Macmillan, London, 1983, pp. 67-69.

74 Coates, Suppressing Insurgency, p. 173.

75 Drew, 'Air Power in Peripheral Conflict: From the Past, The Fuhlre?', p. 269

76 Dennis and Grey, Emergency and Coq?-onialion, p. 38.

'' Drew, 'Air Power in Peripheral Conflict: From the Past, The Future?', p. 269.

Postgate and Robert Jackson have also emphasised the less tangible effects of bombing - particularly on guerrilla morale and effectiveness. In Postgate's view:

From [the] point of view of tangible results the offensive air support provided during the Malayan campaign was hardly worthwhile but the incalculable effects it had on weakening the terrorists' morale and reducing their ability to mount offensives or withstand security force pressure was considered to be an important factor in preventing the insurgents from progressing beyond the first stage of their campaign to the domination and control of selected areas ... When the terrorists retired to deep jungle, air power was frequently the only method of maintaining some pressure against them and was therefore directly instrumental in shortening the duration of the campaign.78

Jackson has suggested that offensive air strikes demoralised the MRLA cadres while uplifting that of Commonwealth troops and Malayan civilians. 'Unquestionably', he writes, 'the most important effect of the offensive air-support campaign was on morale'.79

~ Air Transport andsupply

Unlike bombing, almost every observer of Malaya agrees that air transport was a decisive factor in the defeat of the guerrillas.8%~ it had been for the Chindits in Bunna, air supply became crucial to the success of ground force operations in Malaya. Fixed-wing Dakota, Valetta and Pioneer aircraft and Dragonfly and Whirlwind helicopters became the umbilical cord of ground force efficiency in the critical phase of the Emergency between 1950 and 1952. The ability of these aircraft to insert, supply and evacuate troops in remote jungle provided the ground forces with a powerful tactical advantage. Helicopters were particularly useful in permitting SAS units to envelop guerrilla positions using a 'tree jumping' method by which troops descended from the jungle canopy using special webbing. By the mid-1950s the most important element of air power in Malaya was rotary wing aviation. In 1956,27,500 troops were lifted by helicopter, an effort which equated to moving every soldier in Malaya at least once during the year.81 As Major General Clutterbuck has written, 'I

78 Postgate, Operation Firedog, p. 150.

79 Jackson, The Malayan Emergency, p. 78.

Sec for ins1:mcc Armilagr. and Wason, A;, Power dn [h* A'~~c/~~urAge, I915-82, pp. 68-9: Drrw, .Air Power in Periph:rsl Conflict: From the P a t , 'lhc Future?', pp. 244-5 ; Poatgare, Operalion Firzdog, p. 150; Air V~ce-Mushal N.M. Maynard, 'Thr Far Last Air Force'. R..ll.'Quarrerly(Spr~ng 1971). 11, I , on. 7-14: R.W. Komer. The h l u / w ~ ~ n Ernmerzmcy r,, Kerrosoecr. Orgunlra~io,~ of0 Succes~ful . . .. . CounIrnmarg*nc,,Lflorr, KAND Corpomtlon, Santa Munica, California, Fcbnar) 1972, p. 52; Wing Cornmandcr.4.G.T. Jan~rs, 'l ithe RAF had Not Been There3, MFQuurrerlv(Surnrncr 1977). XVII , ii, pp. 116-17.

Armitage and Mason, Air Power in the Nuclear Age, 1945-82, pp. 68-9.

am convinced that we could never have cleared the guerrillas from the deep jungle without helicopters'.82

The role of No. 38 Squadron, RAAF, provides a snapshot of the intensity of the air transport effort in Malaya. Between mid-1950 and the end of 1952, No. 38 Squadron's Dakota aircraft flew 1.2 million miles, dropped 1.6 million tons of supplies and carried over 17,000 pers0nnel.~3 The squadron participated in supply drops, casualty evacuation, psychological operations, reconnaissance missions and target marking. Perhaps its single most significant achievement was its role in Operation Helsby in February 1952. This air-ground mission involved the first parachute drop of the Malayan campaign. In hazardous mountain terrain and atrocious weather which required highly-skilled navigation, four RAAF Dakotas successfully dropped over 50 SAS troopers into the upper reaches of the Sungei Perak, a remote area near the Malayan-Thai border. As Peter Dennis, official historian of the Australian military operations in Malaya has commented, 'it was the success of this operation, especially in the face of the combined hazards of terrain and weather, that convinced the [Commonwealth] military command that operations involving the dropping of paratroops into primary jungle were feasible'.s4

Assessing the Role of Offensive Air Power in Malaya

If the role of air transport can be assessed to have been a decisive factor in the Malayan Emergency, it is equally important to view the role of offensive air support through the lens of counter-insurgency warfare. In Malaya, British and Commonwealth offensive air strikes were of considerable value in defeating the Malayan communists. But in making this statement it is important to understand the context for this judgment. It has been said that bombing is as central to air power as the New Testament is to the Catholic Chur~h.8~ Yet it is clearly misleading to judge offensive air operations in Malaya by the classical tenets of air warfare -that is by targeting and by bomb damage assessment. The yardsticks for judging the utility of offensive air strikes in Malaya must be situated in the special context of counter- insurgency doctrine. Using this perspective, jungle bombing can be seen as part of a cumulative counter-revolutionary strategy to defeat a Maoist insurgency.

In the context of Maoist insurgency what the guerrilla wants more than anything else is time - time to organise space and space to generate the will of the peasantry to join a revolutionary struggle. As Edward L. Katzenbach, Jr. and Gene Z. Hanrahan pointed out over 30 years ago, the principles of time, space and will are the basic

Clutterbuck, TheLong Long War: The Emergency in Malaya, 1948-1960. p. 157.

83 Dennis and Grey, Emergency and Confrontation, p. 33

84 Ibid., p. 32. See also Postgate, Operation Firedog, p. 86.

85 Quoted in Beniamin S. Lambeth, 'Bounding the Air Power Debate', Sfratepic Review, Fall 1997, XXV, iv, p. 46. ~ambeth is quoting the view of the analyst Caroline ~iemkeieferring to the United States Air Force, but it can be applied to most leading Western air forces.

ingredients of the Maoist formula for protracted struggle as a form of anti-industrial warfare.86 They are based on a theory of substitution which includes using subversion to foil air power, employingspace to disperse mechanised forces and, above all, using the human power of political mobilisation as a substitute for the strength of industrial mobiiisation.87 As Mao Zedong puts if 'with the common people of the whole country mobilised, we shall create a vast sea of humanity and drown the enemy in it1.88

In the unique demographic and geographical conditions of Malaya, the persistent use of offensive air power helped upset the Maoist equation of time, space and will. Unlike Vietnam, the security forces in Malaya did not have to contend with the problem of mass guemlla support within an alienated population, or with constant reinforcement of guemlla cadres from adjacent foreign basess9

In Malaya, offensive air support was significant since it helped contract the critical variant of time because air attack was used to force the insurgents to retreat into the deep and inaccessible jungle. In Maoist people's war doctrine, without time, little can be done to develop the revolutionary will of the peasantry. As the American analyst, John J. Pustay, has noted:

Time - time above all- is what the insurgency feeds upon. It is through time that a technologically inferior force can so organise and indoctrinate the populace that it will become in essence the collective base of this insurgency. It is from this base that the insurgent forces will derive a growing strength that will ultimately permit them to destroy the incumbent government's modem army.9"

In the largely uninhabited jungle, the MRLA, isolated from the Chinese squatters, could not convert time into political mobilisation. Therefore while the communist guerrillas survived as a military irritant, they could not expand into the population as a force of political subversives. This was a key factor in the British victory in Malaya. The importance ofthe contraction of time in the Malayan Emergency is not an obvious conclusion to draw since the campaign lasted for 12. This is a long

See E.L. Katzenbach, Jr., 'Time Space and Will: The Politico-Military Views of Mao Tse-tung', in Lieutenant Colonel T.N. Greeue, The Guerrilla - ondHow to Fight Him; Selectionrfrorn the Marine Corps Gazette, Praeger, New York, 1963, pp. 11-21 and Edward L. Katzenbach, Jr., and Gene Z. Hanrahan, 'The Revolutionary Strategy of Mao Tse-hmg', in F.M. Osanka, (ed), Modern Guerrilla Warfare, Glencoe, New York, 1962, pp. 130-46.

87 Ibid.

88 Mao Tse-tung, SelecfedMilitary Writings of Mao Tse-lung, p. 228.

89 For comparisons of Malaya and Vietnam see Komer, The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect, pp. 76-86; Robert 0. Tilman, 'The Non-Lessons of the Malayan Emergency', Asian Survey, August . . 1966, V1, viii, pp. 407-19.

John J. Pustay, Counterinsurgency Warfare, Glencoe, New York ,1965, p. 31. Emphasis added.

time in the Western conception of conflict, but not in the Eastern conception of war as a protracted struggle as described by such notable writers as Scott A. Boorman and Adda B. Bozeman.9'

In China, Mao Zedong fought for power for well over 20 years and General Vo Nguyen Giap in Vietnam mounted an armed struggle for over 30 years.92 In the context of Maoist insurgency doctrine, the MRLA's isolation from its critical support base - the Chinese squatter population -meant that, unlike the Chinese Red h y and the Viet Cong, its insurgent cadres could not use time to swim like Mao Zedong's fish in 'the water of the people'. By helping to isolate the MRLA, Commonwealth offensive air power proved essential in helping to destroy the political subversion which lies at the heart of Maoist revolutionary war. It was the Malayan JOC system and the efforts of such figures as Briggs and Mills which ensured that the most important contribution of Commonwealth air power to the prosecution of the campaign would be support for the counter-insurgency effort on the ground. Clutterbuck is right when he points out that 'air power is not an end in itself in counter-insurgency. It can contribute only by supporting other agencies -police, army and civil government services'.93

Australia's air role in the critical contraction of time in the Emergency was without doubt a critical one. Not only did Australian Dakotas play a major role in supply and transport operations but RAM Lincoln bombers were deployed in Malaya for eight years. They provided essential continuity in the Commonwealth's offensive air operations. In a broader sense, Operation Firedog also added to both the RAAF's understanding of South-East Asian conditions and to its experience of high command. Significantly, Scherger and Hancock, who both served in the position of AOC Malaya, later rose to head the RAAF. Malaya also marked the beginning of the Australian military's concentration on South-East Asian security through the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve in Malaya and later the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA).PJ

Conclusion

The Malayan Emergency represents the intellectual cross-over point from British pre- war imperial policing into post-war modem British counter-insurgency. The three principles of minimum force, civil-military coordination and tactical flexibility were meshed into a coherent counter-insurgency doctrine. Although air power in Malaya built on the experiences of air control in the inter-war years and air transport and supply during World War 11, its use was tailored to meet local conditions. The

9' Booman, The ProtractedGome; Bozeman, 'War and the Clash of Ideas'.

92 Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla: A Hisforicol ondCrifica1 Study, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1977, Chapters 6-7.

93 Clutterbuck, TheLong Long War: The Emergency inMalaya, 1948-1960, p. 157.

94 Stephens, GoingSolo, pp. 253-62

Commonwealth air effort in Malaya cannot be seen as an independent or single service campaign. To understand its role, all air missions have to be viewed in the context of the outcome of the counter-insurgency campaign and that outcome was a famous victory for the West.

It is also important to note that nothing could be more different and yet more alike than Western air warfare and Eastern revolutionary warfare. While air warfare rests firmly on tangibles such as speed, armament and striking power, revolutionary warfare is based on the intangibles of protracted struggle, geophysical space and political will.95 Yet both forms of warfare share a deep common interest in the domination of what has been called the fourth dimension of warfare - namely time. As the American air theorist, Colonel Phillip S. Meilinger has put it, 'air power produces physical and psychological shock by dominating the fourth dimension - time'.96 But he has warned that, because guerrilla war is protracted in time, it is by definition ill-suited to air power since it robs the latter of its ability to telescope events through control of the contraction of time.97 However, it is important to note that Meilinger is referring to air power in its pure and discrete form as a tool of strategic decision. What Malaya teaches us, is that in joint operations, air power, like land and sea power, is essential but may not necessarily be strategically decisive. Without air support, the Malayan Emergency would almost certainly have lasted longer than its 12 years. In this sense, air power is critical in the fourth dimension of warfare - time -as applied to the low-level operations of counter-insurgency.

Finally, it is woah reflecting on the value of the Malayan Emergency to Western military establishments on the cusp of 21st century information age warfare - particularly those of the United States and Australia. As the British military historian, John Keegan, has warned, the Western preference for an ideology of military swiftness through decisive battle, no more conveys the reality of human conflict than the World Slump conveys the reality of economics or the Watergate scandal conveys the reality of politics.98 Despite the great strides made in recent years in refining aerial precision targeting and in developing sensors, the methods of insurgency still pose the greatest danger to what Eliot A. Cohen has called 'the mystique of US air power'. As Cohen puts it, 'air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength, in part, because, like modem courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment'.99 Contemporary air power appeals to many Westem decision-

95 Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: A Study of GuerriNa Warfare Theory andPractice. Paladin edition, St Albans, 1970, pp. 45-58; Katzenbach and Hanrahan, 'The Revolutionaly Strategy of Mao Tse-tung', pp. 133-43.

96 Colonel Phillip S. Meilinger, 10 Propositions Regarding Air Power, Air Power Studies Centre, Canberra, September 1995, p. 17.

971bid, pp. 17-19.

98 John Keegan, The Mask of Commond, London, Penguin, 1987, p. 7. 99 Eliot. A. Cohen, 'The Mystique of US Air Power', Foreign Affairs, JanuaryIFebruary 1994, LXXIII, I, p. 109. For an analysis of recent developments in air technology see Benjamin S. Lambeth, 'The Technology Revolution in Air Warfare', Survival, Spring 1997, XXXIX, i, pp. 65-83. For an interesting view of the relationship of high-technology air power to low-intensity

makers because, in the wake of its success in the Gulf War, it seems to offer, 'the fantasy of near-bloodless uses of force'.'" Aii power's three great advantages - its high-technology strike power, its apparent cheapness in lives and its time-sensitivity (in terms of speed of response), recommends it as the weapon of first choice for democratic politicians faced with challenges to international order.

On all three counts, Eastern insurgency posits a counterforce to this type of information-age warfare. It may have lost its ideological appeal but its methodology still teaches valuable lessons on how to avoid decision, how to merge combatants into the population and, as a doctrine, it thrives on retarding the velocity of force in time. The chess players of the West may now have more lethal pieces to move around, possess more precision in their moves and have a clearer vision of the board of play; but so long as war contains the vital element of political will, the wei-ch'i player knows he is not defeated. For this reason, Malaya, the West's only victory over Maoist insurgency, will remain relevant into the next century.

DISCUSSION

Squadron Leader Bill Crompton: It seems that there are some similarities between bombing jungles to discomfort insurgents and conducting anti-submarine warfare to deter submarines inasmuch as you only know what you have accomplished if you get the enemy's after-action reports. In that vein, have any debriefs been conducted on captured or surrendered insurgents to get their opinion on the delivery of air power?

Doctor Evans: Much of the information we have comes from surrendered enemy personnel. Some of them stated that air power was terrifying. Some of them stated that they surrendered because of it. Others stated that they surrendered because of the psychological warfare campaign, because of the leaflets being dropped and because of sky shouts by a sexy Chinese girl telling them to come back home because there are lots of wonderful things for them under the Briggs plan. So, yes, there's a fair bit of feedback. The problem with insurgency is that insurgents, as you know, operate in small groups and it's a decentralised form of warfare. So you really have to get down and dig them out, which by definition is not all that well-suited to air power. The point I tried to make about Malaya was that air power was part of a joint counter- insurgency campaign which was relatively new. I mean, counter-insurgency in its modem form was only evolving in Malaya.

Group Captain David Glenn: One small point, but an important one, I think, in the cooperation between ground forces and RAAF in Malaya was that the Lincolns were frequently used to draw a line on the ground through which the communist terrorists would not be able to proceed. And that gave a good deal of tactical opportunity to the

operations see, Alan Stephens, 'The Transformation of "Low-Intensity" Conflict', Small Wars and Imurgencies. Spring 1994, V, iv, pp. 143-61.

loo Cohen, 'The Mystique of US Air Power', p. 121.

ground forces in many circumstances. Bombing gave the Army in many circumstances an opportunity to close in on insurgents that otherwise they would not have had.

Doctor Evans: Thank you for that insight. I'm not familiar with the use of area bombing as a means of pinning down guerrillas and letting the ground forces close in on them. I believe that the Lincolns had 1,000 pound bombs which had a certain area of effectiveness which was very useful information for ground forces. The only problem was that if the guerillas bomb shelled, you had to have a very good cordon of stop groups to take them out when they were coming through. Counter-insurgency is a messy form of warfare as anybody knows who has been in it.

ORGANISATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE 1950-1965

Alan Stephens

Introduction

By mid-1950 the uncertain and unhappy years of the Interim Air Force had been put behind the RAAF. A sharp operational focus had been imposed on all activities by the commitment of No. 77 Souadron to the cruel war in Korea. and of Nos. 1 and 38 ~ - ~ - ~

Squadrons to the lower intensity but nevertheless difficult conflict in Malaya. Simultaneously, important measures had been introduced to institutionalise the experience which had been gained at great cost during World War 11, including the establishment of the R A M College and the RAAF Staff College; the formation of a professional engineering branch; and the introduction of an apprentice training scheme. Complementing those initiatives was the notable achievement of the Australian aircraft industry, which by the early 1950s stood at the forefront of international aeronautical engineering through the construction of the transonic Canberra bomber and Sabre fighter. In this energetic environment, recruitment rather than demobilisation became the order of the day, as personnel numbers rose rapidly towards 15,000 from a low ofjust over 8,000 in 1948.'

In short, the RAAF had entered a period of fundamental change; change which, to a large extent, continues to govern the nature and standards of the Air Force today. This paper examines that process of change against the indicators of organisation and force development.

Organisation

Once the RAAF's general post-war direction became apparent, it was inevitable that organisational arrangements would come under review. Here, the central issue was the extent to which the wartime organisation should be retained. At the end of the war the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal George Jones, located in RAAF Headquarters at Melbourne's Victoria Barracks, managed the RAAF through an organisation of five mainland Area Commands. Eastern Area had its headquarters at Bradfield Park in Sydney; Southern Area at Albert Park in Melbourne; Western Area at RAAF Station Pearce; Northwestern Area at RAAF Station D&, and Northeastern Area at Sturt Street in Townsville.2 Supplementing the area command arrangement was one functional grouping, Maintenance Headquarters in Melbourne.

Personnel numbers were 8025 in 1948,9442 in 1950, and 15,527 by 1952. Alan Stephens, Going Solo: The Royal ArufraliannAir Fore 19.16-1971, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1995, p. 501.

Location of Headquarters Northeastern Area, Policy, 1949, 18-3-48, CRS A1 196/2,42/501/258, AA; Air Board Agendum 12375,20-5-53, RHS. Consideration was given to establishing a Northern Area

The area command system had worked satisfactorily during the war and with its apparent emphasis on decentralisation seemed well-suited to Australia's vast distances and small population, as well as ensuring an Air Force presence in most States. The fact was, though, that by 1950 the area system was an organisational chimera. Notwithstanding the formal arrangements, in practice the RAAF was being managed under a functional system.

Operational units were allocated to one of two forces: the Mobile Task Force, which was to be deployed as necessary to trouble spots in Australia or around the world; and a Home Defence Force, which was responsible for the air defence of Australia. The Home Defence Force was based on the area command system, with each area being responsible for its own air defence, seaward reconnaissance and search and rescue.3 That was the theory, anyway. In practice, most operational units were assigned to the Mobile Task Force and were located at airfields in New South Wales and southern Queensland, an arrangement which placed them under the command of Eastern Area Headquarters and gave Eastern Area the status of a de facto operational headquarters. Similarly, the need to exploit the existing national infrastructure and population base meant that most training units had gravitated to the east and south-east, giving Southern Area Headquarters the status of a training ~ommand.~ Finally, Maintenance Headquarters was, by definition, already a functional command.

Despite those clear organisational inconsistencies, Air Marshal Jones continued to favour the geographic organisational structure. That structure lasted only as long as the wartime chiefs tenure. When Air Marshal Jones retired in January 1952 he was replaced by a British officer, Air Marshal Sir Donald Hardman, whose major legacy to the RAAF was the formal introduction of a functional command system.

Hardman came to the RAAF with a reputation as an innovative manager, which he quickly proceeded to justify. Hardman believed that a functional command system would make the RAAF more efficient in all aspects of operations and administration. The devolution of activities from Air Force Headquarters to functional commands would, he argued, establish closer contact between commanders and their units, while station commanders would have more authority and thus would be better prepared for wartime duties. Further, the RAF's long experience with hct ional commands (Bomber Command, Fighter Command, and so on) had shown that the system facilitated the concentration of force which is so critical in battle.

Headquarters in New Guinea, possibly at Finschhafen, but the idea was dropped. Southern Area Headquarters was located at 'Kellow House' in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, early in 1944 but in 1947 was moved to Albert Park Barracks as units were disbanded and the RAAF reduced its large holdings of accommodation. Following the Hardman reorganisation of 1953, Maintenance and Training Commands continued to occupy Albert Park.

Air Board Agendum 8091, 16-10-47, RHS

Air BoardAgenda6816,20-11-45; 8091, 16-10-47, RHS; Reorganisation of the RAAF 1953, 18-1 1-53, CRS A4940, C2404, AA. Training units from Queensland andNew South Wales were placed under the command of Headquarters, Southern Area.

As well as introducing those new organisational strengths to the RAAF, by abolishing the area commands the functional system would also abolish several inherent organisational weaknesses. First, the autonomy of the area commanders often made it difficult to get the different components of the one functional system to work together, the air defence force being the most prominent example. Second, the smaller areas frequently could not manage major activities from within their limited resources. And finally, there was the problem which had plagued the RAAF's war effort in the South- West Pacific from 1942 to 1945, namely, divided command. Under the area organisation the RAAF's operational forces remained divided, rather than being unified under one commander.

It took Hardman a year to lay the groundwork for his proposed reorganisation, during which time some Air Board members questioned the value of a functional system for Australia, pointing to problems of distance, isolation and limited communications services; additionally, they felt that the RAAF's small fleet of aircraft would make the formation of a number of specialist commands a dubious proposition. Neither Hardman nor the Minister for Air, William McMahon, agreed, McMahon drawing the Air Board's attention to the evolution of Eastern and Southern Areas into de facto operational and training commands respectively. 'We should make up our minds one way or the other which system we wish to adopt', he told his Board.5

The Chief of the Air Staff agreed and pressed on. Hardman identified four basic requirements for the RAAF's organisation: it had to provide for the higher direction of the Air Force; manage the air defence of Australia and any overseas commitments; successfully recruit and train personnel; and supply high quality logistics upp port.^ Under Hardman's skilful and knowledgable leadership the Air Board eventually endorsed the introduction of a new organisation intended to meet those objectives. There would be two major components: a headquarters responsible for policy and financial control; and three functional commands directly responsible to that headquarters for implementing policy and for the detailed operational and administrative control of all RAAF units.

The functional commands were the easier of the two major components to devise. Home Command would be res~onsible for all onerational units and the conduct of operations within Australia and its territories; Training Command for all recmitment and individual training, as well as the activities of training units; and Maintenance Command for supply and technical services throughout the RAAF.'

Reorganising the central headquarters was more complex. On his arrival in 1952, Air Marshal Hardman had found the respective responsibilities of the Department of Air and Air Force Headquarters poorly defined, a legacy of the haste with which the

Air Board Agendum 12286, 12-1 1-51, RHS.

Reorganisation of the RAAF 1953, 18-11-53, CRS A4940, C2404, AA

Air Board Agendum 12375,ZO-5-53, RHS.

Department had been established in 1939. He had also noted that the titles 'Air Board' and 'Air Force Headquarters' were used interchangeably to designate the RAAF's central controlling authority.8 As a result the central administration of the RAAF had become divided between three separate but related authorities: the Department of Air, the Air Board and RAAF Headquarters. Hardman considered that the title 'RAAF Headquarters' did not correctly describe the scope of the functions of the central authority. His view was that the Department of Air should be the authority from which eovemmental. ministerial and Air Board decisions were issued to the RAAF, and to which all correspondence from Commands and units should be addressed. Consequently he abolished RAAF Headquarters. The Air Board, which remained responsible for policy and the control and direction of all Air Force administration, now exercised its authority through the Department of Air.

1 October 1953 was selected as the date for the integration of RAAF Headquarters into the Department of Air, the establishment of the three functional commands, and the disbandment Eastern and Southern Areas and Maintenance Group. The second phase of the reorganisation occurred on 1 February 1954 when Home Command assumed the responsibilities previously held by Northeastern, Northwestern and Western Areas. Between 1 July and 30 September the functional reorganisation was completed by delegating 'additional responsibilities' from the Department to the Commands.

Because of a need to reduce overheads and increase efficiency, the functional command system was reviewed in 1959 by a committee headed by Air Vice-Marshal I.D. McLachlan. Concluding that the functional system had resulted in 'the improved efficiency of the Air Force as a whole', McLachlan recommended taking the process a step further by rationalising the three commands to two. Home Command, located at Glenbrook in New South Wales, was renamed Operational Command, and continued to exercise direct command and control over all operational squadrons and units. Training and Maintenance Commands in Melbourne were amalgamated as Support Command, a change McLachlan believed would facilitate the conduct of all support functions. Because the government had previously decided to relocate the three service departments to Canberra, McLachlan's review also examined which responsibilities could be transferred to Support Command in Melbourne when the Department of Air moved to the national capital?

The move of the Defence Group of Departments from Melbourne to Canberra started in 1959. Initially, most people were accommodated in the Administrative Building in the suburb of Parkes, pending the completion of a purpose-built Defence complex at Russell Hill. By August 1961 the transfer was complete and all members of the Air

Air Board Agendum 12312,28-3-52, RHS. In mid-1953 me total strength of Air Force Headquarters was 1,323, of whom L183 were located in the Victoria Barracks area.

Composition of the Forces, 2-4-59, CRS A794112, AI 1, Pt 1, AA

Board had settled into Russell, where the new buildings were regarded as a major improvement over Victoria Barracks, as every office had an outside window and special facilities were available for filing and vault storage on all floors.

Force Development: The Order of Battle

The whole point of trying to construct an efficient organisation was, of course, to apply air power effectively in the national interest. Prior to Air Marshal Hardman's reorganisation of the RAAF, in July 1947 the government had endorsed a force development proposal, known as Plan 'D', under which the Air Force's operational components - the Mobile Task Force and the Home Defence Force - would comprise sixteen flying squadrons plus supporting units.10 The Mobile Task Force was to consist of Permanent Air Force fighter, heavy bomber and transport wings; a tactical reconnaissance sauadron: and suooorting units. and was to be cauable of rauid . . deploynient to 'any part of the British Commonwealth which may be threatened'. RAAF planners also envisaged deploying the MTF in support of the United Nations. In the event of a major defence emergency in Australia or its immediate region the Task Force would be rapidly deployed from its home bases on the east coast. Shategically important local areas in which it was thought the Force might be used were New Guinea, Cape York Peninsula, Darwin, PerthIAlbany and Sydney/Brisbane."

Underpinning the Mobile Task Force would be a 'static' Home Defence Force which would be responsible for the air defence of Australia, and which would comprise Area and Command Headquarters, fighter and reconnaissance squadrons, and airfield construction, telecommunications, photographic and hospital units. Home Defence Force units would be based permanently in one of the five geographic area commands according to role and function, with the fighter aircraft which constituted the main operational element of the air defence system being operated by five Citizen Air Force (CAF) squadrons located near each of the mainland State capital cities. During peacetime the CAF squadrons were to function essentially as training units so their staffing was based on 75 per cent citizen force and 25 per cent permanent personnel, with the latter responsible for supervision and standards. Also allocated to the Home Defence Force were two General Reconnaissance/Bomber squadrons, one at each of Townsville and Perth.

Air Marshal Hardman's reorganisation, which vested responsibility for all operational activities in Home Command, had little effect on those units designated as part of the Mobile Task Force. However, the abolition of the Home Defence Force diminished the status of the CAF fighter squadrons. Organisational pressure on the CAF squadrons was exacerbated by a growing belief at senior levels that part-time units

l0 Air Board Agendum 7314,5-9-46, RHS.

l 1 Air Board Agendum 6799, 16-10-45, RHS.

were insufficiently professional to take a leading role in national defence. The perhaps inevitable conclusion to that combination of pressures came in 1960 when the CAF squadrons lost their flying role.

Those changes coincided with a major shift in Australian defence policy in favour of air power, driven in the first instance by Defence Minister Sir Philip McBride. Having assumed his portfolio in October 1950, by 1954 McBride had concluded that an imbalance existed between endorsed strategic guidance and the respective strengths of the armed services. In particular he believed Australia could not afford two air forces, one operated by the RAAF and the other by the RAN, and had therefore decided that the RAAF should have sole responsibility for protecting the fleet from air attack whenever ships were within range of land-based aircraft. McBride's decision had profound implications for the Air Force and the Navy, for as RAAF air defence and maritime strike and reconnaissance capabilities were built-up, those of the RAN would be disbanded.

McBride's policy decision was given form by Minister for Air Athol Townley. The three-year program prepared by the W for Townley to present to Cabinet in mid- 1954 was a watershed in the Air Force's post-war development.'2 First, the program defined a force structure which, with due allowance for new technologies, remained in place for the next 30 years. And second, it precipitated a re-equipment program which was not only the largest in the RAAF's peacetime history, but which also eventually led to the acquisition of the F-l 11 bomber and the C-130 transport, the two most important aircraft operated by the W since World War 11.

During the period covered by Townley's plan the intention was to place orders for 97 jet fighters, 39 mediumjet bombers, 12 four-engined transports and 73 jet trainers. The fighters would replace the Sabre and would be built in Australia, with deliveries starting in 1958. One of the British V-bombers - the Vulcan, Victor or Valiant - was the preferred replacement for the Canberra and would be fully imported, as would the four-engined transports. Additional work for the local industry would, however, be created by building the new jet trainers in Australia. Also listed for acquisition were three VIP transport aircraft for the use of the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and 'visiting international figures', an order considered by Cabinet to be of 'great importance' to the 'prestige and efficiency of the Commonwealth of Australia'.

The new aircraft were to be supported by an extensive range of ancillary services, such as air defence and air traffic control radars and ground test equipment. Underpinning the purchase of hardware was a commitment to remain at the leading edge of aviation technology through an extensive research and development program, with special reference being made to fundimg for the Aircraft Research and Development Unit at Laverton (which at the time was conducting trials with twenty different aircraft types) and the Long-range Weapons Project at Woomera; and a number of trials associated with aeronautical engineering, armaments,

l2 Defence Program 1954155, Air Force Program, 16-7-54, CRS A4940, C1079, AA.

telecom~nunications and aviation medicine. In sum, the three-year program from 1954155 to 1956157 was an impressive and visionary document which became the blueprint for the greatest modernisation program in the RAAF's peacetime history.

An acquisition team headed by the AOC Home Command, Air Vice-Marshal Alister Murdoch, was formed to travel overseas to examine new types of fighter, bomber, transport and training aircraft." At the direction of the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir John McCauley, and the other members of the Air Board, Murdoch was to give top priority to a new bomber, which would act as a deterrent in the Cold War and take the offensive in the fight for air superiority when operating from either Australia or Malaya in a 'hot war'. Bomber crews, not fighterpilots, were regarded as the cutting edge of national air defence, with a bomber offensive constituting 'the first lime of air defence' and the only method by which general air superiority could be gained.14 Any bomber Murdoch and his team recommended had to be nuclear- capable and able to fly from Darwin to Singapore, and Singapore to Bangkok, with a maximum bomb load. The proposed acquisition of nuclear weapons would overcome the problems of scale inherent in the RAAF's small size. Fighters were accorded second priority for their role in the air defence of Malaya and Australia. 'As and when the air situation permit[ted]', fighters might also be used to provide tactical support for land forces. Transport aircraft came third in the RAAF's doctrinal priorities, a judgment which might have disturbed those Army and Navy units which depended on airlift to meet their Cold War and Malayan commitments. Finally, Murdoch's brief noted the need for 'other aircraft' for 'maritime operations, communications, training, etc'.

When the new aircraft eventually began to appear on the RAAF's order of battle - the Lockheed C-130A was the first in 1958 - it was notable that none of the three operational types was from the United Kingdom. Despite the still strong emotional ties to the old country, geostrategic imperatives continued to impel Australia's shift towards the United States. The lessons of World War I1 were reinforced by France's defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, an event which alarmed the Australian Government as the French Army in Indochina had been regarded as an outer bastion of Australian security. Further, the United Kingdom's influence and presence in Asia was waning as British politicians increasingly diverted their defence resources towards their more immediate concerns in Europe. Only the Americans could fill the vacuum in Asia for the West.

Following months of discussions with Whitehall and Washington, the Australian Government took a decision of the first moment when it decided in October 1956 formally to align its defence system as closely as possible with that of the United States.15 Defence and foreign policies would seek to accommodate American

l 3 Air Board Agendum 1251 1,30-6-55, RHS

l4 Air BoardAgenda 12423,3-5-54; 1251 1,30-6-55, RHS.

l5 Review of Defence Policy 1956, 10-10-56, CRS A4940, C1615, AA.

preferences regarding the role Australia should play in SEATO; while where possible only military equipment which was fully compatible with that ofthe Americans would be acquired.

In 1958 the RAAF conducted a long-term review intended to provide the strategic justification for a major expansion based on the Townley program and the Murdoch mission.16 Air Staff planners confirmed the existing broad strategic judgments along which the lines of the Cold War had been drawn; while they also noted recent developments in the military capabilities of China and Indonesia, which were believed to have been 'rapid and considerable'. A conceptual basis for the role of air power in the defence of Australia which was developed placed considerable emphasis on the notion of 'deterrence'. According to the Air Staff, military strength was the most important deterrent to was, and in turn air power was the 'primary deterrent'. If an air force were to generate a deterrent effect it needed a credible strike force ready for immediate action. An air defencelfighter force was also essential, not only to achieve control of the air but also to support surface forces.

The Air Staff then detailed the RAAF's capability deficiencies. The list was a long one as most of the RAAF"s main force elements were obsolesceut. Four years after the Murdoch mission only the C-130A transports had been ordered. Little progress had been made towards modernising the strike and fighter forces, and maritime patrol and reconnaissance capabilities needed to be improved, as did search and rescue and support for the Army. Finally, if the defence of Australia as a strategy was to be taken seriously, adequate bases in the north of the country were needed.

Growing government concern over South-East Asia generally and China and Indonesia in particular ensured that the modernisation of the RAAF in accordance with the Townley initiative would finally proceed. Following a series of meetings between 29 October and 24 November 1959, Cabinet endorsed the latest review and set in train the greatest rearmament program in the Air Force's peacetime history." Four major equipment purchases were approved, including two - helicopters and an air defence surface-to-air missile system -which had never before featured in the RAAF's operational inventory. The helicopter type was not specified, but eight were to be acquired for search and rescue and Army support. One complete 'fire unit' of Bristol Bloodhound Mk I surface-to-air guided missiles was ordered, incorporating 20 missiles, 16 launchers and all associated equipment, spares, works and buildings. Also boosting the air defence system would be 30 new fighter aircraft, which would constitute the first step towards eventually replacing the entire fleet of Sabres. Four years ago Murdoch had recommended the Lnckheed F-104 Starfighter, but because the RAAF was having second thoughts the new type was not specified. Finally, 12 Lockheed P2V7 Neptune maritime patrol aircraft were to be brought into service to supplement the PzVss and replace the wartime-vintage Lincolns.

l6 Composition of the Force, 2-4-59, CRS A794112, AI 1, Part 1, AA.

l7 Composition of Australian Defence Forces, 1-12-59, A794211, C151, AA; Air Board Agendum 12787,Z-4-59, RHS.

Two important infrastructure and organisational decisions were also announced. Since the end of the war the Air Force had been urging the construction of a second major airfield in the Darwin region, which it believed was the most likely mainland area for air operations. Funds were at last allocated for that development. Second, the five Citizen Air Force (CM) squadrons were to lose their flying role, with the Permanent Aii Force personnel from those units being used to form a fourth PAF fighter squadron. Philosophically and symbolically, the decision to downgrade the role of the CAF was more important than the order for new aircraft and missiles. Since 1921 the RAAF's peacetime organisation had included a substantial percentage of citizen forces. By definition, those units were part-time and, therefore, non- professic~nal. A succession of Chiefs of the Air Staff and operational commanders had opposed the priority accorded to the CAF on the grounds that it was inconsistent with the demands of professional aviation, and that with the best will in the world, part- time crews were a luxnry a small force could not afford. That fundamental point had finally been accepted.

In September 1962 the Menzies Government initiated the second phase of the rearmament program it had started in 1959. This time, Cabinet's strategic thinking was directed towards air defence and battlefield mobility. Forty French Dassault Mirage fighters had been ordered in 1960 to replace the Sabres, and a follow-on order for another 30 was now placed. Simultaneously the RAAF was instructed to make an 'urgent evaluation' of short take-off and landing fixed-wing transports and heavy lift helicopters to provide tactical mobility for the Army.18 Within weeks the RAAF had recommended the Caribou and Chinook and orders had been placed for 12 and 8 respectively; however, because of production delays, the Chinooks were replaced by increasing an existing order for Iroquois utility helicopters from 8 to 16. An 'accelerated' review of the Defence program conducted in 1963 maintained the momentum. In May authorisation was given to buy eight more Iroquois, bringing their total to 24, and the Caribou order was increased to 18. A third batch of Mirages, this time 40, was also approved. The 100 new fighters were to be complemented by two new Control and Reporting radar systems and increased war reserves of weapons.19 More equipment meant more people. Forward projections showed the RAAF's personnel establishment growing from about 16,000 to 21,000 over the next five years, an increase of 25 per cent.2"

The RAAF's rearmament program was prompted in part by the government's concern, first, with the deteriorating military and political situation in Indochina; and second, with Indonesian President Sukamo's policy of 'Confrontation' towards the proposed State of Malaysia. Uncertainty in Australia over Sukamo's intentions was heightened by apprehension over his intentions towards Dutch-controlled West New Guinea. Tensions peaked in 1963 following the politically motivated and mischievous claim

l 8 Cabinet Decision No. 437,7-9-62, in Ai Board Agendum 13000,3-7-63, RHS.

l9 Cabinet DecisionNo. 768,7-5-63, in Air Board Agenda 13000,3-7-63; 13U73,27-9-64, RHS

20 Construction of Living-in Accommodation at RAAF Bases, 3-5-65, CRS A4940, C4177, AA.

by Australia's Leader of the Opposition, Arthur Calwell, that the Indonesian Air Force could destroy any Australian city. It was in direct response to the subsequent public alarm and, with an election looming, the need to be seen to be doing something, that in October 1963 the Menzies Government ordered 24 'TFX' bombers bec;iuse they had the range to attack Jakarta.z' Menzies' announcement that the RAAF would be equipped with the revolutionary 'swing wing' bomber which was later renamed the F-l l l quelled public concern and helped him win the election.

Force Development: Strategic Airfields

If the concept of operations proposed in Plan 'D' in 1947 for the Mobile Task Force and the Home Defence Force were to succeed, an extensive system of airfields and bases was essential. That system would have to satisfy three main criteria. First, it would have to support the RAAF's full order of battle in each of five separate 'strategic' areas: New Guinea; Cape York Peninsula-Townsville; Darwin-Fenton; Perth-Albany; and Sydney-Brisbane. Second, strategic air route bases were needed to allow the force to deploy rapidly and to take full advantage of the inherent flexibility of air power. And finally, training and maintenance needs bad to be accommodated.22

In October 1945 there were 317 mainland and regional airfields under RAAF control. Plan 'D' claimed that 133 of those airfields were still needed: 42 for the Mobile Task Force, 26 for the Home Defence Force, 35 for 'miscellaneous' use such as training and test flying, and 30 which were to be kept but not maintained. The remaining 184 were listed for disposal or return to the Department of Civil Aviation.23

Air Staff planners had set minimum standards for major airfields, which required at least one runway 2,500 metres long and 50 metres wide and which was strong enough to withstand intensive use by jet aircraft weighing up to 45,000 kilograms with tyre pressures of 690 kilopascals.24 Taxiways, tarmac areas, hardstanding and operational readiness platforms built to the same standards were also considered essential. Most of the required airfields did not meet those criteria, and as the estimated cost of completing the work ranged Gom £100,000 to £500,000 at each location, upgrading all 133 was out of the question. When priorities were re-examined, the far more modest total of 12 bases was designated as critical. These were the so-called five 'strategic' bases at Butterworth, Cocos Island, Momote, Darwin and Leannonth; and the seven major mainland bases at Williamtown, Townsville, Pearce, Darwin, East Sale, Richmond and Amberley. The airfields at Port Moresby, Canberra, Laverton

21 For a detailed account of the exhaordinary circumstances surrounding the F-l 1 1 order, see Stephens, Going Solo, pp. 370-93.

22 Air Board Agendum 10907,29-11-50, RHS.

23 Air Board Agendum 6799, 16-10-45, RHS,

24 RAAF Aerodrome F'earce, WA, Development, 9-2-51, CRS A4940, C288, AA; Air Board Agendum 12688,8-10-57, RHS.

and Schofields were also earmarked for improvement but did not have the same operational priority. If the remaining 177 stayed on the RAAF's real estate register - which seemed unlikely - they would be maintained to lesser standards.

The history of the 'strategic' airfields is the more interesting of the two groups, but before turning to that story the rationale behind the choice of the mainland bases should be mentioned. Most sites had been chosen in response to previous strategic, demographic and political pressures. Townsville was the major air base on the noah- east coast, Richmond on the east, Laverton on the south-east and Pearce on the west. Williamtown, Amberley and Schofields were the peacetime bases for the RAAF's fighter, bomber and transport wings respectively; Canberra was the site of the national capital; and East Sale was the home of the Air Force's most important peacetime unit, the Central Flying School, which was responsible for setting and maintaining flying standards. Later, Schofields was taken off the list when first Canberra and then Richmond became the major transport base; and Edinburgh was added in the mid- 1960s when it began to replace Richmond and Townsville as the hub of maritime operations. Upgrading all of those mainland bases was not a job which could be completed overnight. Most aircraft movement and technical facilities had, however, been brought up to the necessary standard for a 'jet' air force by 1950.

Those mainland air bases were the focus of the RAAF's peacetime training and exercise flying, and they also provided an Air Force presence in each State. Geography and the experience of the Second World War indicated, however, that if the RAAF went to war again it would not be from those bases but from the 'strategic' airfields in the north or overseas.

The strategic airfields had been chosen because of their relationship to the two axes along which the Japanese advance on Australia had been made, the first via the Malay Peninsula and the second through New Guinea. Post-war planning assumed that any communist threat would follow the same paths. The long-stand'mg British presence in Malaya and Singapore meant that facilities on the Malay Peninsula generally were very good. Concern was, however, periodically expressed over access to the region from the south. If for some reason the new state of Indonesia (which had achieved independence in 1949) decided to withdraw overilight rights, aircraft might be prevented from transiting to Singapore and points further north and west. The logical option, in the RAAF's opinion, was to develop the RAF airstrip on the Cocos Islands, which the Air Staff saw as an important strategic asset and a vital alternative air route between Darwin and Peah and South-East Asia?s

The Cocos Islands were administered by the United Kingdom as part of the Colony of Singapore, but day-to-day management was in the hands of a Scottish family, the Clunies-Ross, who had been granted a lease in perpetuity in 1886. In response to official British suggestions that the entire operation and administration of the airstrip at Cocos might be ceded to Australia, in 1949 the RAAF had prepared costings for

Telegram, for Prime Minister from acting Prime Minister, 24-8-50, Air 811500, PRO; Air Board Agendum 10550,ll-8-50, RHS.

upgrading and maintaining the airstrip to international standards. An estimated initial outlay of £500,000 followed by £50,000 annually seemed a sound investment, especially when British officials hinted that sovereignty over the islands might also be transferred to Australia. When the rapidly deteriorating political situation in South- East Asia in the early 1950s and the war in Korea confirmed the importance of the Cocos Islands both as a staging post for strike, fighter and transport aircraft, and as a base for maritime aircraft, upgrading the airstrip became a Commonwealth strategic priority.26 In June 1951 the British Government announced that Australia would take over the administration of the Islands. Following negotiations between the Australian Government and the Clunies-Ross family, an RAAF team led by the highly regarded airfield construction engineer, Group Captain W.A.C. Dale, visited Cocos to conduct a final survey before work began. The main body of No. 2 Airfield Construction Squadron (2 ACS), comprising 404 officers and airmen, arrived in the Motor Vessel Cheshire on 19 December 1951, joining an advance party of 60, and by July the following year had completed a 2,500 metre-long airstrip, taxiways, hardstanding, navigation aids, lighting and refuelling facilities.

Australia continued to expand its holdings of strategic real estate when the former RAF base at Butterworth on the north-west coast of Malaya was handed over to the RAAF. Butterworth was released by the British Government on an indefinite free loan, but before sustained jet operations could be conducted major works were needed.27 No. 2 Airfield Construction Squadron started the RAAF's biggest overseas engineering job in August 1955 when it turned the first sod for the 'Butterworth Reconstruction Project'. By the time Butterworth officially became an RAAF Base on 1 July 1958, it could house three front-line squadrons and their supporting units, as well as substantial numbers of transient aircraft. As the most f o m d Commonwealth air base in South-East Asia, Buttenvorth sat astride a vital point on one of the two main axes of approach to Australia, as well as making possible the rapid deployment of RAAF units to other areas in South-East Asia. Butterworth was to be a key link in Australia's strategy of forward defence for three decades.

Momote, Rabaul and Port Moresby were to be the main forward bastions along the second axis of approach to Australia, through New Guinea from the north. Intelligence reports indicated that direct threats to Australia were slight, consisting of no more than a few submarines in the northern waters and an occasional long distance submarine reaching further south and east. But if China became aggressive the scale of the threat could increase rapidly, with one assessment suggesting that an enemy who obtained bases on the islands along the axis might deliver 'moderate' bombing attacks against Australia's main cities, possibly using atomic weapons.28 Setting aside

26 Telegram, GHQ Far East Land Forces to MinDef London, 3-1-51, Air 811500, PRO

27 File Note to Secretary of State, 26-2-55, Air 811860, PRO; Air Board Agendum 13062, 12-6-64, RHS.

28 Air Board Agendurn 851 1, 16-12-47, RHS.

the observation that the consequences of an atomic attack surely would have been greater than 'moderate', clearly it was in Australia's interests to control the northern axis of approach and deny others the use of any bases.

Port Moresby was regarded as by far the most important ofthe three sites because of its crucial defensive position in relation to the Australian mainland. That proximity to Australia also meant Moresby would be relatively easy to upgrade quickly should the need arise, so the RAAF decided that one of the more remote bases should be modernised first. Momote on Manus Island was chosen in preference to Rabaul because its existing facilities were better. The airstrip in particular was suitable for redevelopment as it was already 2,200 metres long, had clear approaches, and was constructed from coral which needed little maintenance. With relatively little work the nulway could t&e my of the RAAF's long-range reconnaissance or heavy bomber aircrait, the types most likely to deploy forward in the early stages of an emergency. Adding to Momote's appeal were the hangars, fuel storage tanks, communications facilities and accommodation buildings which had been left behind by the Americans after the war and which were handed over to the RAAF at no cost. Working three shifts a day, No. 2 ACS brought Momote up to standard as an 'advanced operational base' which was occupied by a Base Squadron and used for deployments by elements of the Mobile Task Force. In a concession to financial realities, Port Moresby and Rabaul were left with small care and maintenance parties only.29

Sadly for those members af the Air Force who enjoyed postings which consisted in the main of fishing and swimming in a tropical climate, Momote's strategic significance diminished over the years. The RAAF's withdrawal from Japan and Korea in the mid-1950s reduced the utility of a staging post between Australia and North Asia; while Butterworth eventually filled the need for operations into South- East Asia.30 In 1958 Base Squadron Momote was disbanded and the airfield handed over to the Department of Civil Aviation.

During most of the RAAF's peacetime years there has never been a flying squadron stationed permanently at Danuin: it has been as a transit and exercise post that the airfield has earned its keep, Yet Darwin arguably is the most important base for the air defence of Australia, its location at the noahern gateway making it not only the first port of call but also the link between the mainland and overseas strategic airfields. Darwin's significance was never more obvious than on 19 February 1942, when heavy Japanese air raids devastated the RAAF and exposed Australia's vulnerability. Continuing raids over the subsequent months marked the low point of the RAAF's history.

Immediately after the war Darwin resumed its role as a transit post. In order to facilitate that task, the major objective of base development was to clean up the war damage and improve living conditions for the permanent staff who looked after the

29 Air Board Agendum 8751,26-5-48, RHS.

30 Air Board Agendum 12720, 13-2-58, RHS.

continual succession of VIP, ferry and training flights.31 It was almost a decade after the war before the first serious attempt was made to make something more of Darwin. Air Marshal J.P.J. McCauley provided the driving force. During a tour of all USAF Far East Air Force bases, the Chief of the Air Staff had been impressed by the high standard of facilities, which enabled those bases to handle any aircraft in the USAF's inventory, current and planned. They were, McCauley observed, 'true strategic airfields'. The RAAF needed to follow that example and, as the only base in the north from which major operations could be mounted, Darwin was the logical place to start. McCauley wanted Damin to become the 'main Australian base for war', both for operations on the mainland and deployments to South-East Asia.32

No. 5 Airfield Construction Squadron had started work on a new main mnway at Darwin in 1955 but not to the 'strategic' standards the Chief of the Air Staff wanted. On his return to Australia McCauley convinced the government to spend the additional money needed to upgrade the runway.33 Eventually 3,350 metres long and 60 metres wide, with associated taxiways and bardstanding, the runway could accept the most advanced heavy aircraft, including the RAF's nuclear armed V-bombers. With that work close to completion by the end of 1961, Cabinet approved the expenditure of a further £2.57 million on works which would enable the RAAF to deploy to and operate from the north in strength.34 Operational readiness platforms and arming areas were added for the RAAF's strike force of Canberras and Sabres, while extra technical and domestic buildings allowed an additional 1,500 people to deploy to Darwin during major exercises.

Still that did not meet the RAAF's definition of a 'strategic' facility. Air Force commanders wanted the flexibility to divert forces and avoid overcrowding, two deficiencies which had contributed to the disaster of February 1942; further, in a major war the capacity of a single airfield might not be adequate. Only a second airfield would provide the answer.

McCauley was succeeded as Chief of the Air Staff in March 1957 by Air Marshal F.R.W. Scherger. More than anyone else, Scherger appreciated the need for a system of modem, flexible and robust bases in the north, for in February 1942, as a group captain, he had been in command at Danvin. While Scherger emerged from the subsequent commission of inquiry with his reputation intact, the experience was salutary and chastening in the extreme. From then on he was committed to establishing a second major base in the Darwin area. His appointment as Chief of the

3 1 Brief History of RAAF Station Danvin, RAAF Historical Section, Canberra, May 1990

32 Air Board Agendum 12902,24-3-61, RHS

33 Air Marshal Sir John McCauley, Interview, 1973, TRC 121148, NLA.

34 Wdrks for RAAF Darwin, August 1961, CRS A4940, C3385, AA.

Air Staff gave him the authority to pursue the cause, while his promotion to Air Chief Marshal and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in May 1961 enabled him to sustain the pressure at the highest levels for an unusually long period.

Scherger began pressing the government for a second major airfield in the Darwin area in 1959, and even before receiving a reply instructed No. 5 Airfield Construction Squadron to start stockpiling materials for the job.35 His lobbying was successful and provision was made in the 1959162 Defence Program for work to start on the new base. After the usual delays, the survey of possible sites was completed in May 1963 when the former wartime airfield of Tindal was ~elected.'~ Located 11 kilometres south of the town of Katherine and 250 kilometres from D ~ I w ~ Tidal met the RAAF's main geographic and strategic criteria. It was sufficiently far inland to make enemy incursions difficult and reduce the worst effects of the tropical cyclones which often lashed the coast, while being sufficiently close to Danvin to establish a mutually reinforcing connection.

Scherger's concept for Tindal was to establish an 'Un-Manned Operational Base', later known as a 'bare base'. Permanent facilities would be kept to a minimum and would consist of high quality movement surfaces - a 2,750 metre-long runway, taxiways and hardstanding - supported only by essential infrastructure such as electricity and water. There would be almost no permanent buildings. In times of defence emergencies or exercises aU other facilities and services would be moved in by air or truck. It was a concept ideally suited to a relatively small air force with a vast, largely under-populated and under-serviced continent to defend.

After the usual delays, the basic work at Tindal was completed by No. 5 Airfield Constmction Squadron by 1967 at a cost of about $7 million.)7 Over the following 30 years Tindal was to provide the model for three more bare base airfields across the north of Australia, the last of which fittingly has been named RAAF Scherger.

The first of those additional bases was sited in the north-west of the country, where there was no airfield suitable for sustained operations by jet fighters and bombers between the existing RAAF bases at Darwin and Pearce, a distance of some 3,200 kilometres. Until that gap was plugged, rapid deployments to South-East Asia were

The location selected by the Air Force was Learmonth on the Exmouth Gulf, 1,100 kilometres north of Perth.

As far hack as December 1945 funds had been allocated to buy about 450 hectares of land at Learmonth to construct a new airfield and signals facilities on the site of a wartime strip. Finalising the sale took five years, by which time the priority for

35 Air Board Agenda 12814,lO-7-59; 12930,8-10-62, RHS

36 Air Board Agendum 12997.27-5-63, RHS. The base was named after Wing Commander A.R Tindal, who was killed during the Japanese bombing raid on Danvin on 19 February 1942.

37 Air Board Agendum 12997,31-5-63, RHS

airfield construction had turned t i the Cocos Islands and Momote.38 The 1954 tour of American bases which had stimulated Air Marshal McCauley's interest in Darwin also prompted him to turn the RAAF's attention towards the north-west again; while by 1957 the impending deployment of Canberra and Sabres to Malaya as part ofthe Commonwealth Strategic Reserve added extra urgency to the need to develop alternative strategic routes.39 Cabinet allocated f450,OOO for the development of Learmonth to the minimum standard necessary for ferry flights and the occasional operational deployment.

In the early 1960s rising tensions with Indonesia and the selection of the F-l 11 to replace the Canberra indicated a need for further works at Leannonth. As long as the Canberra was the Air Force's main strike weapon there was little point in spending more money on Learmonth, since no amount of infrastructure could overcome the obsolescent bomber's limited range. The F-l 11, though, was a different matter. Chief of the Air Staff Sir Valston Hancock informed Minister for Air David Fairbairn in April 1964 that with its radius of action of 2,700 kilometres, an F-l 11 operating from Darwin could attack all major Indonesian targets in West New Guinea and Java with a 2,700 kilogram bomb load. Strikes against Jakarta, however, would be at the limit of the aircraft's range, an operational handicap which would adversely affect planning, route flexibility and manoeuvrability. Because the F-l 11s would be operating at their maximum range, they would have to attack Jakarta along predictable lines of approach, which in turn meant that detection by Indonesian radar warning stations sited on the island chain between Timor and Java would be likely.40

But if Learmonth were available the F-l 11s would be about 720 kilometres closer to key targets in Java, enabling their crews to vary attack directions and make a greater portion of their m - i n at low altitude to stay underneath radar defences. Hancock told Fairbairn that once the F-l 11s were in service, Learmonth would assume great importance as a forward base 'for mounting operations against Indonesia's vital centres in Java'. There was no point in adopting a strategy of deterrence, the Chief of the Air Stafftold the minister, if the object of the strategy did not know he was supposed to be deterred. Air Marshal Hancock defined the significance of Learmonth in precisely those terms, telling Fairbairn that Indonesia's leaders would base their assessment of the RAAF's effectiveness on the ability of Australia's bomber aircraft to attack vital areas in Java, and any airfield extensions at Learmonth would not go unnoticed.

By itself that seemed sufficient reason for further development. Other reasons strengthened the argument. Better facilities would give the RAAF the option of filling part of the gap in Australia's air defences, as fighter aircraft and mobile control and reporting units could be deployed at short notice; while Leannonth's location also

38 Air Board Agendum 10105, 10-3-50, RHS.

39 Air Board Agendum 12528.9-10.57, RHS; RAAF Airfield Requirement 1957158,5-11-57, CRS A4940, C1982, AA.

40 Air Board Agenda 13047, 17-4-64; 13073,27-9-64, RHS

made its utility for maritime patrol and transport operations self-evident. Cabinet agreed and in April 1966 approved additional works to bring Leannonth up to a standard suitable for unrestricted operations by F-l l l , Mirage, Hercules, Canberra, Neptune and Orion air~raft .~ '

Conclusion

Once the depressing years of the Interim Air Force had been formally cast off, the RAAF moved almost immediately into a challenging era of active service, expansion, re-amlament and reorganisation. Under the highly capable leadership of Air Marshals Hardman, McCauley and Scherger, the RAAF not only succeeded in institutionalising the m:~jor lessons learnt at great cost during World War 11, but also became the pre- eminent air force in South-East Asia. Central to those meritorious achievements were the organisational and force structure changes which were implemented in the 1950s and early 1960s - changes which set the RAAF's direction for the next three decades. And although no one knew it at the time, they were changes which were soon to be subjected to an unexpectedly severe test as, in 1964, Australia and the RAAF started to become more deeply entangled in the then almost unknown war in Vietnam.

DISCUSSION

Mr Alex Freeleagns: Alan, you made reference to the Citizen Air Force Squadrons. For the record from 1948 to 1961 they provided the bulk of the RAAF's operational- ready squadrons. An examination of the annual weapons competition will show the degree of proficiency that the pilots attained during the Korean War. A significant number of 77 Squadron pilots - people from the Citizen Air Force - went in. And speaking of the end of the era, the end came when the Meteors ran out of their life. The real reason for the end of flying was, of course, the conservation of scarce resources. The ostensible reason that weekend pilots could not he proficient on F-86s was not the experience of the reserves in the United States and in Canada.

Doctor Stephens: Thanks, Alex. The history of Reserve Forces, in particular Reserve flying forces, is a very complex one. I would have to say, to be honest, I can't agree with your judgment on the proficiency of the Citizen Air Force; my research indicates otherwise. If you take the example ofweapons camps for instance, one or two exceptional people can always inflate scores. My understanding of the Citizen Air Force is that at the flying level they weren't especially proficient. That's not in itself a condemnation of the Citizen Air Force Squadrons. It's a comment on how difficult and expensive it is to keep people current and to an acceptable standard on limited resources. I don't think the American comparison is a good one. The Air National Guard spend a large amount of money on their flying and that's quite a different matter altogether I think The connection to the phasing out of the Meteors, I would

41 Development of Leamonth, 10-6-69, CRS ,4793911, LI, AA; Air Board Submission 1116616-2-66. RHS.

suggest, was in fact the other way around. The fact that the Meteors came to the end of their useful operational life perhaps was a convenient excuse for the politicians to use to close the flying of the Citizen Air Force Squadrons down.

Wing Commander Geoff Kilby: I would support you Alan in those remarks you just made. As a Flying Instructor in 21 Squadron in 1956 my personal experience was that the Vampire was about the extent of a weekend flier. Anything that was more sophisticated, the weekend warriors, as they were known perhaps by some of us, just weren't able to cope because they didn't have enough time. Two weekends a month was not enough to cope with a really modem aeroplane.

Doctor Stephens: Thank you

M r AIex Freeleagus: May I add a comment to that, that the hulk initially of Citizen Air Force pilots were decorated fighter pilots from World War I1 who passed their experience right through the sewice. And the second one was that there was a big pool of professional fliers within Australia whose continuing expertise was not channelled into this.

Air Vice-Marshal Steve Stephenson: One thing we're forgetting is that the Citizen Air Force Squadrons made a huge contribution with Medical Officers who were working at the weekends whenever they were available. And we would have been in deep trouble in Vietnam if we hadn't had that hidden reserve of people who could be called on to fill up our very meagre resources at the time.

Doctor Stephens: A point well made. Personally, my judgment as a historian is that the RAAF has gained most from the Citizen Force reservist organisation through the employment of what could be termed, I guess, as professionals like medical practitioners, lawyers etc. And I think that has been extended today into more diverse areas. I would agree that that's been an invaluable contribution to the RAAF. I couldn't reach the same conclusion in relation to flying operations.

Air Vice-Marshal Graham Neil: I was in the Citizen Air Force at its latter stages from 1956 to 1959, but I was in a CAF Squadron up until 1960. I was in 22 Squadron and I felt that our standard of flying was really quite good. We acquitted ourselves very well, hut there was a tremendous disparity between Squadrons. 1 know there was a pecking order and we looked down our noses at other Squadrons, and others obviously looked down their noses at us. But I think in the ultimate, if you look at the Citizen Air Force pilots who transferred to the Permanent Air Force over the years, those who had done their a6 initio training onwards in the Citizen Air Force, all of them did quite well in the RAAF. I think it was a sign of the latent ability that was there if only they could have been provided the flying hours and the ultimate experience.

Air Commodore Tom Trinder: I'd just like to make the observation about 22 Squadron that the only weapons damage suffered by an 11 Squadron Neptune was Wing Commander Hurditch totally demolishing our Elson when a .5 cooked off - a 20mm, that's right - and shot the back off a Neptune.

RAAF MUSEUM - THE HISTORIC AIRCRAFT RESTORATION PROGRAM

Mr David Gardner

What has the RAAF Museum's restoration program got to do with the theme of this year's RAAF History Conference? The preservation of heritage has a great deal to do with all periods of RAAF history. In the period of one man's life span, we have gone from just barely lifting off the ground to setting foot on the moon and sending investigative tools incomprehensible distances into space. The writings and material objects that remain to chronicle the incredible aviation achievements fascinate, delight and encourage us. Sharing and discussing this history at fonuns such as this, and with one another, will always provide invaluable documentary records.

However before talking about the RAAF's restoration plans let us talk about restoration in general. What do we understand by restoration? Restoration is perhaps more common in the museum categories of transport or industrial technology than with most other museum disciplines.

Restoration, preservation and conservation are the three terms generally used in the preparation of aircraft for display. In this case the following Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material definitions apply:'

Restoration is the action taken to modify the existing materials and structure of cultural material to represent an earlier state. Its aim is to preserve and reveal the aesthetic and historic value of an object and it is based on respect for remaining original material and clear evidence of an earlier state.

Preservation is the action taken to retard deterioration of or prevent damage to cultural material. It involves controlling the environment and conditions of use, and may include treatment in order to maintain an object, as nearly as possible, in an unchanging state.

Conservation is the action aimed at the safeguarding of cultural material for the future. Its purpose is to study, record, retain and restore the culturally significant qualities of an object with the least possible intervention.

~-

L Australian Institute for the Conservation of Culhlral Material Inc, Code of Ethics and Guidance for Consernofion Practice. AICCM, Canberra, 1986, pp. 14-15.

The subject of restoration of historic and ex-military aircraft seems to excite usually quiet and rational people to take very fundamental and fixed attitudes. Everything must be preserved. It must be as it originally was, although few can decide what 'originally' is or was. In the long term it generally ends up as something it rarely ever was in service.

Although, even with this stimulating of passions, it is ironic that of all museum objects, those which represent the technological achievements of aviation are the very ones which have benefited least from the development of conservation and restoration techniques. Oil paintings, for instance, are studied minutely by the latest in non-destructive adaptations, they are restored under the microscope by inventive and sophisticated means and are displayed in conditions of humidity and light finely tuned to their needs. Books, uniforms, memorabilia and most other classes of museum objects are treated similarly within their own advanced and specialised disciplines. Still, they are rarely 'restored'. Yet aircraft and technical objects, perhaps because they give the impression of being rugged, have in general been left to fend for themselves. There is virtually no research in this field; there is no specific training of specialists; and the conditions in which these artefacts are stored and displayed often leave much to be desired.

Then why restore when the object is faced with such a future?

It must be noted that when constructed, aircraft were usually made to serve an immediate functional purpose, without any thought given to an extended and infinite life as a museum artefact. Once 'retired' to a museum environment, an aircraft must be carefully assessed for its conservation requirements as either a static or an operating exhibit:

As a static exhibit the aircraft is restored, albeit in some cases to a representative appearance, displayed and frequently 'forgotten' by being parked externally or internally on display, slung from the rafters depicting it in flight, or mounted on a pole as a gate guardian or advertisement. The need for continuing conservation attention is underrated, but crucial.

The aircraft restored as a flying exhibit receives regular maintenance and attention to detail, although not as thoroughly as it did in service as it is not flown to its original operational limits and genemlly its flying hours are far less. However, to attain this airworthy status, its originality as an artefact is eroded by mandatory modifications to comply with airworthiness regulations. Furfhermore, its susceptibility to loss or damage increases dramatically. The question of whether aircraft as museum artefacts should be flown is a constant source of debate inside and outside the museum profession.2 There are those who take a conservative view: since the purpose of a museum is the preservation of material evidence, it is wrong

P.R. Mann, 'Working Exhibits and the Deshuctian of Evidence in the Science Museum', The Infernational Journal of Museum Managpmenf and Curatorship, 1989, 8:369-387.

to compromise that evidence by wearing out or damaging artefacts through operation. At the other end of the spectrum are the curators who insist that the best way to preserve such an artefact in good working order is to operate it regularly. After all how many boats are restored which don't float!

The preservation of aircraft is realistically limited to, by definition, the restoration process, as opposed to the conservation process. The size, varying amounts of different materials, enormous effort and an almost prohibitive cost to conserve an aircraft, dictates this process. Conservation is limited to smaller sections of aircraft and stand alone components required for display.

To collect and preserve for the purpose of display is the fundamental aim of most aviation museums and collections. These institutions. collectivelv. . . should represent the different types of aircraft and the advances over the years; they should also illustrate different ages, materials, power, methods of use and m&tenance. The collections must appeal to the enthusiast and uninformed; it is this audience who provide the reason for the collections. Additionally, a museum's list of potential acquisitions must reflect the objectives of the museum, their value for interpretation and display, and the practicability, in financial terms, of preserving their charges into the foreseeable future. But above all they must help tell the stories of the people who designed, built, flew and maintained them. These significant aircraft to the Service have been identified by the RAAF Museum and are part of its Strategic Plan.

Aircraft are generally a problem for curators because of their particular shape and extravagant demands on space, making them less easy to accommodate, and also because of their usually poor condition when taken into the collection. It must be accepted that most aircraft and their engines have by their very nature undergone considerable stress during their service. In fact, of all classes of museum objects, aircraft and their engines will probably have had the most hazardous pre-collection treatment. It is a rare privilege for an aircraft curator to acquire a specimen which can go straight on display, or even without evidence of progressive corrosion or decay present in some or all of its components. Moreover, there is further realisation that the museum's credibility as a steward for this historic material is under threat, because, if the storage or display area is outdoors, such specimens continue to deteriorate in full view of museum visitors giving that impression of an idle keeper.

Therefore one can appreciate the understandable reluctance among curators to restore aircraft if they are to be returned to an outdoor disulav environment as

A .

that material stored outside requires a high level of maintenance to retard deterioration, and this is often a losing battle. Many institutions openly show concern about the maintenance of their collections, and even those which are coping find that the maintenance effort for the exhibits, in addition to the preventative maintenance within the storage areas, leaves inadequate resources for restoration or other work. Knowledge of the correct and professional

method in which aircraft should be maintained, particularly the older examples, is now limited to a few practitioners, all of whom are, by virtue of their age, nearing or past retirement. The loss of skills is a major factor affecting the restoration of aircraft and associated equipment such as engines and instruments. These skills are based primarily upon a thorough understanding of the nature of the problems to be faced, firmly linked to the knowledge of how to correct them accurately and in the reverence of the subject. This means not substituting one process for another, and in particular not using the wrong materials or finishes nor exchanging modem repair methods for accuracy - in other words always applying strict engineering standards to restoration. The enthusiastic unskilled restorer does not always comply with these constraints, using modem materials, processes, and finishes in order to achieve a reuresentative result which is based mainlv on the misleading concept that if it looks realistic enough then that is good enough. Thankfully, there is always a small cadre of dedicated amateurs, unfortunately inadequate in numbers, fired with enthusiasm and determined to acquire the right skills.

There has been some attempt at forums, such as the Australian Aviation Museums Association Conference, to formalise the restoration of aircraft. Presentations at these forums have generally been by overseas speakers and basicallv directed at the state of their own collections and oroblems associated with those collections. These problems such as inadequate funds, limited resources and inadequate space, are universal. Acquisition and display are the two other areas of museum operations that are discussed by the international aviation museum community. Aviation collections are all too familiar with the problems of acquiring and displaying aircraft but not with the problems of restoring those specimens. What is needed is discussion on the 'hands on' aspects of preservation of aviation heritage. For optimum results it is necessary for conservators and curators to have constant contact with and an intimate knowledge oftheir collections. Graham Clegg expands on this by saying:

The first reauirement is that the curator. conservator and restorer must have a thorough knowledge of the object, its historical context and its workings. Of particular importance is an identification of the object's position in relation to otherknown holdings of similar objects - state; nation or worldwide. Have you got a sole surviving example? Was yours connected with a particular historical event?3

G. Clegg, 'Preservation of Information - Conservation and Restoration in Technology Collections', Proceedings of a Seminar, Scienceworks, Victoria, 1993, pp. 8-1 l .

Historic aircraft air pageants throughout Australia, England, United States and Canada draw huge crowds which is testimony to the popularity of the operation of these artefacts This, however, is the fuel to the ongoing discussions and arguments between conservators, curators and operators over the operation of these assets.

However, once the decision has been made to restore an aircraft, another decision must follow: will it be static or operating? Most aviation museums and collections in Australia choose to cany out the more traditional museum methods of static display. The exceptions to this are the RAAF Museum, the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society, the Museum of Army Flying, the Naval Aviation Museum and some private operators. But, as with those institutions with a dual role of housing both static and operating examples, the final decision is made bv close assessment of a number of asvects: raritv. . . structural integrity, availability of parts, operating costs, pilot competency, and Civil Aviation Safety Authority approval to operate the aircraft.

To operationally display an aircraft in Australia is to fly it! Aircraft, like steam locomotives, vintage automobiles and other industrial technology, lend themselves to restoration, preservation and display. Australia has several aviation collections exhibiting such artefacts using archaic interpretations, but to some, such displays do not present these specimens in their best light: operating, or at least simulating that process. To achieve this presentation, a number of aviation collections have restored examples of particular note for operational display. This form of restoration has been described as a 'display technique'4 rather than an actual preservation process. Aviation, particularly military aviation, produces some of the most exciting and interesting machines mankind has devised. Therefore, it is not surprising that in Australia, as with overseas, some of the more interesting aircraft are operated. As might be expected, the standard of restoration varies enormously, from the cosmetic repair to the meticulously restored example.

Operating aircraft collections are faced with a dilemma in their restoration. They not only have to preserve the objects but also, as an abstract element, the technology itself to which these objects are related and which is only revealed through demonstration of the equipment. That is why some consider it particularly important in these aviation collections that a part of the collection is restored to working order. To do so, the operators are required to make necessary additions and to adapt these to the original to meet the mandatory requirements of the Civil Aviation Regulations (CARS). These requirements include modem communication and navigation aids, modem specified seats, seat belts, the installation of a Emergency Locater Transmitter and others.

D. Hallam, D., 'Conservation Vs Restoration: The Challenge', in M. Clayton, (ed.) Proceedings of the Inaugural Ausrralian Aviation Museums Conference, 1989, pp. 58-66.

The operation of aircraft can be paralleled to the operation of industrial collections, but with an added dimension: flying the aircraft. This dimension dramatically increases the susceptibility to loss and damage. Moncrieff, in her paper 'Standard Th~eads '~ relating to the conservation of industrial collections, suggests there is substantial opinion, based on conservation principles, against the operation of industrial collections.6

The view that the best way to preserve a machine is to maintain it in good working order and to run it regularly is incorrect. Let us be clear that any working machine causes wear and tear which requires maintenance, repair and the substitution of new parts to keep it running. It may happen imperceptibly, it may happen rapidly and catastrophically. Either way, the originality and evidential value of the artefact are (sic) compromised, and no amount ofjustification and rationalisation can alter that.'

This view on the non-operation of industrial technology is in parallel with that view of David Crotty Gom the Australian War Memorial in regard to the operation of historic aircraft.8 He refers to the demise of the rare Bristol Blenheim bomber which, after restoration, suffered considerable damage in a flying accident in England in 1987. I might add that it has since been restored and is flying again. He also refers to the findings that the accidentlincident rate for historic aircraft is four times greater than for fullv certified light

U U

a i r~raf t .~ Additionally, Crotty points out that major national aviation collections of Canada, United Kingdom and United States do not operate their exhibits,

However, up until three weeks ago the Imperial War Museum (UK) operated the only authentic example of a Bfl09 on loan from RAF Hendon. The aircraft was involved in a flying accident suffering considerable damage. Another UK national organisation which operates its historic aircraft is the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Its displays consist of one

A. Moncrieff, (Unpublished) Conservation of Industrial Callect~ons, Paper for 'Standard Threads' IIC-CG Workshop, 1992, pp. 5-9.

P.R. Mann, 'Working Exhibits and the Destruction of Evidence in the Science Museum'. The Inremario~ol Journal of Museum Alanngernent anJCurororrhtp 1989. 8:36Y-387, Moncrieff. A.. (Un~ublished) Cons~motton ol'lndu~rr,al L'ol1,~zr~onr. Paper ior 'Standard .. . . . Threads' IIC-CG ~orkshop,1992, pp. 5-9; C;. Monger, 'Conservation or Restoration?', The International Journol of Museum Management and Curatorship, 1982,7375-380.

Moncrieff,Comervation oflndustrial Collections. pp. 5-9.

D. Crotty, 'Aeroplane or Artefact? Restoration and Conservation of Aircraft', Proceedings ofaseminm, Scienceworks, Victoria, 1992, pp. 16-19.

1. McIntye, 'CAR 134 (Formerly ANRIOB): Success or Failure?', Proceedings of the Inaugural Auslralian Aviation Museums Conference, 1989, pp. 35-37.

of the two Lancaster bombers and one of four Hurricane fighters left flying in the world, as well as five Spitfires. Furthermore, the National Aviation Museum of Canada restores some of its aircraft to operating condition, flies the example and eventually places it on static display. The South African Air Force Museum operates ten historic aircraft on a regular basis. In her 1992 paper, Moncrieff states:

It might be decided that it is essential to demonstrate the function of the machine: to explain bow it works; to show how it looks, sounds and feels; to show technical, social or economic change; or to contrast, good, bad, or cheap and expensive mach'mes. If that is the objective, and it can only be met by working the machine: then we have to accept the damage that will result.10

When and where is the line drawn on examples of material evidence, as aircraft attaining museum status are not as originally constructed? Throughout their lives they are subject to numerous modifications to maintain safety and serviceability. The point of material evidence can be questioned with the display technique used by the Australian War Memorial at its Treloar Annex. The Treloar Annex is the Memorial's controlled environment, large object, storage facility. The collection of Allied and enemy aircraft are available for viewing from the Mezzanine floor. A majority of the aircraft are displayed (stored?) in dismantled condition. In this manner it extremely difficult for the visitor to visualise the size and shape of the aircraft whilst in s e ~ c e . Moncrieff substantiates this by saying:

It is easier to make a case against restoration than for it! But to turn against it altogether would be to ask our visitors to imagine the missing pieces, or to reconstruct them in their minds from drawings, or models that we provide, as well as to understand the other story that we are trying to tell them about the way that the machine works and its place in technical and social history. If we do this it may be so difficult for them to understand that they may give up the attempt. Think about trying to understand a machine that you have not seen before with 10, 20 or even more of its components missing, you might get it entirely wrong and the museum would have failed in its objective to help people understand. Should we deny our visitors a complete object because we refuse to do any restoration?'l

The RAAF is proud of its history. However, until recently the RAAF Museum was often viewed by many inside and outside of the Service as an idle keeper of RAAF heritage. But one must understand the problems that have had to be overcome to be able to conserve that heritage. All objects in the Museum apart from the aircraft have benefited in the past decade from conservation

A. Moncrieff, (Unpublished) Cornervation oflndurtriol Collections, Paper for 'Standard Threads' IIC-CO Workshop, 1992, pp. 5-9.

1' Ibid

efforts directed towards their preservation. The deterioration sustained has been identified and the introduction of formal museum management practices of conservation, preservation, restoration and storage and the provision of trained staff has heralded a new era. Much of the decay of the previous 45 years has been arrested and in many areas reversed or at least stabilised.

The stories and sagas relating to military aviation are in the main about people and the deeds they performed. In most cases the aircraft involved were simply a vessel or adjunct to these feats. You can be certain that during the tumultuous years of conflicts little time was wasted mourning the loss of airframes for the sake of the aircraft. More importantly, it was the loss of the aircrew and the loss of the ability to continue to fight these conflicts which were the most dire consequences of such aircraft losses. Certainly pilots and ground crews became attached to favourite aircraft due to the intimate nature of their working relationships; but that affection was more to do with superstitions than any great affinity with the machinery. The minute a replacement aircraft was found these loyalties would soon shift to that aircraft. Therefore, the Museum has chosen to focus its public programs on the human face of the RAAF's proud history. To steal a line from the War Memorial's marketing department, the RAAF Museum chose to tell the story 'of ordinary people doing extraordinary things'. Consequently, over the past three years the RAAF Museum has designed, built and opened its new Heritage Gallery. Since its opening in October 1996, in excess of 75,000 visitors have attended the exhibition.

Now, the next stage in the process of preservation of RAAF heritage is directed, in parallel with other Museum programs, to the aircraft. One of the immediate requirements was for an exercise in which a snapshot could be taken of the Museum's present, planned and future restoration projects to blueprint an ongoing program using known resources.

Therefore, restorations must be viewed 'in balance' with other Museum activities. However, that is not to say that the aircraft should be alienated. The aircraft should be used as another means of giving tangible expression through exhibition. Therefore, the Museum has chosen to incorporate restorations into its public programs providing the visitors with an opportunity to view restoration work in progress.

The RAAF Museum Mission Statement and Tasking defined in AAPlOlO - The R4AF Plan requires inter alia that the RAM maintains an aircraft restoration capability for those aircraft considered pertinent to the history of the RAAF. In pursuitof this aim, Museum staff have identified a core collection of aircraft from the 153 types operated since 1914, with the objective of acquiring andlor restoring as many as possible. The collection of aircraft presently held by the Museum represents a small selection of the significant aircraft used by the RAAF.

The Museum is currently managing four major aircraft restoration projects. They are a Catalina at Amberley, Mosquito at Richmond and a Walrus and Mustang at Point Cook. The Museum will undertake to complete these existing projects before any other project is commenced. Restoration is not restricted to aircraft. A Bristol Bloodhound Ferranti missile is presently being restored by the Friends of the RAAF Museum. Other technical equipment awaiting attention is a Rolls Royce Wellaud jet engine and an original 1914 French Gnome rotary engine.

The Walrus and Mustang were scheduled to be completed in December 1997, the Walrus to static and the Mustang to flying. U n f o m t e l y because of several unplanned Museum activities both restoration projects are behind schedule. Additionally, the Museum has other aircraft in storage awaiting restoration including an Anson, Hudson and Ventura. With the current and forecasted manning levels this constitutes too many projects to be managed effectively. The 1996 Chief of Air Force Advisory Committee (CAFAC) agreed that the Museum should undertake only one major restoration at a time with a number of smaller projects being progressed simultaneously after the existing restoration program is complete. Until recently Museum aircraft and components have been restored by various units at different bases to varying standards. This aspect of restoration has provided a managerial nightmare in areas of human resources, finances, engineering standards, transportation and facilities. The facilities aspect alone are quite demanding in the regions of display, storage and workshops.

RAAF Museum technical responsibility clearly includes restoration and maintenance of the RAAF owned fleet for heritage, educational and public relations purposes. Whilst the 'volunteer system' under current arrangements has resulted in an ability to restore, maintain and operate aircraft which are technically simple and meet some static preservation requirements, there remains an aspect often overlooked. That is the tedious and often underrated ongoing maintenance of static and airworthy aircraft. Although antiquated, the skill and expertise to maintain these old aircraft is a proficiency developed over several years and cannot be readily duplicated, as a greater percentage of the present generation is not yet inclined to discover those skills. The complexity and loss of those skills will inevitably render the task beyond the capability of any current RAAF engineering appointments in the future.

Engineering deficiencies and disjointed restoration venues are portrayed in the restoration of the Catalina. The aircraft is spread over three bases, fuselage and centre section at Amberley, engines at Laverton and mainplanes at East Sale. The completion date for this aircraft is undecided. Even if it is a temptation to consider shorts cuts and compromises based on purely financial reasoning, the RAAF's reputation, quality of work and intellectual input are as valuable to the artefact as they are to our preservation of such a significant aircraft. This particular aircraft was serviceable until restoration was commenced by the Catalina Restoration Project team. Without research or discussion with Museum engineering and restoration specialists, corrosion in

the main spar was repaired to a non-structural condition thus rendering the aircraft unserviceable. Hence, the loss of an airworthy aircraft. One must question the motives of those involved in the project as to whether it is just a job or is it a profession. The responsibilities of the Museum technical staff are often misunderstood and misjudged as amenial and general aircraft handling task by people with little more than a passing interest in Museum activities. The ongoing restoration program for the Museum aircraft remains a complex issue, particularly the need to muster, coordinate and program P M , Reservist, and volunteer resources into a interested, cohesive and effective group, in addition to meeting a variety of engineering standards expected by the RAM and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and simultaneously coping with remote restoration facilities. Volunteers are different. They may not know or understand the details of what is being preserved. The job may look better 'their way', or may work better, or be easier to undertake in materials they commonly use. This is best illustrated with the restoration of the B24. In an attempt to complete the aircraft short cuts are being taken by the volunteers. Non-aircraft materials such as skin, rivets etc are being applied to the aircraft. The nose section will be either wood or fibreglass as this section is missing and no thought has been given to using original materials and techniques. The control and direction of such enthusiasts is probably the hardest task in a museum. They are putting in their time to gain satisfaction for themselves and may not be interested in the curator's attention to detail. The object under restoration may he their 'adult toy'. Yet, taken overall, their efforts are well worthwhile and conlribute significantly to conservation.

This is indicative with the Mosquito. A major contribution to the project has been by volunteers. This restoration project is presently positioned at Richmond with arrangements to relocate it to Point Cook by the end of the year. Although not totally visible, the RAAF and the Mosquito Association has expended considerable resources to get the aircraft to its present condition. However, no appreciable work has been carried out on this aircraft for over the past two years. The restoration project will recommence on completion of the Walrus. The Mosquito project stalled because of the lack of project management resulting from the restructuring and reorganising of 2ADl503WG in concert with the 'tyranny of distance' between Museum at Point Cook and the restoration venue in Richmond. Funding and the lack of aircraft construction knowledge within the RAAF exacerbated the problems.

The engineering philosophy for both RAAF and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is dependent upon the dedication of personnel involved in this area of employment. Full-time dedication to the task will be necessary if objectives are to be met because lack of manpower and attention to detail and maintenance in the past has resulted in the significant and identifiable deterioration of valuable assets such as the Demon. This attention to detail or should I say inattention to detail is evident in the Hawker Demon presently on static display at Point Cook. In this instance, it seems that the Demon is preserved for its shape alone. The restoration commenced at Point Cook and was completed at Richmond. The fuselage and engine were restored with a

great deal of care and attention, ensuring correct engineering principles and respecting construction techniques. The mainplanes and centre section have suffered from the need to finish the project to meet the commitment of the 50th anniversary of 2AD. With this need the engineering standards and construction details were not complied with and now the mainplanes and centre section require remanufacture in order for the aircraft to survive the next decade or two. The cost of recovery in this restoration is estimated to be in the region of 35-40,000 dollars. The construction of the spars is unique and difficult to substitute. Replacement spars are only available from the UK. Incidentally, Walrus spars are of similar construction and at present the Museum is deficient spars for one of the four mainplanes.

Quite often in the past most Museum projects are commenced or completed with little or no planning. The final product being used to commemorate significant dates or occasions in this organisations history. Objects are never more threatened than when dismantled either because of change of venue, lack of planning, lack of finance or a factor unique to restoration - enthusiasm. Often there is a sort of voyeuristic enthusiasm for ripping something to pieces and leaving it, for a host of plausible reasons. To be fair, often dismantling is a necessiuy part of a rescue archaeology program, and is followed by storage. Storage often exceeds a generation, and with it the memory of reassembly procedures simply evaporates. This leads to a 'get it fmished at all costs' or 'lets get started, we will work out a plan later' types of attitudes. The Museum Activities Committee fonned as a result of the 1996 CAFAC has curtailed these spontaneous edicts. Now the Museum will, as mentioned previously, cany out one major restoration at a time.

The restoration program has and will provide the Museum with a marvellous collection of aircraft. However, a legacy of the restoration of such large and awkward objects poses another problem for the Museum's restoration program - storage and display of such items. This problem has been addressed. A large aircraft storage facility has been designed for submission to Air Force Headquarters in the very near future.

To sum up, the care of a collection of historic aircraft is one of the most difficult and expensive operations to cany out. It is not surprising that so many projects have faded after the first fit of enthusiasm. I am sure some of this discussion is a reflection of the present base of restoration and their problems that bought about a review of how we do our business and I hope provides a better understanding of this ongoing but nevertheless important area of Museum activity. There was a need for a more coordinated effort in the Museum's conservation program to ensure the protection of the Service's cultural heritage.

DISCUSSION

Air Commodore John Macnaughtan: Dave, a statement that you made that I would perhaps ask some other people in the audience to address is the question of sentimentality in relation to the pilots or air crew ahout a particular aircraft. In my experience, which is very limited, I think aircrew do have fond recollections of particular aircraft, and not just the last one they flew. My question is this. You spoke about these international conferences that you attend, and the lengthy discussions about the problems that everyone's having. How much collaboration is there when we've got up to four or five museums apparently competing for the exhibits and the audience that you've spoken ahout around Australia?

M r Gardner: We recently attended a conference in Darwin and it's probably the first they've had for a couple of years. The Royal New Zealand Air Force for instance do get on well with us. We do a lot of exchanging with them. Actually, they've heen a great supporter of the Walrus project. But the biggest problem with the other aviation museums around Australia, and I think David Crotty will back me on this, is that they are actually aircraft collections. They've got a right to what they get but they put them in yards and forget them. If you go to Damin and see what Darwin's got in its collections, it's a crying shame they're allowed to get them. There is no collaboration in Australia. Everybody's got what they've got and they're not going to part with them. It's just one of those things. I think the howerbird is probably the hest emblem for the RAAF Museum, but for other aviation museums I think the vulture would probably be appropriate.

Group Captain Arthur Skimin: How do you see the future ofthe RAAF Museum, given the recent developments of the Defence Efficiency Review and what is the future relationship with the National Collection Authority in the National Aviation and Space Museum? Could you just outline where you see the things are going from this point on?

M r Gardner: RAAF Museum is a Unit in the RAAF and we've got a mission statement, so we'll stick to that. We've also got our turf at Point Cook and I know we won't move. As for the National Air and Space Museum, I spoke to the Air Commodore and he was supposed to answer these questions. In my opinion, the hest way to describe the National Air and Space Museum is, if you've ever heen fishing and thrown a fish on the bottom of your boat, every now and then it gives a flick. That's what NASMA is doing to us. It flicks up every now and then. It's heen an albatross around our neck for the last ten years. We could almost say that most of our large aircraft have suffered from the fact that we've heen waiting for NASMA to come along. But not from the Air Force's point of view. I think the Air Force has put a lot of effort into trying to prod them along. But they don't seem to he getting their act together, so we'll just keep going the way we are.

RAAF TRAINING AND EDUCATION 1948-1965

John Mordike

Introduction

The RAAF made significant advances in education and training in the period 1948 to 1965, a development which was remarkably different from its earlier peacetime experience. The initial stimulus was the growth in size and sophistication of the Air Force and its equipment during World War 11. Before the war, the RAAF had been a force in name only with a total strength of some 3,500 personnel; its order of battle amounted to 12 squadrons, four of them citizen force squadrons and another two consisting only of a nuc1eus.l It is now difficult to believe that in February 1942 - more than two years after the outbreak of war in Europe and two months after Japan's military advance into the Southwest Pacific - Prime Minister John Curtin was forced to reflect that: 'No country faced a greater danger with less resources than Australia.' Curtin's major concern was Ule impoverished state of Australia's air power capacity. 'We lacked air support,' Curtin reflected, 'possessing no fighters whatsoever, and our bomber and reconnaissance planes had been reduced to about 50 machines.'> Yet, by the end of the war in the Pacific in August 1945, the Air Force operated over 3,000 aircraft, including 1,100 front-line fighters, 439 attack aircraft and 265 heavy bombers. Personnel strength had increased to some 171,000 personnel.' The RAAF also operated electronic equipment at the forefront of technological development, perhaps the most important being

The strength of the Air Force declined significantly with post-war demobilisation until in 1948 it had some 8,000 members. Yet, even in this diminished state, it was a vastly different force from the RAAF's previous peacetime experience. It was just over twice the size that it had been in 1939, but it was equipped with advanced equipment and it was recognised as a credible defence force. This was the basis for an important period in the RAAF's development, a period in which the RAAF would increase to a strength of 16,500 by 1965 and acquire, or be on the verge of acquiring, such aircraft as the Vampire, the Hercules, the P2V7 Neptune, the Iroquois, the Mirage, the

I Alan Stephens, Power Plus Atlilude: Ideas, Strategy ondDoctrine in the Royal Australian Air Force 1921 - 1991, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1992, pp. 48,72.

2 Ibid, p. 58

3 Ibid, p. 72.

E. Simmonds & N. Smith, Echoes Over the Pocific; An overview of Allied Air Warning Radar in the Pocifcfiom Pearl Harbor to the Philippines Campaign, E.W. & E. Simmonds, Banora Point, NSW, September 1995.

Caribou, the Macchi, the Orion and the F-111.5 It was a period when the RAAF rapidly matured to become a professional force. Instrumental to this process was education and training.

The Scope of this Paper

Training and education are central functions of any defence force. They are ongoing processes which consume significant resources and energy; without them a force atrophies, fails to prepare itself for hostilities and faces the real prospect of being operationally inept. During the years 1948 - 1965, the RAAF implemented a comprehensive range of training and education: flying training, recruit training, navigation training, promotion training, National Service Training, just to mention but a few elements. But these were years when the RAAF also matured into a professional force in its own right, growing in size, confidence and sophistication, and acquiring equipment at the very forefront of technological development. It was a period when leadership and technical skill would become paramount to the development and operational performance of the Air Force.

This paper reviews two of the RAAF's education and training initiatives which, above all other developments, indicate clearly the new-found maturity and status of the RAM. Both initiatives were related directly to the leadership and technical development of the Air Force. They are the initial training of officers at the RAAF College and the training of technical trades personnel under the Apprentice Training Scheme. But the RAAF's developments in education and training should not be considered in isolation from the rest of the Australian nation. Before dealing with the RAM, national developments for the immediate post-war years should be understood.

Education and Training in Australia in the Immediate Post-War Years

World War I1 had transformed the balance of power in the Australian federal system of government, permanently and profoundly. The prospect of invasion, the urgent need to meet and defeat the threat to security had induced the Australian people to think and act as one nation rather than six loosely-bound States, as they had done before the war. The community embraced the strategy that national survival depended on vigorous leadership by a powerful and determined central government, thus strengthening the Commonwealth's authority and enhancing its role. In exercising its new-found authority, the Commonwealth also increased its share income tax, effectively excluding the States from raising revenue from this source.

Initially, the Commonwealth's interest in education and training had been central to the national war effort. It had been clear from the outset that victory would depend on the ability to build and maintain a range of military equipment, especially aircraft. But few, if any, Australians possessed the required knowledge and skills. As early as

Alan Stephens, Going Solo: TheRoyol Aushalion Air Force 1946- 1971, Aushalian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1995, p. 127, &Appendix B 'Personnel Strength of the RAAF', p. 501.

September 1939, the Commonwealth Departments of Defence, Supply, Civil Aviation and Treasury had taken the first steps in negotiations with the States to commence technicai training through State technical schools, colleges and government workshops. In December of that year courses for aircraft fitters had commenced. Within months training courses had been extended to provide technicians for employment in munitions and aircraft production. Not surprisingly, figures produced by the Director of Technical Training towards the end of 1940 illustrated that the RAAF took the lion's share of these training course^.^

As the war progressed, the industrialisation of Australia proceeded at a pace. By mid- 1943 the Commonwealth government bad constructed some 50 factories and almost 200 annexes or extensions to existing privately owned factories. Australian industry had begun manufacturing a volume and range of equipment that it had never manu,factured before. Aircraft, machine tools, optical equipment and electrical goods were all made in Australia. At the same time, the national infrastructure had been developed through large construction projects; many roads, railways, aerodromes, docks and harbours were established at this time.'

The productive capacity of the nation had increased as a direct result of the war. And so had the earnings of Australian families. 'There had been sacrifices of many kinds during the war both of life and amenities,' wrote Paul Hasluck in Australia's official history of the war, 'but most of those who survived it came out with better prospects than when they went in, and because they had been employed steadily while wages and prices were both held down and spending was curtailed by rationing many families came out financially stronger.' In five years of war, savings bank deposits and Government securities on issue in Australia had more than doubled.8 At the cessation of hostilities, the stage was set for Australia to enter a period of productivity and prosperity that stood in stark contrast to the lean years of the 1930s.

The Commonwealth had been the major instrument in preparing and organising the nation for war, but it played a central role in preparing and organising the nation for peace under the banner of Commonwealth Reconstruction. The immediate post-war years would be a time of growing demand for an educated and trained work force in a more industrialised Australia. The government established the Commonwealth Employment Service, not to help find jobs for the unemployed but to ensure that Australians found jobs which were commensurate with their ability and qualifications. The Commonwealth also took steps to ensure that members of the defence forces were prepared for a civil occupation. Before demobilisation, every serviceman and woman had been interviewed by a vocational guidance officer and given the choice of a wide

S.J. Butlin, 'War Eqonomy 1939 - 42', Australia m the War of 1939 - 1945, Series 4 (Civil), Vol. 111, Aushalian War Memorial, Canberra, 1955, pp. 236-9.

P.H. Partridge, 'Depression and War, 1929 - 50', in G . Greenwood (ed.), Australia: A Social and PoliticalHisfory, Angus & Robertson Publishers, Sydney, 1977, pp. 377, 379.

P. Hasluck, 'The Government and the People 1939 - 1941', Australia in the War of 1939 - 1941, Series 4 (Civil), Vol. I, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1952, 1956, p. 626.

range of occupations for their peacetime employment. Free or subsidised education and training had been provided for all ex-service personnel. A Commonwealth Office of Education and the Universities Commission had been established in 1943 with responsibilities for supervising the free tertiary education courses for former members of the defence forces. But there were benefits for the wider community. These Commonwealth offices were also responsible for supervising the new Commonwealth scholarship scheme where scholarships were awarded on the basis of merit to Australian students, thus opening the doors to a tertiary education for many who would otherwise have had no such opportunity. The Commonwealth also subsidised State universities, encouraged post-graduate studies and research and established the Australian National University in Canberra.9

The immediate post-war years witnessed an unprecedented growth in educational opportunities motivated by a desire not only to rehabilitate thousands of ex-service personnel but to develop the human resource of Australia, thus promoting national development and enriching the lives of Australians. It was a public policy development with widespread appeal. The Commonwealth's determined move to improve education in Australia enjoyed support across the political spectrum - historian Professor Russel Ward called it 'a rare demonstration of inter-party cooperation'.'0 In this way Australians were given opportunities that they had never had before and the opportunities came at a time when they were most needed. In the 1930s there had been widespread deprivation and many fractured, unfulfilled lives as a result of the economic depression. The war had also brought disruption to family life. Young Australians suffered severe disturbances to their education and training, making it difficult for them to prepare for employment. Paul Hasluck explained that, during the war:

There were constant housing difficulties for those who transferred in civilian occupations from one place to another and makeshift and sub. standard housing were blamed by social workers for juvenile delinquency and the breaking up of families."

Therefore, in contrast to the disruption of the war, the post-war years offered many Australians opportunities that they had never had before. Everyone who wanted work could find employment in a range of new and challenging occupations. Education and training was also more accessible to a growing number of people. These were ideal conditions for employers to promote the notion of a career - the promise of education and training in a chosen profession or occupation together with stability in employment and appropriate progression. More than ever before, many young Australians could now contemplate choosing a career for a lifetime of work.

R. Ward, A ati ion for a Continent: the history ofAushalio 1901 - 1975, Heinemann Educational Australia, Richmond, 1977, p. 272.

Ibid.

Hasluck, 'The Government and the People 1939 - 1945', p. 226.

It was in this context that the RAAF's education and training program from 1948 to 1965 is to be understood. The RAAF, like otlierpmspective employers, came to realise that it had to compete for its members and it did this by holding out the promise of a career. But, before, turning to these important developments there is one other significant development which underlay nearly every facet of the RAAF's education and training in the post-war years and that is the Air Force's Education Service.

The RAAF's Education Service

Originally, the RAAF had introduced education officers into the Service during World War I1 to assist in vital wartime education programs, to provide policy advice and knowledge, and to provide links with the expanding civil education infrastructure. Education officers were granted honorary commissions at the outset, but, experiencing disciplinary problems in classroom settings, the officers were granted formal commissions which gave them disciplinary authority under the terms of Air Force Regulations.lz One early wartime education officer was Wing Commander Geoffrey Newman, who, after the war, went on to become one of the directors of the Education Service. In his memoirs, Newman recorded that the RAAF's Education Service had been built up 'from a handful of officers to more than 300 during the War years'."

In the aftermath of war, the Air Board reverted to the granting of honorary commissions to its education officers but, due to their lack of legal authority, the officers again encountered disciplinary problems. Accordingly, the Air Board established the Education Service as an integral component of the Permanent Air Force.I4

According to RAAF Historian Dr Alan Stephens, the RAAF was quite serious about its official attitude to its whole education and training scheme and he cited Air Vice- Marshal Bladin's decision of 1951 to follow the state education authorities' policy that secondary school teachers would hold both a university degree and formal teaching qualifications. As a result, the RAAF sponsored selected officers who held degrees but no teaching qualifications to study for a diploma of education.15 Newman was one such officer. Enrolling initially in a diploma course at the University of Melbourne, he went on to complete an education degree with honours. In 1954, Newman was also the first education officer to attend, and to graduate from, the RAAF Staffcollege, which had been established by the RAAF at Point Cook in 1949

l2 Stephens, GoingSolo, p. 119

l3 G.H. Newman, Reflectiom: Twenty Years os an Educarion Omer Royal Australian Air Force, 1939 - 1959, p. 5 1. Copy held by Australian War Memorial.

l4 Stephens, Going Solo, p. 119

l5 Ibid., p. 120.

for the mid-career professional development of its officers. It was a step that Newman took with some fear, believing that '[tlo fail the course would probably set up an effective barrier to other Ed 0's being considered for future Staff Courses'.I"

Newman's own post-war career gives a good indication of the contribution which was made by the education officers to the RAAF's developing education and training program. He recorded that he was involved in the 'rewriting of several syllabuses of training for units like Radio Apprentices School, School of Technical Training, Flying Training School andNavigation School'.17 He was also one of the officers in the RAAF's Directorate of Training who was responsible for developing the proposal for the RAAF College.'* All ofthese were important education and training developments for the RAAF and worthy of due recognition.

Immediate Post-War Planning - The Prelude to the RAAF College and the Apprentice Training Scheme

The major proponent of the RAAF's immediate post-war education program was Air Commodore Joe Hewitt, who was appointed as the Air Board's first Air Member for Personnel in 1945.19 Alan Stephens referred to the program as 'nothing less than an educational revolution between 1945 and 1953'. Hewitt's 'intellectual astuteness and toughness' were evident as the RAAF proposed and adopted its post-war education transformation, a key element in establishing the RAAF as a professional force. This was a distinct change from the RAAF's somewhat amateurish status in the years before the war.20

About six weeks before he was appointed Air Member for Personnel, Joe Hewitt was posted to the RAAF Staff School at Mount Martha as the assistant commandant. It was a posting which pleased Hewilt because it gave him time to be with his family and also to study what he called the 'current policies and administration at RAAF Headquarters'. Fresh from his wartime experience he also believed that he had 'something to offer to the students and to the staff.

Arriving at Mount Martha, Hewitt found that the students were 'aware of the widespread nature of RAAF operations in the Pacific area as well as the extent to which RAAF aircrews had contributed to successes in Europe and ... in Burma'. He also found a lively interest among the students on the nature of Australia's defence relationship with Britain and America. But, to his dismay, he also 'noticed at once a serious lack of background reading'. 'There was not one student on the current war-

l6 Newman, Refecfions, pp. 55-7, 58-60.

171bid, p.51.

lbid, p. 52.

l9 I.E. Hewitt, Adversiry in Success, Langate Publishing, South Yarra, 1980, pp. 280-2.

Stephens, GoingSolo, p. 118.

staff course,' he noted, 'who had studied the history of warfare in depth, and the standard of English expression and grammar was surprisingly poor.' Disturbed by this observation, he found himself 'frequently weighing up in [his] mind the prospects of recruiting into the post-war RAAF young men who had successfully completed a tertiaq education'. In doing so, however, Hewitt was apprehensive. He believed that officers with a tertiary education had a significant contribution to make to the post- war Air Force, but, to use his words, he also believed that 'there were problems in marrying a liberal university education with a militaq discipline'. This is a vital issue for military organisations. Control and conformity are central to the military culture. The key question in such an environment is where to set the limits of tolerance: too loose and control might suffer; too tight and initiative and creative thinking might be stifled. Speaking in 1969, the then Vice Chancellor of the University of New England Professor Zelman Cowen, commented on another aspect of the same issue. Cowen claimed that it was 'Australians of superior intelligence to whom an increasingly sophisticated military service should look for its leaders and officers'. But he noted that the problem was that: 'Such people don't want a tightly regimented life; they see many disadvantages in service life; they challenge and reject its traditional values.'2'

Hewitt gave no indication on how he would resolve this question for the education of RAAF officers but he had a goal in mind. Hewitt wanted to produce officers like the 1st AIF's General Sir John Mouash. As Hewitt noted, the challenge facing the Air Force in 'the not too distant future [was] the framing of education and training systems with that end in view - a system that threw up the best'.22 What Hewitt had in mind was the establishment of a college for the training of future RAAF officers, a college like the Army's Duntroon or the Navy's Jervis Bay. One difficulty was that Monash had certainly received a university education, but, before the outbreak of World War I, he had been a citizen, or part-time, soldier and had never attended a formal training college like Duntroon.23 Therefore, it is not clear how Hewitt intended to frame a course 'to produce an RAAF counterpart' to Monash, but he certainly saw it as a marriage of tertiary education and military discipline.

Hewitt thought education was important. He believed that all members of the wwime RAAF, whether Permanent Air Force, Citizen Air Force, or short service enlistments, should be entitled to the rights which went with demobilisation, especially the access to education which was available under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. He thought that this was one way to improve the overall education level in the RAAF. As Hewitt put it: 'This would give us the opportunity to man the post-war air force anew with better-educated officers and airmen than had been possible pre- war.'24 Yet it is apparent that, while members of the services were keen to improve

21 Seminar on Services Training Administration, p. 16

2z Hewin, Adversity in Success, p. 278

23 Note: The Royal Militav College, Dunhoon, did not start training professional officers until June 191 1. Therefore, the only Dunlroon graduates who served in World War I were relatively few junior officers.

24 Hewitt, Adversity in Success, p. 289.

their education, they did not necessarily wish to return to the defence forces. Hewitt observed that there was 'a rush to enjoy the educational and training facilities offered to servicemen' by the Commonwealth and those men who already held qualifications were also keen 'to return to their former or allied occupations in the civil economy'. At the same time the RAAF was slow to settle the post-war conditions of service and, as a result, Hewitt believed that the RAAF 'lost some valuable officer material - both aircrew and ground staff. It was a situation that he deplored. Air Vice-Marshal Wackett held similar views believing that at this time the RAAF lost some of its best technical personnel. But the two senior officers had a plan of action in mind. Wackett gave Hewitt his 'wholehearted support' - 'more than any other senior officer in the permanent RAAF' - in proposing the establishment of a college to train future officers, 'modelled on RAF Cranwell but at a higher t e r t i q level', and an apprentice school, 'modelled on RAF Haltou'.2s Hewitt's newly-appointed Director of Training, Group Captain P.G. Heffeman, had prime responsibility for these two training initiatives; Hewitt recorded that Heffeman 'threw himself enthusiastically into the tasks of establishing our apprentice training school and our cadet college'.26

The RAAF College

It appears that it was the RAAF's Director of Training, Group Captain Heffeman, who first suggested the establishment of the RAAF College to Hewitt, soon after Hewitt joined the Air Board in 1945. In a minute to the Aii Member for Personnel, Heffeman claimed that 'the time is ripe to put forward proposals for the establishment of a RAAF Cadet College'. He went on to remind Hewitt that both the Army and the Navy had officer training colleges. He also felt that, while those officers who had been commissioned for the war had done excellent work, the RAAF lacked dsprit de corps. 'To my mind,' Heffeman wrote, 'there is only one way to inculcate this spirit - and that is to start at the beginning.' The R A M had 'to get young men and ... sow the seed of this spirit in their minds and allow it to flourish under the right type of instructor and environment'. It was now time to take action. When the RAAF had stabilised after demobilisation, there would be a need for a steady supply of new officers.27

Heffeman outlined a thee-year course comprised of civil and military training, with flying training starting in the second year and continuing into the third and final year. An intake of 15 students each year would allow for a wastage of three of them, but Heffeman proposed that some officers would come from other sources. While he made no proposal for the college to grant degrees, a few cadets would be sponsored

2s Ibid., pp. 293-5.

26 lbid, p. 285.

27 R.E. Frost, RAAFCollege & Academy 1947 - 86, 1991, p. 14. Copy held by Air Power Studies Cenlre.

for university studies. Hewitt agreed to take the proposal to the Air Board, but before doing so the duration of the course was increased to four years to bring it in line with the Duntroon and Jervis B a ~ . ~ g

There was another issue that also had to be dealt with. Hewitt had to convince the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal Jones, that the college proposal was warranted. 'We had some heavy spade work to do first in bringing Jones into line with our ideas,' Hewitt recorded. Eventually, Jones gave his agreement, but, as Hewitt put it, Jones 'was never quite with us'. The Minister for Air, Mr Arthnr Drakeford, proved to be more difficult. 'He challenged me that we wished to establish an elite corps of the sons of the wealthier classes who were attending public schools,' Hewitt claimed. But, after discussions between the two men, Drakeford 'mellowed' and the way was clear for the proposal to go to the Air B0ard.~9

The sub~nission that went before the Air Board clearly revealed the nature of Heffernan's concern about the RAAF's isprit de corps. Prior to this date, RAAF officers had come from a variety of backgrounds. For example, Heffeman, like a number of his fellow officers, was a Duntroon graduate, while Hewitt was a graduate of the Navy's college at Jervis Bay. Other Air Force officers had received no such training and came into the Service on short-term commissions. It was considered that the diverse origins of officers was not conducive to the establishment of a cohesive organisational ethos among the Air Force's leaders. With the establishment of the RAAF College, however, it was planned that the RAAF would build a body of permanent officers 'whose training had been intrinsically an air force training from an early age'.30

The proposal to establish the RAAF College indicated that the RAAF had reached an important stage in its development, a stage where its leaders perceived that the Air Force was a credible Service in its own right and that they had the confidence to begin training their own leaders, a step designed to contribute to the maintenance of a unique organisational identity. The Air Board approved the proposal in principle and referred the matter back to Hewitt and the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal Jones, for the further development of the proposal.

By March 1946, an organisational plan and proposed curriculum had been formulated and these were submitted to the Air Board for approval. Wing Commander G.H. Newman, an Education Branch officer who had been seconded to the Directorate of Training, was one of those who had worked with a General Duties officer from the AMP Branch, Group Captain McLaughlin, on the curriculum and other aspects of the proposed college. 'We decided to ask three others to join us and after many months of meetings and writing and discussing and consulting outside organisations like Universities and Technical Colleges and other Services we submitted a proposal for

28 Ibid., pp. 15-6.

29 Hewitt, Adversify in Success, p. 299-300.

30 Frost, RAAFCollege, p. 16.

the formation of RAAF College at Point Cook,' Newman recorded in his memoirs.31 The proposed curriculum was submitted to the Air Board along with a submission which specified the required entry level standard, the selection procedures and the conditions of service at the proposed college. It also nominated Point Cook as the preferred location because of the availability of accommodation and facilities, and for the additional reason that Point Cook was already the site of the Central Flying School and the Aircraft Performance Unit.32

In approving this submission, the Air Board envisaged that the college would be the major, but not the sole, source for all Air Force officers. It recommended that the initial intake of not less than 24 cadets would commence their training in January 1947. It was envisaged that 'the main source of supply' of cadets would be from 'apprentices and Air Training Corps'.33 Twenty of the 24 cadets would be allocated to the General Duties Branch, and two each to the Equipment and Technical Branches.34

At the outset it was proposed that the minimum educational standard for entIy to the college was set at a pass or equivalent in English, mathematics, science (either physics or chemistry), and a foreign language at the Junior or Intermediate Certificate standard. Entrants also had to be medically fit, unmarried, have reached their 17th year of age and be of British nationality, permanently resident in Australia. Having met these requirements candidates were to be interviewed by a selection board chaired by the Commandant of the College. All other things being equal, preference would be given to members of the Air Training Corps, apprentices of the RAAF and the sons of returned servicemen.35

Despite the Air Board's approval and recommendation, the college did not open its doors in 1947. There was still some debate about the nature of academic studies at the proposed college. It seems that the Air Board had been at first reluctant to set an academic standard which was equivalent to university level studies for fear of driving prospective applicants away. Yet the Board was aware that the RAAF had to compete against other employers for members and this was not a simple task in the immediate post-war years. 'With a wide range of o p p o d t i e s for employment,' Hewitt wrote, 'young men in the age range of 18-19 years who had the requisite educational background were now far keener to develop careers in civil life than in the services.'36 It was clear that the RAAF had to make its career prospects attractive. The A m y was consulted about the academic work at Duntroon. It was attempting to educate its

3' G.H. Newman, Rrfrctionr, p. 52

l2 Fmst, RAAF College, p. IS.

l3 Air Board Agendum 6735.8 March 1946, RAAF Historical, Air Force Headquarters, Russell Offices, ACT.

l4 Agendum No. 6735.

35 Agendum No. 6735.

Hewilt, Adversify in Success, p. 297.

cadets to the standard of a degree in arts or science or to second year standard in engineering, but it was having difliculty in gaining due recognition that this standard was being achieved. On the basis of such advice. the CAS advised the Minister for Air that it was considered that RAAF College should first concentrate on establishing sound academic standards before seeking recognition for the award of an arts or science degree. When this was achieved the applications for admission to the college would be restricted to those who had reached matriculation standard. The desired academic standard also justified the duration of the course being set at four years, thus allowing sufficient time for education on military subjects.37

Eventually, it was decided that the minimum educational entry standard would be the Victoriar~ School Leaving Certificate or its equivalent and that cadets would reach matriculation level at the completion of the first year at the college. The subjects to be studied in the first year were English expression, physics, chemistry, calculus and applied mathematics, pure mathematics and perhaps a language. Yet there was a potential problem in such a course. Statistics collected by Melbourne University indicated that less than half of the students attempting courses which include mathematics and physics qualified for matriculation in any one year.'B

AAer looking at the syllabus promulgated in 1949 for a four-year course of study at the RAAF college, Alan Stephens has pointed to an imbalance in its content. 'During the four year course,' Stephens wrote, '1,955 hours of classroom time were to be spent on physics, pure mathematics, calculus and applied mathematics, chemistry, electricity and radio, and practical applied physics. By contrast, only two hundred and thirty hours were allocated to history, the history of war, war studies and Imperial defence.' It was a curriculum with a profound bias in favour of the physical sciences. Of course, pilots and officers in a technical service like the RAAF should have a degree of technical knowledge. But was the balance right? Stephens thought the RAAF was identifying itself 'as a narrow technocracy'. Furthermore, he thought it 'extraordinary that there was no discrete course on the history of air power: apparently any knowledge of the W ' s fundamental business was to be acquired by intensive study of its technical components rather than its history and its ideas.'39 Indeed, extraordinary it was. But another observation also deserves attention. It appears that cadets were to receive little, or no, formal instruction on the conduct of battle, a remarkable situation for an organisation producing leaders for a fighting force. Over the four year period, cadets received 55 hours of instruction on War Studies but 474 hours on a subject with the title of Drill and Combat. This observation, it would appear, poses another question about the balance of the curriculum.

37 Frost, RAAF College, pp. 19-20.

Air Board Agendum No. 83 1 1 of 13 August 1947, RAAF Historical.

39 Stephens, Going Solo, pp. 122-3.

The RAAF College was formally established as a RAAF unit on 1 August 1947. It was under the functional command of Air Force Headquarters and administrative control of Headquarters, RAAF Station Point Cook. Applications for positions were called for in early October.

One-hundred and sixty applications were received and 110 were eliminated after due consideration. At the next stage of the selection process - the medical and psychological tests - a further 14 applicants were eliminated. The 36 remaining applicants went to the next stage in the selection process which included an assessment of educational achievement and intelligence and aptitude tests, all of which were graded according to a predetermined scale.40 The applicants then went before the selection board which was comprised of the first commandant, Air Commodore Valston Hancock, Hewitt and a psychologist. At the interviews, points were awarded for 'personal characteristics'.41

At the end of the selection process, 18 cadets were selected as being suitable for entry, but five of them were dependent on satisfactory results in their recent Leaving Certificate examinations. But the Minister was not pleased with the failure to reach the planned entry of 24 cadets and approved the raising of the upper age limit from 17 to 20 years for the first year only to permit the entry of another five suitable candidates. Three late applications were also considered and, after examination results were received and additional selection procedures completed, 22 cadets were admitted to the first year in 1948.42 Their course would entail four years of study with the first two being devoted largely to academic studies and the final two being devoted entirely to military work. Flying training was to commence in the third year. Those cadets who had been selected to become engineering officers were to complete the first year of studies and then proceed to Sydney University to undertake their engineering degree.43

The early years of the College's history were not without their problems. Almost immediately in 1948, the Director of Studies, Mr A.J. Black, submitted a report to the College's Board of Studies informing them that the academic staff were deeply concerned about the past academic records of the first cadets and their academic performance at the college. He believed that general level of ability appeared to be lower than that required to complete a science course at university Level.44 The issue of the academic status of the course at the college was to become a subject of concern

401bid,p. 121.

41 Ibid.

Frost, RAAF College, pp. 26-7.

Stephens, Going Solo, p. 122.

44 Frost, RAAFCollege. p. 29.

among senior officers in the RAAF in the ensuing years. Clearly, the underlying uncertainty over the course content arose because these senior ofiicers had not reached a common understanding of exactly what the RAAF College was trying to produce.

In the early 1950s, a lengthy debate also arose between the Air Member for Personnel, Air Vice-Marshal Bladin, and the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal Hancock. This exchange had been precipitated by a proposal that, in addition to offering a four-year course at the RAAF CoUege, provision should be made for a three-year course where cadets had achieved matriculation status before entry. Hancock was an advocate of what had become the traditional military education in Australia and thought that the course should continue to be four years long, being a liberal basic education in the arts and sciences which would enable future RAM leaders to think logically and express themselves clearly. Support for a four-year course also came from the RAAF's Director of Training who believed that, if the RAAF College was to justify its existence, it had to provide an education in academic subjects as well as leadership and general service matters. And, according to the Director of Training, this education had to be far superior than that received at Flying Training School. Bladin was not convinced by these claims and initiated a review of the college ~yllabus.~5

The committee appointed to undertake the review supported the retention of a four- year course at the college. It did so on the basis of the time taken to develop officer qualities, to provide the desired level of education, to undertake flying training and to provide Service indoctrination.46

Yet debate over the RAAF College course did not cease. In 1955, when four courses had graduated, questions were raised about the quality of the graduates and the value of the college itself. The new Air Member for Personnel, Aii Vice-Marshal F.R.W. Scherger, voiced his concerns over the low number of officers being produced by the coUege in relation to the resources it consumed The graduation of the fifth w m e at the end of 1955 brought the aggregate number of officers produced to 73, an average of about 15 graduates each year. These young officers were the product of an original intake of 118 cadets, slightly less than the target intake of 120. Forty-six graduates had become pilots, 13 were navigators and the other 59 graduates went to Technical, Equipment and Administrative Branches. According to Scherger, the output of General Duties officers in relation to the other branches was too low. In view of these statistics, he thought there was too much emphasis being placed on academic work, which diverted the interest of cadets from flying. Scherger proposed that the college syllabus be reviewed with the object of reducing the duration of the course from four years to two years and eight months, as it was in Cranwell, or reducing it two years with the last year being the same as the aircrew training course of 44 weeks.47

45 ]bid, pp. 30-1.

46 Ibid, p. 32-3.

47 Ibid, p. 33.

However, the report submitted by the subsequent Training Command review supported the retention of a four-year course along the lines of the existing syllabus. But Scherger still harboured reservations. He believed that the greatest need was for the RAAF College to focus on aspiring Air Force officers who were able to become efficient aircrew members, preferably pilots. He also believed that there should be an even greater emphasis on technical training in the college syllabus. To help resolve his concerns about the college, Scherger directed his Director of Training, Group Captain C.W. Pearce, to undertake a comprehensive review of the college.48

Alan Stephens recorded that Pearce's subsequent study 'concluded that the effort being put into the RAAF College was not justified by the overall results, as too many graduates performed below the average and displayed an "unsatisfactory attitude" once they left Point Cook'.49 But, as Stephens pointed out, at least one early graduate, Air Vice-Marshal R.E. Frost, has 'argued with some justification that the review was less than objective'. As Frost put it, presentation of information in Pearce's report 'does appear to have been a little j a ~ n d i c e d ' . ~ ~ Indeed, Frost's analysis of the report does indicate bias on a number of points, but perhaps the most revealing thing that might be said about Pearce's report is that it simply came up with the recommendations that Scherger wanted. For example, while casting doubt on the quality of the college graduates, Pearce supported the suggestion that the duration of the course be reduced to three years, which included one year of flying training to be undertaken at the Flying Training School. Pearce also recommended the convening of a further investigation into the college, observing that 'previous committees appeared to be biased in favour of the education aspect and, indeed, when canying out investigations at Point Cook, ran into a very effective lobby for a four year course'. This was obviously a thinly-veiled reference to the earlier Training Command review which had not upheld Scherger's proposal that the course should be limited to two years or two years and eight months duration. If it is going too far to say that Pearce simply told Scherger what he wanted to hear, he at least gave Scherger enough ammunition to go to the Air Board and request a formal review of the RAAF College course.*I

Scherger's submission to the Air Board went a step further than Pearce's report. The Air Member for Personnel included a piece in the agendum which addressed the future needs of the RAAF. Here it was argued that, while it was unlikely that the manned aircraft would ever disappear from air forces, an increasing number of officers would be required who understood both the manned aircraft and the guided missile. The Air Force already had officers who had specialist knowledge in the armament, electronics and engineering elements of guided missiles, it was argued. But there were very few officers who could encompass all aspects of the missile and

48 Ibid, p. 35.

49 Stephens, Going Solo, p. 124.

Frost, RAAFCoIIege, p. 37.

51 Ibid, p. 39.

they were 'technical officers who [were] also skilled and experienced pilots'. Offices with these skills and knowledge would he needed in the future and would be described as 'GD - Technical' officers. According to Scherger, the best place for such officers to acquire air force training would be the RAAF College, but their technical training would be best given in a university.52 This gave a clear indication that Scherger wanted to reduce, or to limit, the academic work undertaken at the college, an outlook that was consistent with his earlier comments about the RAAF College course.

In response to Scherger's submission, the Air Board decided to convene a committee to investigate the training undertaken at the RAAF College. It was to be chaired by Air Commodore I.D. McLachlan, who was on an exchange posting in the United Kingdom at the time of his appointment. But Director of Training Pearce wanted to influence the committee's findings. 'I would suggest that Air Commodore McLachlan be told our reasons why he is doing the inquiry,' Pearce wrote to Scherger in late 1956, 'namely the product of the four year course has not been particularly successful, and secondly we consider a four year course to be too long.' The initial draft of the instructions to McLachlan even went further. The draft inferred that the Air Board entertained the notion that university undergraduates could be given flying training during vacations and thus the College could be dispensed with entirely. This was a provocative proposal. When he read the draft instructions, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir John McCauley, was not pleased and interpreted them as an attempt to introduce a specific bias to McLachlan's findings, a bias which embraced those views held by Scherger and Pearce. Responding to the draft instructions, the CAS pointed out that there were contrary views to the opinion that the first two years of academic work at the RAAF College turned cadets away fiom an interest in flying. The CAS also expressed views which clearly indicated that he was opposed to suggestions aimed at reducing the academic content of the course. Using his own authority to influence the outcome of the committee's inquiry, McCauley expressed the opinion that McLachlan 'should he left in no doubt as to the standard to he attained' at the RAAF College. He then spelt out that: 'I am of the opinion that the ultimate aim should be the attainment of a Bachelor Degree in Science'.S3

When the committee sat for its first meeting in March 1957, McLachlan held the rank of Air Vice-Marshal in the appointment as AOC Training Command. He was joined by two senior academics kom the University of Melbourne: the head of the physics department, Professor Sir Leslie Martin, and the dean of the faculty of education, Professor W.H. Frederick. Representatives of all Air Board members were also members of the committee.j4

The McLachlan committee completed its report in November 1957. Its findings were far-reaching and supported the retention of an establishment for the professional military and academic training of RAAF officers. Indeed, the committee picked up

521bid, p. 39.

53 Ibid., p. 70.

j4 lbid, p. 72; Stephens, Going Solo, p. 125.

Scherger's original comment that in 20 to 30 years the RAM would be primarily a missile service, and, therefore, its officers would require an advanced scientific education. But unlike Scherger, the McLachlan committee believed that the RAM College should be the institution where this education was acquired, not by a small number of select pilots but, with the exception of aspiring engineers, by all other cadets, who would eventually become General Duties officers. Accordingly, the committee recommended that the course should include studies leading to a degree in science, a recommendation which was assured of the support of the CAS. Furthermore, it was recommended that the course should include a broad general education; flying training; and, of course, physical, military and leadership training. The conferring body for the science degree was to be the University of Melbourne. The only cadets - and they were few in number -who were not to study for a science degree at the RAAF College were those who studied aeronautical engineering at Sydney University. In reaching its conclusion, the committee believed that the degree status of the course would attract more applicants to a career in the Air Force. The McLachlan committee also recommended that the title of RAM Academy be adopted, a change which perhaps signalled a new approach but one deliberately made to avoid confusion between the RAAF Staff College, which had been established at Point Cook in 1949, and the RAAF College.55

The first R A M Academy course started in 1961. The cadets faced a course of four and a half years. The first three years were studies constituting a science degree majoring in physics, but other military subjects were included. The fourth year was dedicated to studies in applied science, arts and military subjects and flying training. The final six months of the course were devoted to flying training.56 This was a pioneering step for officer education in Australia. At this stage the Army and the Navy did not have degree-level studies in their respective training establishments, whether arts or science.

In practice, the new course proved to be extremely demanding. Eleven of the 28 cadets who started the course in 1961 were suspended for academic failure before the year was finished. The RAAF could not tolerate failure of this magnitude. But perhaps this result should have been foreseen. It will be recalled that, when the RAAF College was undergoing initial consideration in 1947, statistical evidence demonstrated a nass rate of less than 50 oer cent at the Universitv of Melbourne in its one-year matriculation level courses which included physics and mathematics. Yet cadets at the RAM Academy were being expected to undertake similar studies together with far more demands on theirtime for their general education and military training. The cadets were overloaded by any standards. Attempts had to be made to lift the pass rate. As a result, the workload on cadets was lightened by extending the

55 Frost, RAAF College, pp. 73-5; Stephens, Goingsolo, pp. 125-6; Air Board Agendum 12605, 'RAAF College - Review of Course Air Board Minute', para. 11 , Date of Meeting 13 December 1957, RAAF Historical.

Stephens, GoingSolo, p. 126.

course by six months and rearranging the content. Effectively, this meant that the course consisted of academic work for the first four years - a science degree and a general education - followed by a fifth year dedicated to flying training.57

Alan Stephens has pointed out that, despite the adjustments to the RAAF Academy course, the failure rate remained high. The real problem, as Stephens explained, was the 'highly specialised nature' of the studies, studies which we; introduced on the rationale of producing officers to command a missile air force. Indeed, he concluded that 'the RAAF's future executives were being educated to lead an air force which did not e:iist'.58 Yet, missile force or not, the RAAF, like all air forces, was a highly technical force. Executives with an understanding of the physical sciences are certainly not misplaced in such an organisation, but did they all have to be educated to the same high standard in such disciplines? Stephens quoted Minister for Air Peter Howson's answer to this question: 'We don't need every General Duties officer to be a research physicist.'59 Yet there can be no doubt that the new course did produce officers of 'superior intelligence', which Zehnan Cowen thought was an appropriate development for 'an increasingly sophisticated military service'.

We might also question the desirability of drawing all of an organisation's executives from the same educational background, especially when it is science. Scientific thought processes are based on predictability and certainty, on narrow limits of acceptability, on right and wrong answers. Such thought processes have special appeal to military organisations; they are cold, logical and uncompromising, but tend to strengthen a monocultural world view. Is it desirable for all of the leaders of an organisation to think along similar lines? In this sense, Hewitt's choice of John Monash as the best example of a successful military commander might have been more apposite than at first appears. Monash, as many will know, graduated in engineering from the University of Melbourne. This training has led many to comment on the sound, logical construction of his formal battle plans; nothing was left to chance, all eventualities were considered and subject to control. In his biography of Monash, Peter Pedersen wrote that Dr Charles Bean, Australia's official historian of World War I, 'maintained that Monash prepared operations with the same infinite care and using largely the same administrative methods that he employed in the construction of a bridge'. Based on such observations, it would seem that Monash's training as an engineer did benefit his performance as a military commander. But Monash also graduated in arts and laws from the same university.60 Therefore, it is equally possible that this background added imagination and flexibility to his thinking, enabling him to consider alternatives rather than simply accept what appeared to be inevitable. If this is so, then the training of Air Force officers on a

57 Ibid., p. 126.

59 Ibid., p. 127.

P.A. Pedersen, Monash as Mililaw Commander, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1985, pp. 10, 12-3.

more eclectic basis, as has been the case since 1986 with the advent of the Australian Defence Force Academy, could be a sensible start point to prepare the RAAF for the significant and diverse challenges of the new millennium.

The RAAF CollegeIAcademy produced 221 off~cers in the period 1951 to 1965.61 While it is extremely difficult to assess the benefit to the Air Force in specific terms, it is significant that 48, or 22 per cent, reached 'air rank'. It has also been noted that two graduates - Air Marshals Funnell and Gration from No. 6 Course of 1956 - subsequently rose to the Air Force's most senior position of Chief of the Air Staff. But the calculation of such achievements is only one way of assessing the contribution of the establishment. What is undoubtedly more significant is that the RAAF had produced a number of young officers who had been subject to more intense education and training than any others in its history. This can only have helped raise the professional standing of the RAAF, both within the Service itself and in the public eye. From an organisational perspective, the introduction and sustainment of such a training program also indicated that the RAAF had reached an important stage of maturity. Furthermore, with this degree of professional training for its officers the RAAF adopted an equal footing with the Army and the Navy. This can only have enhanced the self-esteem of the Service.

Apprentices

In addition to the establishment of a college to train RAAF officers, Air Commodore Joe Hewitt's plans for the post-war W ' s education and training program included the establishment of an apprentice school along the lines of the RAF's school at Halton. While on postings in the United Kingdom during 1935 and 1936, Hewitt had been exposed to Lord Trenchard's education and training policies for the RAF. He had also experienced the benefit of large numbers of ground crew who had undertaken their trade training at Halton when he had command of the RAF's No. 104 Bomber Squadron.62

One of the prime considerations in the planning process in Australia was that the trade training curriculum at the proposed school would have sufficient similarity with the civil trade-training establishments to ensure that RAAF trade qualifications received due recognition outside the Service. Several trade unions officials were consulted, chiefly Mr Southwell who was secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Wing Commander W.J. Cameron represented the RAAF in these negotiations but he wasadvised and assisted by Air vice-~arshal E.C. Wackett's technical staff officers and Group Captain Heffernan. It was Heffernan who, as Director of Training, had primary responsibility for planning the establishment of the school.63

Frost, RAAFCoNege, Appendix 6, 'Graduates of the RAAF CollegeIAcademy', pp. 21 1-3

62 C.D. Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up: The training o f M F technical groundstaff l948 1993, Air Power Studies Centre, Fairbairn, 1997, p. 15.

Hewitt, Adversiw in Success, pp. 285, 293-6.

Hewitt also held discussions on the subject of the planned school with the Minister for Air, Mr Drakeford. Drakeford took the proposal to cabinet. 'A few days later on his return to Melbourne,' Hewitt recorded, 'Drakeford called me into his office and showed me a telegram he had received from the Prime Minister. It read: "Tell your young man he can have his apprentice school if Southwell agrees curriculum."' According to Hewitt, Wing Commander Cameron was sent immediately to Sydney with the complete curriculum for discussions with Mr Southwell.64 When he returned to Melbourne - Hewitt recalled that it was 'with a broad grin on his face' - he reported enthusiastically that: 'It is O.K., Southwell has sent a telegram to the P.M.' Upon hearing the good news, Hewitt claimed that Air Vice-Marshal Wackett 'called to see me in my office looking as pleased as I felt'.65

Aspiring apprentices were to be boys aged 15 to 17, fit for military service, of British or substantially European origin and educated to an appropriate level for their trade grouping. Those entering the engineering trades required a sub-Intermediate educational level, but those entering the radio trades had to hold the Intermediate Certiticate with passes in mathematics and science. Engineering apprentices were to be trained at the Ground Training School located at Forest Hill, just ten kilometres east of the New South Wales rural city of Wagga Wagga. Apprentices who were destined for the radio trades were to receive their training at a civilian technical college as well as the RAAF's Air and Ground Radio School at Ballarat in Victoria. Under the terms of the training scheme, apprentices would undertake three years fulltime training followed by two years on the job training under supervision. On successful completion of a trade test, the new tradesman would be reclassified as a leading aircraftsman and receive a RAAF Proficiency Certificate which was recognised by the Apprentice Commission and the trade unions. The return of service obligation for the initial three years of trade training was 12 years. Altogether, it was planned that the Apprentice Training Scheme would produce up to 60 per cent of the RAAF's technical tradesmen, while the rest came from direct entry tradesmen or airmen already in the Service who underwent conversion training. Graduates of the scheme were eligible for aircrew training and those who displayed outstanding qualities were eligible for nomination to the planned RAAF College for training as officers.66

Applications for entry into the Apprentice Training Scheme in its first year of operation in 1948 were called for towards the end of October 1947. Within two weeks some 1,000 inquiries were received, giving an indication that the new RAAF scheme was indeed attracting significant interest in the community. But initial interest was not followed through with applications to join the scheme. After

Note: Coulthard-Clark casts doubt on Hewitt's account, From the Ground Up, p. 20.

65 Hewitt, Adversify in Success, pp. 296-7.

Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up, pp, 15-6, pp. 21,35; Stephens, Going Solo, p. 130.

applications were given their initial consideration only 191 aspiring apprentices went before the selection committee to compete for the 200 positions, 150 in the engineering trades and 50 in radio.67

The selection committee was comprised of Air Commodore H.A. Austin, who was AOC Maintenance Group, Group Captain J.W.C. Black, one of Austin's senior officers, Wing Commander J.E. Reynolds, a radio oMicer from the Directorate of Training, and Squadron Leader J.E. Needham, a senior education officer at the Ground Training School. The committee sat in each of the State capitals, commencing in Brisbane in late November 1947. As a result of the interviews, only 56 applicants were assessed as suitable for entry into the scheme, 41 for the engineering trades and 15 for radio. It was obviously a disappointing result, being a shortfall of 144 below the desired entry number of 200.68

In the subsequent post-mortem, a numher of issues were raised. To start with, Austin reported that it had proved difficult for many candidates to satisfy the selection committee that they had achieved the minimum required educational standards; some could not produce documentary evidence of their age; and many failed to meet the medical standards. Austin also made some interesting comments ahout the boys. He noted that a 'considerable portion, ofthe applicants were either orphans or the children of "broken marriages"'. These he believed 'were looking to the RAAF to become father and mother'. It appears that Austin took a dim view of such an attitude. He complained that there was 'practically no appreciation of the potential careers awaiting apprentices'; they created the impression that they were simply motivated by the desire to 'learn a trade'. And, in a comment that Alan Stephens found offensive - and for good reason -Austin recorded that 'the type of boy coming forward was more often than not the one who already showed signs of being one of Life's failures or at hest "one of the crowd"'.69

We need only recall Paul Hasluck's comments ahout the impact of the war on young Australians to realise how thoughtless Austin had been. Social turmoil during the war brought severe disruption to education and constant housing difficulties. Family breakups and juvenile delinquency were other unfortunate results. Many young Australians had been the victim of circumstances over which they simply had no control. They and their parents, who had also endured the deprivations of the great depression, had little idea of the personal fulfilment that could come with sound education and training, followed by a steady occupation with the promise of advancement and a secure retirement. The notion of a career was a novel concept, at least for most Australians. It would take time for them to realise that this is what the RAAF was offering. Undoubtedly, many who took up the offer soon became aware of the opportunities and repaid the RAAF with a lifetime of dedicated service.

67 Coulthard-Clark, From The Ground Up, pp. 21-3.

68 Ibid., pp. 22-3; Stephens, Going Solo, p. 131.

f ~ 9 Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up, pp. 23-4; &, Stephens, Going Solo, p. 132

The Air Board took a more rational view of the recruiting experience than Austin had done. It reasoned that the large number of applicants who failed to meet the required standards were probably the result of a failure to spell out the standards with sufficient clarity. Furthermore, the Board realised that the RAM also faced competition for its recruits from other ern ploy er^.^^

The large shortfall in numbers for the first course meant that extraordinary measures were required, if the Apprentice Training Scheme was to be a significant source of RAAF tradesmen. Minister Drakeford also requested the Air Board to analyse the selection procedures and furnish him with a report. As a result of the subsequent deliberations it was decided to call applications for a second intake to commence trainin: in mid-1948 with an increased upper age limit of 18. To support the second recruiting drive a more aggressive publicity campaign was conducted. Every headmaster of every secondary school in Australia was also sent information on the scheme. By reconsidering certain applications for the initial recruitment campaign, by admitting late applications and by callimg for the second intake, the number of apprentices undergoing training at the end of July 1948 was 170, a figure approaching the original target of 200. Yet the problem of reaching the desired number of trainees persisted for some years. The average annual intake over following years amounted to 152 with 190 being achieved in 1966.7'

The Engineering Apprentices

The engineering trades taught at Forest Hill were engine fitter, airframe fitter, electrical fitter, armament fitter, motor transport driverlfitter or instrument maker. The school was housed in portion of the former wartime base which covered an area of 92 hectares. There were a number of temporary huts manufactured from timber, fibro-cement and corrugated iron, serving as accommodation, classrooms and storerooms. It was all part of the larger Ground Training School which, in addition to apprentice training, was responsible for courses for adult trainees and initial administrative and clerical trade training. The school also conducted training for all new recruits if they were not to become aircrew. Furthermore, during the period 1951 - 1957, the school provided training under the National Service scheme. Throughout this period, the organisation was to subject to the inevitable name-changing process. In 1950 the Ground Training School became the RAAF Technical College and, in 1952, the R A M Technical College became the RAAF School of Technical Training, or RSTT.72

The regime for apprentices at Forest Hill was intensively organised. One hour was set aside each day for dressing, undressing and bathing. There was formal classroom instruction on academic, S e ~ c e and trade subjects, and also lessons devoted to character guidance and hobbies. Inevitably, the young boys also became well-

Stephens, Going Solo, p. 132.

7l Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up, pp. 26-8; Stephens, Going Solo, p. 132.

72 Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up, pp. 29-30.

practiced in those universal elements of military culture: drill and sport. The RAM also attempted to create a protective moral environment for their young charges. The consumption of alcohol was prohibited. Smoking was permitted in off-duty hours only if the apprentice had reached the age of 18 and if his parents had provided written authorisation. And all apprentices attended church parades unless their parents objected. But perhaps one single restraint stood above all others in preventing the decline of these boys into moral turpitude: they were paid a pittance. Indeed, as Dr Chris Coulthard-Clark points out, in August 1948 the RAAF was so preoccupied with the welfare of its young apprentices that the Air Board considered making a special financial grant to RAAF cinemas because apprentices had difficulty in paying an already discounted admission charge of one shilling, or ten cents.73

The apprentices' pay rates had been set originally on the basis that all material necessities of living, including medical and dental care, were provided by the RAAF and that the boys only required a small amount of pocket money. The RAAF soon began to realise that low pay rates did not assist their recruiting campaigns. Indeed, the rates offered under the terms of the Apprentice Training Scheme were significantly lower than those offered to apprentices elsewhere, even by the Commonwealth Public Service. By 1953 the original pay rate of five shillings per week for an apprentice in his first year had been increased to 62 shillings, a more than twelve-fold increase.74

The increasing dependence of the Air Force on technology from the 1950s into the 1960s was translated into an increased demand for technical tradesmen with a high standard of technical training, an influence that was compounded by the growth in the size of the Service itself. In 1966, RSTT had a student population of some 1,800 personnel, the majority being adult trainees but the engineering apprentices were also represented at their highest levels since the inception of the training scheme in 1948. The 1966 of engineering apprentices was 190. When all trainees are included, RSTT had become the largest unit in the RAAF, representing ten per cent of the personnel numbers of the entire Air Force. The total number of graduates in the first twenty years of the engineering apprentice scheme was 2,192.75

The Radio Apprentices

The Radio Apprentice Squadron was established in December 1947 at the former stately home of Frognall located in the Melbourne suburb of Canterbury. It had been the site of the WAAAF barracks of the Melbourne Telecommunications Unit during World War 11. The apprentices were accommodated in huts that had been establisl~ed in the large area that surrounded the original home. Teaching for the course was conducted at the Melbourne Technical College. (It subsequently became the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.) It was at this college that electrical and radio

73 Ibid, p. 34.

741bid., pp. 34-5

Ibid, p. 58.

laboratories had been established with guidance from the RAAF in the wartime expansion of technical teaching facilities throughout Australia.76 Apprentices were transported each day from Frognall into the classes at the Melbourne Technical College under the supervision of an NCO. The trades for which the apprentices were preparing themselves were radio fitter (air), radio fitter (ground), or telegraphist mechanic.77 Only the first two years of training was completed at the Melbourne Technical College and the final year of formal training was completed at the RAAF's Air and Ground Radio School at Ballarat, Victoria.

It will be recalled that minimum education entry standards for radio apprentices were higher than those specified for their engineering counterparts. As a result applications for the 50 annual vacancies had been disappointingly low in first few years, less than one in three of the positions being filled in the initial intake. By the early 1950s, the numbers entering the Radio Apprentice Squadron had increased to an average of 30 - 35 annually,78 but the early progress of the apprentices was poor.

The apprentices all started the prescribed course of study at the Melbourne Technical College which resulted in the award of an Associate Diploma in Radio Engineering, a intense two-year course of formal study. Yet, at the outset, it appeared to be too demanding for most of the apprentices. In the mid-year exams for the first intake, only five of the 16 apprentices passed; one had failed so comprehensively that he was discharged; the remaining ten were unable to proceed with the course without remedial training and were allowed to repeat the first section of the course. As a result o:f an investigation into the ways of avoiding such failure rates in future, it was decided to extend the course of formal training by including a three-month preparatory phase for radio apprentices to bring them up to a common standard in academic subjects, especially maths and physics, and also to give them time to settle into service life. Before these measures could be introduced, steps were taken for apprentices to receive extra tuition at night from members of the RAAF's Education Service.79

Like the first intake, many of the second intake of radio apprentices struggled with the Melbourne Technical College course, indicating that the required standard was simply beyond the capabilities of most of the boys. Accordingly, the decision was taken that from the beginning of 1949 all apprentices would commence the same course -now titled the Radio Apprentice Diploma - but at the end of first six months those students who were struggling would be allocated to a less demanding Radio Technician Certificate.80

76 Ibid., pp. 69-70; Stephens, Going Solo, pp. 132-3.

77 Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up, pp. 79-80.

78 Ibid, p. 81.

79 Stephens, Goingsolo, p. 133; Coulthard-Clark, pp. 73-4.

Stephens, Going Solo, p. 133; Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up, p. 75

While there was some ongoing problems of apprentices reaching the required academic standards in their respective courses, the creation of the two streams of study became the pattern for the 1950s. The diploma level apprentices completed two years of study at the Melbourne Technical College. They then went to the Air and Ground Radio School at Ballarat (renamed the RAAF School of Radio in December 1952) for one year of applied electronics. This was followed by one year's practical training at RAAF units. Apprentices who undertook the diploma stream of training amounted to about 30 per cent of radio apprentices. The remaining 70 per cent completed two years of less theoretical study at Melbourne Technical College, followed by six, and subsequently eight, months at Ballarat. No further qualifying work was required in the field.

In December 1960, the Radio Apprentice Squadron was moved from Frognall to Laverton and, in the following April, the RAAF School of Radio moved to Laverton from Ballarat. They amalgamated in May 1961 and still travelled by bus each day to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) for formal tuition.8' At this stage the courses were restmctured. The diploma level studies were in future to be undertaken at a new unit known as the Diploma Cadet Squadron which was located at Frognall. Henceforth all radio apprentices undertook a Radio and Electronics Technician Certificate course at RMIT followed by eight months at the RAAF School of Radio. This training amounted three years work and it was followed by a further year of practical work at RAAF units and a fifth year of field employment. On completion of the five-year period radio apprentices were awarded an Apprentice Proficiency Certificate.82

In his history of the training of RAAF technical ground staff from 1948 to 1993, Chris Coulthard-Clark writes that, after 20 years of operation, the radio apprentice training scheme had produced 410 graduates, 'of whom 106 (or one-quarter) had been granted commissions'.83 Therefore, it would appear that, although there had been ongoing problems with pass-rates and recruitment of suitable apprentices, the quality of graduates had been high.

Conclusion

In the period 1948 - 1965, the RAAF initiated a number of education and training programs. The two which had a profound impact on the ongoing development of the RAAF were the RAAF College/Academy and the Apprentice Training Scheme. These were two ventures which the RAAF had never before attempted in its history but, given the RAAF's post-war level of development, both were warranted and timely and both made significant contributions to the professionalism of the RAAF. They were also education and training initiatives which reflected developments that were occurring within the Australian nation. Careers had become a primary concern of young, post-war Australians.

Coulthard-Clark, From the Ground Up, pp. 76-7,82

Ibid., p p 82-3.

Ibid., p. 83.

Through the officer and apprentice training establishments, the RAAF was able to offer careers to young Australians - careers which encompassed education and training of the highest order, secure employment and advancement. Many young Australians would henefit from this opportunity, achieving fulfilment and personal satisfaction. Many of them would repay the RAAF with a lifetime of loyal service. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the RAAF was a more professional, more capable defence force as a result.

DISCUSSION

Group Captain Arthur Skimin: Just a point on a couple of issues that John's raised. I think it was restricted to the School of Radio and the School of Engineering. One of the problems the education psychologists identified in the high wastage rates was the prohlems of recruiting nationally. And the areas of weakness in the recruits for both apprentice streams were the lack of mathematical skills and, in some cases, English expression. That created problems which caused the education officers assigned to both schools a lot of heartache and a lot of hard work to rectify. Another point to observe, I think, in John's comments were the age of the recruits that they were bringing in -the 15, 16, 17 and then some extended to I8 year-olds. The second element within the schools was the Chaplain's Branch which tried to keep these kids on the straight and narrow. In addition to the educational staff, the Chaplains probably had the most difficult job of getting the apprentices to buckle down and getting them to focus on their educational studies.

Doctor Mordike: Thanks for those comments, Arthw. I should add that I have had the henefit of looking at Chris Coulthard-Clark's hook From the Ground Up - with his permission of course. This book deals with the subject of the training of RAAF technical ground staff and it will be launched early in 1998. Chris draws that point out in the history, that a number of apprentices did come from various State Education systems and there was difficulty in striking a common level.

Wing Commander Despina Tramoundanis: John, a couple of quick questions for you. The first one relates to the apprentices. Did the training given to the apprentices have civilian accreditation? If not, was it a factor in the recruitment of apprentices and the quality of recruits that presented themselves. The second question relates to your comments on the paucity of air power theory being taught to the officers? I can't believe that it was as a result of a lack of air power thinking within the Air Force, because after all we have the Wrigley manuscripts that have been published recently. Why do you think there was the reason for the lack of attention to air power doctrine?

Doctor Mordike: Let me deal with the first question on civil qualifications. The RAAF was very careful with the setting up of the apprentice training scheme in that the trades that were studied did have civil accreditation. And indeed there were, I believe, exhaustive discussions with the unions beforehand with that particular objective in mind. I think that there was also a degree of consultation with the civilian trade training organisations, such as the State technical colleges and so on. So it is an

interesting point, because you also strike the same sort of issue with the education of officers. The McLachlan Committee believed that in granting a university degree - that is a civilian-recognised qualification - at the RAAF College more people would be attracted into the Service. And of course the same thinking applied for the apprentice scheme, too. It was one of the concerns in establishing that scheme: that these qualifications would be transportable into the civilian arena.

If I now turn to your second question on air power doctrine. Certainly, as you point out, there were isolated areas where air power doctrine was thought about, but it had it not been formulated rigorously in a distinct, authorised document. There was no published Air Power Manual in those days. Why was there no formulated doctrine? It had a lot to do with the maturity of the Air Force. The Army had established doctrine because m i e s had been fighting for heavens knows how long and had established and written their doctrine early this century. Therefore, a college like Duntroon could pick up the written pamphlets and procedures and start teaching them from the start in 191 1. But Air Forces really hadn't had that much experience.

Air Vice-Marshal Ern Carroll: Having been born prior to 1930, I have seen the period you were talking about. I think you're expecting alot immediately after World War I1 for the education system to cope with significant development and stronger growth in technology. I don't think the education system to some extent was prepared for it. A lot of us went into the Service during the war having not completed our education and subsequently we used the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme to enhance that. Furthermore, I don't think the education staff and institutions were very helpful in helping students to acquire knowledge that they needed for the future. Academics I believe were very dogmatic in what they thought you needed and not what you believed you needed, or the user needed. And I think that makes a big difference in some of the development of the early schemes.

Doctor Mordike: Thank you for those comments. The point that I'd like to underline is that, in the immediate post-war years, the education process was nowhere near as developed as it is today. We have a number of people in this room who are aged 40 years and younger and they have grown up in an Australia where there is abundant education and abundant opportunities. But it certainly wasn't the case in pre-World War I1 Australia. And that's why I wanted to emphasise the point that it is only in World War I1 - for the first time in this country's history -that the Commonwealth Government started investing resources in education. It was seen as an investment in this nation. It was very much a case of national reconstruction. I think many, many people, if not everyone, in this room has probably benefited.

CONFRONTATION IN MALAYSIA 1963 - 1966

Air Vice-Marshal R. V. Richardson

1963 was quite an exciting year for a just-qualified young fighter pilot and his new wife-to-be posted to 77 Squadron at Butterworth, Malaya. Indonesia, under its volatile and unpredictable leader President Sukarno, was vehemently opposed to the proposed Federation of Malaya, Singapore and North Borneo, which was to be called Malaysia. Dr Subandrio, the Indonesian Foreign Minister, had in January 1963 described Indonesia's opposition to Malaysia as 'Confrontation'.

On 16 September 1963 Tunku Abdul Rahman formally declared the new Malayan Federation. Indonesian opposition to Malaysia over the next 26 months or so took the form of attempts to incite riots and civil disturbances in many areas, military incursions into Malaysia's territory and air space at various points, and especially small raids and skirmishes along the border area between Borneo and Indonesian Kalimantan.

This was One of the strangest military conflicts in which Australia has been involved. Confrontation was generally not directly focused on Australia, which maintained diplomatic relations and some trade with Indonesia, as well as fairly unintempted shipping and civil aviation traffic through the Indonesian archipelago. But on the other hand, British, Australian and New Zealand Navy, Army and Air Force elements were directly involved in a military conflict with Indonesia during this period as part of their commitment to supporting Malaysian independent sovereignty.

I'm going to concentrate mainly on air defence aspects, because that was the major concern for the RAAF in this conflict. There was significant other ADF involvement, especially the Army in Sabah.

Air power in Malaysia at this time comprised a squadron of RAF Hunters in Singapore whose primary role was fighter ground attack, a squadron of RAF Javelin Fighters with night/all weather capability at Butterworth, No. 78 Fighter Wing comprising 3 and 77 Squadrons of RAAF Sabre day fighters at Butterworth, No. 2 Canberra medium bomber squadron and No. 114 Mobile Control and Reporting Radar Unit, also at Butterworth. Some limited helicopter and air transport assets were also available, and on occasions small numbers of RAF Vulcan and Victor bombers were stationed at Butterworth and Singapore. An RAF air defence radar unit was located at Singapore.

A permanent forward basing of RAAF forces had been agreed by Cabinet in 1955 as Australia's contribution to a Commonwealth Strategic Reserve to be based in Malaya to deter communist expansion. In preparation for this deployment No. 2 Aifield Construction Squadron had completed the upgrade of Butterworth to an excellent jet

air base in 1958 ready for the deployment of 2 Squadron Canberras in July that year. No. 77 Squadron Sabres first deployed to Buttenvorth in February 1959, following 3 Squadron's move there three months earlier.

The RAAF had extensive experience in operating in Malaya dating back to World War I1 and the more recent Malayan Emergency period. However, Sabre jet fighter operations in this region were always going to be difficult. Apart from Singapore there were few other airfields where the aircraft could operate, and with very limited navigation aids, no airborne radar and little ground radar coverage, not to mention the lack of an anti-skid braking system and the aircraft's limited endurance in the air defence configuration, operations in tropical weather conditions were quite challenging.

Nonetheless, I remember a very strong emphasis being placed on achieving a balanced capability in 3 and 77 Squadrons in all aspects of air defence and fighter ground attack. My recollection is that the wing and squadron supervisors, almost all of whom had extensive operational experience in the Korean War, some also having served during World War 11, were very determined to ensure that our tactics and weapon capabilities were well developed. A great deal of attention was paid to analysing gunnery, rocketry and dive bombing scores, and to the development of multi-aircraft Sidewinder missile tactics in a radar controlled intercept environment.

However, a major limitation during the Confrontation period was that the air defence radar head at Butterworth was near the airfield and close to sea level, whereas out to the west and almost in line with the track to the Indonesian jet base at Medan in Sumatra stood Penang Hill, about 2,000 feet above sea level. This prevented radar coverage of a considerable arc across the Malacca Strait toward Medan. Much later, of course, an air defence radar head was placed on Penang Hill, clearly the essential site for such a facility.

As a result of Indonesia's increasingly hostile rhetoric and propaganda, in July 1963 Far East Air Force (FEAF) Headquarters in Singapore ordered air defence radar coverage to be increased to 24 hours per day, and in October, two Sabres armed with Sidewinders and 30mm cannon were placed on five-minute scramble alert from dawn to dusk from operational readiness pads at either end of the Buttenvorth runway. Two seven-hour shifts were used, changing at noon.

Fairly restrictive rules of engagement were authorised, requiring direct clearance from FEAF Headquarters in Singapore before any shots could be fired. In early 1964, Indonesia began to restrict RAAF flights between Australia and Malaysia, and the fortnightly C-130 courier service was re-routed to travel via Cocos Island and around the northern tip of Sumatra, adding greatly to our logistic air supply line. Those of us involved at the time have never forgotten this demonstration of the strategic importance of Australia's overflight rights across the world's largest archipelago. Many years later I worked hard in the Defence Strategic and International Policy Division of the Department of Defence to get greater attention to the fact that archipelagic passage rights under the new United Nations Commission on the Law of the Sea Treaty also encompassed the airspace above.

I will now describe some of the practical issues we encountered during Confrontation.

For the first 12 months or so, RAAF direct involvement was light and rather sporadic, being confined to what we pilots felt was rather a nuisance of having to be rostered on regular pre-dawn or afternoon shifts on a seven day per week basis. Those of us who lived on Penang Island also had to spend quite a few nights in the Butterworth Mess because feny times did not suit our needs.

However, events came to an abrupt head on the night of 2 September 1964, when three Indonesian Hercnles aircraft apparently attempted to air drop paratroops into Johore State in Southern Malaysia. Alan Stephens has described this operation in Going Solo as:

A shambles, with two out of the three aircraft dropping their troops in different locations and the third apparently crashing en-route.'

I have no detailed knowledge of the events of this night, but I will simply say to you that we pilots were told some time afterwards that an RAF pilot flying a Hunter from Singapore had shot down an Indonesian C-130 that night, that a complete security lid had been put on all events surrounding this, and that the pilot concerned had been promptly retumed to the UK. In hindsight, given the irrationality of this action on the part of the Sukarno regime, it was probably very wise to restrict public knowledge of this incident, to avoid possible escalation into a much wider conflict.

However, I would like to express the sense of indignation we all felt over the quality and availability of intelligence information available to us. Perhaps an example will illustrate this. At around this period our intelligence briefmgs advised that the Indonesian air defence radar at Medan in Sumatra was completely unserviceable due to lack of spares. On several occasions, however, Mig-21 fighters flew from their base in Java north to Medan, and on the way, they flew toward the boundary of our air defence identification zone in the Malacca Strait. When they appeared above the radar horizon to the Butterworth radar unit our Sabres were scrambled to intercept them. Then when the Sabres reached 20,000 feet on climb out from Butterworth, which was the radar horizon for the Medan radar, the Mig-21s promptly tumed back! This and similar incidents showed us that the Medan radar was indeed functional, contrw to our intelligence advice.

On the night after the Indonesian paratroop attack, a state of emergency was declared in Singapore and at 2200 hours all of 77 Squadron was recalled to duty. Because most of us lived on Penang Island a special feny had to be arranged for 0100 hours, and on arrival we found that all aircraft were being serviced, armed and dispersed to be ready for operations at dawn. At 0500 hours we were told to find our allocated aircraft and pre-flight them before dawn. Because of the perceived risk of an air strike all base aircraft had been dispersed over a wide area, and a harassed flight sergeant told me that he was not sure where my Sabre was, but that it was 'down on the old

1 Alan Stepheus, Going Solo: The Royal Australian Air Force 1946-1971, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1995.

tarmac near the golf course somewhere!' I found it with difficulty over a mile from our normal t m a c and only after being challenged several times by guards and police dogs who were everywhere.

At about the same time, 16 Sabres of No. 76 Squadron at Williamtown were hurriedly deployed to Danvin as a precaution against any escalation of the conflict to the Australian mainland.

A week or so later intelligence briefings advised of a high likelihood of low altitude dawn strike attack on Butterworth, and possibly Penang, by Indonesian Badger jet bombers from Medan. I have already indicated our vulnerability to such attack because of the lack of low altitude radar coverage. So a system of pre-dawn low level combat air patrols was developed. This involved several pairs of Sabres with external tanks being vectored about 50 miles seaward of Butterworth before first light to patrol across the likely Badger attack routes.

We found this pretty hair raising because the weather at this time was almost continuously bad, with frequent heavy rain showers and thunderstorms. Our non- directional beacon at Butterworth naturally had to be turned off, and we were expected to fly out in pairs to a given point, separate ourselves by 1,500 feet vertically, and then fly backwards and forwards in opposite directions at right angles to the likely inbound track towards Butterworth. We were supposed to look for the Badgers visually, of course, but this was rather difficult in the pre-dawn twilight while trying to spot one's partner every ten minutes or so crossing above or below, often having to fly through rain showers. And all of this was done in complete radio silence, apart from the occasional expletive when somebody 'lost the plot'.

On 8 September most of 3 Squadron was deployed for air defence alert duty to Tengah air base in Singapore. The remaining 3 Squadron personnel were attached to 77 Squadron. Prior to this, on 5 September Group Captain Plenty, OC 78 Wing, had requested personnel reinforcements from Australia, and on 8 September Department of Air advised that 15 officers -mostly pilots - and 53 airmen were being attached to 78 Wing. They arrived on 12 September and this allowed some of us to rejoin our rather worried families at home in Penang, where all telephone communications had been forbidden for a lengthy period - naturally leading to considerable stress and uncertainty for all concerned. Rumours circulated widely around the wives' net, and some pretty wild hypotheses were current relating to an imminent invasion of Penang, and so on.

The unit histories record that there was a lot of movement of Sabres between Buttenvorth and Singapore during September. On Sunday 20 September a further six aircraft deployed from Butterworth to join 3 Squadron, now operating from Changi airfield in Singapore, and on the following day another six 77 Squadron aircraft and pilots were sent to Changi as further reinforcements. Also on that Sunday the peak of the crisis was reached when every fighter aircraft at Butterworth was brought to 'Alert 2', requiring all pilots to be strapped into their fully armed aircraft to await a possible mass scramble. They were held in this rather tense situation, in radio silence and with fairly inadequate tele-brief facilities to a number of the aircraft, for 52 minutes,

according to the 114 MCRU Unit History. Additionally, throughout daylight hours on 19 and 20 September an airborne combat air patrol was maintained to counter the threat of air strike. On 25 September a British Army air defence radar commenced operating from a 300 foot hill 18 miles south of Butterworth to provide lower level air defence coverage.

Two-minute scramble alert status was ordered on several occasions. Whereas five- minute alert allowed the pilots to wait in the hut beside the aircraft, the two-minute airborne requirement necessitated pilots being strapped in continuously. We found that after about 60 minutes of this under tropical conditions wearing our rubber anti-g suit and the then standard large rubber Mae West life jacket, etc., we were quite seriously heat-stressed and possibly more dangerous to ourselves than to the opposition. Bamboo umbrellas and some competition for the small number of refrigerated blower units were a feature of this period.

The standard five-minute airborne alert required pilots to pre-flight their aircraft and cany out an engine run up at the start of the alert period, then leave the aircraft with switches set and parachute in place ready to jump in and get away quickly. The usual authorisation was for a flying sortie by a pair of aircraft to be carried out once during each day, but not if a scramble had been ordered. Naturally we usually took the training sortie early in the hope that a later scramble might add to our flying opportunity.

Our alert crew rooms were Kingstrand huts of light metal construction with louvre windows for maximum ventilation. The aircraft were parked facing the runway with their tails towards the alert hut. On one occasion during the early morning run-up, one of our senior officers was a little slow in closing the throttle during his timing of the engine slam acceleration check, and 7,500 lbs of thrust picked up a heavy timber walkway and slammed it right through the alert hut, passing closely over the head of a pilot officer who had just lain down on the bunk after his own run-up. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the incident report was read widely with great interest.

On 26 September the crisis apparently eased and some aircraft returned to Butterworth from Changi. In late September most of the relief personnel from Australia were released to return in early October.

On 3 October the six aircraft on scramble alert was reduced to four during the daylight hours, and on 8 October 77 Sqn ORP alert status returned to two aircraft, with another two provided by 3 Squadron.

Things settled down for a few months, with a further operational deployment to Singapore by eight Sabres in November 1964 for two weeks of air defence alert.

Although Alan Stephens records that Confrontation effectively ended with the failed coup in Indonesia in September 1965, there was a final significant operation for 78 Wing from August through to November 1965.

A composite 77 Squadron detachment including 3 Squadron deployed to Tengah in early August 1965 for air defence exercises and to maintain an operational alert there for several weeks. In late October 77 Squadron was deployed to Labuan, North Borneo to relieve the 20 Squadron RAF Hunters who were patrolling the Indonesian Kalimantan border areas. Intelligence reports indicated that Indonesian Air Force Mustangs were harassing UK and Australian Atmy elements operating in the border area, and on occasion strafing villages. This was a fascinating operation for me and the others involved, led by our CO, Wing Commander Les Reading. Firstly, there was the deployment, via Changi, to Labuan Island. Apart from staging through on deployment from Australia in 1959, no RAAF fighter aircraft had operated there since the latter stages of World War 11. Although there was quite a good runway, we parked on rather rusty PSP steel matting dating from the wartime.

Then there was the area of operations. This was 'tiger country' by anyone's definition. We found that there were no reliable maps of the border area, which was 100 nautical miles south east of Labuan and extended a further 120 miles to the east coast at Tawau. We were also required to patrol southward some 100 miles along the Sarawak border. The border area is mountainous and covered by some of the tallest and densest rainforest in the world. Our patrols had to be carried out with large drop tanks at endurance speed of around 180 knots and at around 500 feet above the terrain, which gave very little time for reflection in the event of engine failure. We were issued with the new 'Tree-Scape' self-lowering device which appeared to have just enough rope to only require a 50 foot final drop to the ground from the prevailing jungle canopy! We were also issued with the new SARBE emergence radios which were reputed to have little range through the dense rainforest canopy. Fortunately, we never had to operationally test either of these devices.

The 20 Squadron Hunter pilots helped us to hand-draw useable maps to illustrate the border areas, and we followed them on one sortie to show us certain key features. We fairly quickly became familiar with both patrol routes. The biggest problem was the heavy cloud mass which invariably descended very low over the rainforest in the afternoon. It required close familiarity with the terrain to press on over saddle ridges almost covered in cloud to be sure that the next valley offered an escape route. On a few occasions pilots were forced to 'bug-out' and climb at maximum gradient several thousand feet through the dense cloud to safety height. This invariably forced the patrol to be aborted, because the only way to resume the task was to start from the coast below 500 feet, and we never had sufficient fuel to do this journey twice!

Because of communication problems with FEAF Headquarters in Singapore our rules of engagement here for the first time allowed us to take the offensive against hostile aircraft inside Malaysian airspace without requiring prior approval. On one occasion Jim Kichenside and I were scrambled to intercept a Mustang harassing villages in the border area, but after getting some directions from several of the Army outposts, we were unable to make contact before he left the area.

3 Squadron crews took over this detachment responsibility dnring November, returning to Butternorth at the end of the month, and this effectively marked the end of RAAF operations against Indonesian forces. This was therefore also the last time RAAF fighter aircraft have been involved in a conflict. Confrontation was formally ended under the new Suharto Administration in August 1966.

It is interesting to note that only five years later, Australia gave to Indonesia 16 of the Sabre aircraft that had provided Malaysia's primary air defence against Indonesia's aggressive intrusions. This is one of many notable examples of Australia's measured and fir-sighted stance toward the development of good relations with our Asian neighbours. The best example, of course, is our being first to publicly endorse Indonesia's independence in 1947.

Then: are, of course, many lessons which can be drawn from this interesting, and fortunately for all concerned, not very lethal period of operations. I have already mentioned the paucity of reliable intelligence data available to us. To quote Wing Commander Cannon's Commanding Officers' report of September 1964:

The almost total lack of intelligence concerning the current situation, or what could be expected, plus the absence of reasons for change in commitment, made working conditions extremely difficult. In fact this defect was the outstanding feature of the whole operation.

The CO also pointed out that ground crew morale was initially affected by having to work continuous 16-hour days for extended periods with little understanding of what it was all about.

Another issue that made a lasting imnression on me is that of trainine with ooerational W .

weapons. I believe that for most, if not all, of the critical Confrontation period our primary weapon, the two AIM 9B Sidewinders missiles carried on each air defence aircraft, would not have functioned if it had been fired,

I never got to fire a Sidewinder in training. There was a small allocation of firings against 5 inch target rockets fired from another Sabre, and in late 1964 I observed one of these from another aircraft in the formation. The Sidewinder simply disappeared in a ballistic trajectory into the South China Sea, as did a second missile a few days later. An investigation soon found the reason.

There had been problems with tropical insects building nests in the exhaust ports of the gas generator which provided power to the Sidewinder guidance control surfaces. Someone had decided to put adhesive tape over these ports to keep insects out, assuming that on firing the tape would be blown off. Well the tape remained firmly in place so the gas generator did not function, and therefore nor could the missile guidance. Clear, thin tape had been used, which was virtually invisible to normal inspection.

It appears to me that the full operational implications of this were not made widely known at the time, nor probably since then. My strong belief is that it is critically important to carry out regular firings with fully standard operational munitions selected randomly from stock holdings. I still occasionally wonder whether we do this adequately, recognising the enormous costs of our current PGMs, and the difficulty of firing them under realistic operational conditions. How, for example, is Tactical Fighter Group going to prove and exercise the capability of the new generation of Within, and Beyond, Visual Range air-to-air missiles, noting that the WVR missiles now have the capability to shoot down a target not far behind the firing aircraft using a helmet mounted sight? And how do you provide realistic targets for such firings, and if you do, how do you attack them without having to provide a new one each time you fire?

I would also submit that the era of the 1960s propelled the RAM away from the fun of day fighter flying relying on the MK 1 eyeball for tactical control. The Sabre was a good gun platform: I was credited with 93 hits out of 120 rounds fired on a 20 foot air-to-ground target with a 1,500 foot foul line on one occasion, and 77 Squadron had an average score of 33 per cent in air to air gunnery in 1964. But with no ability for effective operations at night or in bad weather its capability was very limited.

An important innovation of the 1960s was the new professionalism of No. 2 Fighter Operation Conversion Unit - especially, I believe, during the period that Wing Commander Ian Parker was CO there. He was probably the most skilled pilot I ever encountered, and certainly the most modest about his ability. The increasing number of professional fighter combat instructors like Mick Feiss brought new levels of professionalism to the fighter squadrons, and I also recall that executives such as Ray Trebilco, Bill Hughes, Les Reading and many others brought both valuable wartime experience and continuing doctrinal innovation to the fighter wings.

Disciplined programs of air and ground training, instrument and simulator flying - albeit with comparatively poor equipment at that time - and detailed analyses of individual performance in training and weapon firing leading to operational categorisation all led to an increasingly professional operational org&nisation during the 1960s.

And of course the opportunity for so many RAAF members and their families to live and work in South-East Asia for extended periods also greatly contributed to broadening the outlook of the RAAF.

A final lesson which might be drawn from this operational campaign is its example of apparently irrational aggressive military behaviour. I doubt that any analyst would have predicted the extent of Indonesia's objections to Malaysia's national development being supported by its international friends, let alone the truly extraordinary decision to deploy paratroops onto the Malayan peninsula in 1964. I sometimes wonder whether western analysts are sufficiently capable of considering the strategic perspective from a regional opponent's viewpoint. Perhaps that subject may develop further when a future symposium examines the Vietnam conflict.

DISCUSSION

Group Captain Herb Plenty: Bob took my name in vain a while ago. Now he complained that he never did get a shot with a Sidewinder. The fact of course was that he wore one very narrow stripe on his shoulder. The Sidewinders which were actually fired were time-expired units. We weren't allowed to use the ones which were still suitable for operation, so that's why probably about half of them went haywire. I fired two of them and they both hit the rocket so whether they got an operational serviceable one out of the locker I don't know, but anyhow it worked.

On the other point of the Indonesian confrontation Bob mentioned that we had the pilots strapped in their Sabres for 62 minutes, or something of that order, in oppressive heat. This was upon the instructions from the Headquarters Fighter Command or the Fighter Sector. And I began to run around like a chook without a head after about 40 minutes because I knew that in another four or five minutes I just would have to say to FEAF that I was pulling the pilots out and face the consequences of a court martial.

We had an enormous amount of confusion in the Royal Air Force Command structure over there. There was a 224 Group which was regarded as a tactical group and the actual FEAF Headquarters itself. Now the FEAF Headquarters controlled the fighter operations - fighter interceptions as such. The 224 Group controlled ground tactical attack. 224 Group would order, for argument's sake, two squadrons of Sabres and we only had the 3 and 77 Squadrons there. Load up with drop tanks and the rockets and so forth ready for a strike. Half an hour later the fighter intercept would come on the air. Arm one squadron of Sabres for interception of Indonesian aircraft. And then the question arose. They all have drop tanks on them, what do we do? Do we take the drop tanks off, or do we ignore 224 Group? This was really nothing new to me because I'd been there during the Japanese war when we had the same sort of command problems.

Regarding the Sabres being called to stand upon alert. The storey came out later that the Indonesians had a number of Russian Badger aircraft. This was a twin-engine jet bomber aircraft. They had them across the Strait of Malacca, either at Palembang or Padang - somewhere over there. And they became a bit nervous evidently that with these Badgers on the airfield. They were fairly vulnerable if something happened and the Sabres and the Hunters were sent over in a huny. So about midday they began to load their bombs on these Badger aircraft and there was a fellow there with a radio and a pair of binoculars and he whistled up the word to Command Headquarters in Singapore and said: 'Hey, it looks like they're arming up to have a strike somewhere.' That's why all the Sabres were called to alert. What transpired was that the Indonesians were loading up the bombs on their aircraft to evacuate them to Borneo, somewhere out of the way. So this shows what can happen on the eve of a war. I think perhaps I'll leave it at that.

Regarding your comment about the lump of wood decking going through the alert hut. It was one of the squadron commanders. He shall remain nameless. But this was one of my major achievements. I had the hut surreptitiously repaired, because the OC Buttenvoah at that time was Air Commodore Bill Ford and he had his nose in everything. He liked to h o w everything that was going on. And, with the assistance of the English Public Service Works person, I managed to get the hut wall repaired and plastered up. As far as I h o w , Ford didn't h o w a thing about it.

Air Vice-Marshal Richardson: On the issue oftraining with war stores, you might think that perhaps that story was only applicable to the 1960s, but many years later I was given a job of proof firing full loads of DEFA gun ammunition out of a Mirage and I had repeated stoppages. On investigation we found out a fact that I believe many of the Squadron people didn't h o w : that you could not fill the Mirage gun pack up completely with a full load as advertised, otherwise it stopped because of the tight curvature of the belt of ammunition. I've always wonied about the fact that the first thing you would do in a real conflict is you would fill the damn things up, but nobody ever did, or very rarely ever did at Williamtown to my knowledge because of course you didn't use a 111 load for training. I believe you need to do that.

Doctor Alan Stephens: Rules of engagement is an issue that really focuses commanders' minds these days. As I recall the rules of engagement from the Confrontation period for fighter aircraft, they seemed pretty complex and rather difficult to interpret when you were sitting behind the controls of an aircraft. Could you comment on what the crew on the line thought about them and how you felt you might observe them if you had to?

Air Vice-Marshal Richardson: I can't remember them in detail but my recollection at the time was that they were so complex that they basically meant that you couldn't do anything other than get up there and get visual with any unidentified aircraft. When that was done you had to relay through Buttenvorth via some land line that wasn't always up to see if Far East Air Force Headquarters would give you permission to do what needed to be done. You could not fire a shot, as I recall, under any circumstances, even across the bows. I don't think we were allowed to fire the gun even as a warning shot without permission from FEAF. But to we pilot officers at the time, we just h e w that you couldn't do any damn thing until we got across to East Malaysia. There they clarified the rules of engagement to a great extent so that you could shoot anything down as long as it fell on our side of the border, which we thought was much healthier.

Air Vice-Marshal Graham Neil: If I can just add to the rules of engagement. I was at Buttenvorth between the Emergency and Confrontation. But, in June 1961, we had what was known as ADEX 30, which was when the Indonesians sought diplomatic clearance to ferry their Badger aircraft from Poland and from China. And both squadrons of 78 Wing were set up to intercept these aircraft. 77 Squadron stayed at Buttenvorth and 3 Squadron went down to Tengah. The mles of engagement that applied to us were that we had to follow the normal identification passes and make ourselves seen, waggle our wings, get them to land at the nearest airfield, and so on. But the byword at the end of it was that if you are fired upon, pull up and await linther instructions. This was great because it did require the controllers to get instmctions

from FEAF. We were down at Tengah and you can just imagine the paucity of international air space that exists between Singapore and Indonesia. We had to act pretty quickly. But I thought the worst thing about the rules of engagement was that the Australian Sabres were not allowed to he armed with anytbing but HE ammunition. We were not allowed to cany our Sidewinders. And the word from FEAF was that it was to ensure that anyone who was trigger-happy wouldn't loose off a missile. Very sad.

MS Noreen Dee: You mentioned the paucity of intelligence. Was this Australian intelligence or British intelligence? And if it was British, was it poor quality British intelligence or do you think it was more likely some problem with the level of consultation between Britain and Australia?

Air Vice-Marshal Ricbardson: Yes, thank you Noreen. I wish I could throw more light on that, but I'm afraid at my level intelligence was not provided. I suspect there are people in the audience who could answer that better. I assume it would have been British intelligence coming through but there would have been Australian intelligence officers involved at some stage, but, I suspect, not in the higher levels of command. We were really totally reliant on the British mechanisms for getting intelligence to us. Now whether the intelligence was just not there, or whether it was not disseminated, I don't know. And I'm not sure that anyone at Butterworth really knew. Is there anyone who was at FEAF at the time that might be able to help us?

Group Captain Herb Plenty: To set that in perspective all you need to understand is that when the Japanese started the war in 1941, we had no knowledge whatsoever of the Zero fighter and that was all because of British intelligence. Whatever information they had they had salted the mine and hadn't passed it on. When I got up there in 78 Wing in 1964 I found that the intelligence situation hadn't changed.

UBON

Air Vice-Marshal R.E. Trebilco

I appreciate the chance to address you today on Ubon, a place many of us got to know very well and like many such places in the past, a place vihally without an identity until our deployment in 1962. It is an airfield in the north-east of Thailand, situated about 50 kilometres from Laos, 80 kilometres from Cambodia and, during the Vietnam War, about 200 kilometres from the Ho Chi Minh trail, which was used extensively to resupply the Viet Minh in Vietnam. The Mun River, a major tributary of the Mekong and the scene of many a later boat race, flows through Ubon separating Ubon City from Warin City where the Royal Thai Army 6th Military Circle was based. You will see from this why in our early days Moon River became a popular squadron song. The Mekong River forms the border with Laos to the east and was a landmark readily visible to us when airborne. I was involved in the original deployment to Ubon and most of what I have to offer today relates to that early period. To the extent that I have to talk on subsequent events at Ubon, I have drawn heavily on the writing of Alan Stephens in his book Going Solo, for which I am grateful. I have also drawn on past conversations with those who succeeded me at Ubon as well as detailed notes provided in support of the submission to have Ubon declared a 'Special Area' in terms of the Repatriation (Special Overseas Service) Act. I have also included some slides of the 1964 - 65 period kindly loaned by Air Vice- Marshal Rogers.

In some ways the tale of our deployment to Ubon starts before the actual date of our amval in June 1962. 77 Squadron which was based at Butterworth in Malaya as part of the Five Power Defence Arrangements took part in the SEATO Exercise Air Progress in the latter two weeks of April 1962. The exercise was conducted in Thailand and we took over the base at Korat for the operation of our Sabres and four French Vautour aircraft. During the fortnight of intense air activity, we flew missions over the north-east area of Thailand including the air bases of Udom and Ubon and as far east as the Mekong River. We became very familiar with the terrain east of Korat and with the 400 foot plateau on which Ubon was situated. It was only later that I was to realise how valuable this knowledge, which had been acquired in Exercise Air Progress, would be.

At the time of the Ubon deployment, I was the 'A' Flight Commander of 77 Squadron and John Hubble was the Commanding Off~cer. The orieinal discussions on the ., ., deployment, the available intelligence and the actual situation in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand may have been known to Defence and Air and the Department of External Affairs, but, as so often happened in those days, no one thought it necessruy to brief the pilots either on the developing situation or, more importantly, the order of battle of the potential adversary. It is only later that one leams of SEATO Plans Four, Five and Six and why we came to deploy to Ubon. It has always amazed me, as a former intelligence officer and fighter pilot, that the information on which our tactics and

training should be based was either not available to aircrews on a need to know basis, or was held in a safe where its dissemination was actively discouraged due to security classifications; and that goes for the dissemination of political manoeuvrings as well, the results of which could see our forces involved. As a result, our tactics tended to be developed to handle any situation and were not specific for the threat we may have had to face. I would like to think that it is a little different now.

To return to the situation at Buttenvorth at the time, I was in Penang at the E & 0 Hotel on the Saturday morning when I received an urgent message to contact John Nubble at the base. I was told that confidential talks had taken place in Australia and at Butterworth, as a result of which an immediate deployment to Thailand was to occur as part of the SEATO response to meet a developing threat to that country from communist forces in Laos. It was quite a mystery to me as I had heard nothing since our deployment in April to indicate any dramatic change to the situation as it then was, but that could have been because of our isolation at Buttenvorth. As I found out later, the Minister for External Affairs, Sir Garfield Barwick, had announced in May 1962 that Australian forces would be based in Thailand to help maintain territorial integrity. On 28 May the Minister for Defence, Athol Townley, identified those forces as a squadron of Sabres. This then was the background to John Hubble's cryptic message to me in Penang. People were duly alerted and briefed under fairly tight security and the ground party set off to Ubon to erect tent city and prepare for the arrival of eight Sabres. While later we were of the view that we were answering a request from the Thai Government, in fact, this was not so. We were responding to American pressure and the deployment was seen as being a positive response in support of a valuable ally. Politically it was a sound move and one greatly appreciated by the Americans. The Thai Government merely formalised the move by announcing that an Australian squadron had deployed to Ubon.

I now wish to turn to the subject of the air move of our Sabres. As No. 77 Squadron we were part of the Commonwealth Strategic ReCenre in Malaya and our aircraft should not have been available for what could be a permanent deployment to Thailand as part of the SEATO force to which organisation Malaysia did not belong. To overcome this difficulty, however, it was decided that eight Sabres from 77 Squadron would fly to Tengah in Singapore, reform there as No. 79 Squadron which could then deploy to Ubon without ruffling any diplomatic feathers. Our understanding, however, was that everyone was in the picture and that the move was supported as being necessary as part of a positive SEATO response to the threat which could ultimately involve Malaya itself. One should remember that the domino theory on the possible successive loss of South-East Asian States was current at that time. The RAF belatedly, the USAF and US Marines immediately, all responded with their respective aircraft based at Chengmai, Takhli, Don Muang and Udorn in Thailand; SEATO for the fust time actuallv looked ca~able of res~ondine to anv threat. The fact that no - attack eventuated, other than insurgent activities in the northern provinces of Thailand, probably resulted in this immediate and positive response which the potential aggressor may have found somewhat unexpected and unusual at the time on the part of the SEATO members.

Since it was an operational deployment, our Sabres were armed with two live Sidewinders and a full load of 30mm ammunition. We flew from Butterworth on 28 May 1972 for Tengah, stayed overnight, reformed as Number 79 Squadron and flew from Tengah to Don Muang airfield at Bangkok on the 29 May. The actual flight to Ubon took place on 1 June by which time our airmen had erected tents and positioned stores so that the aircraft could be received and be operational if required. For this and future operations and provisioning of the base, we relied heavily on the excellent and continuous support provided by the C-130s from No. 36 Squadron. In the interim, we looked around Bangkok and tried to fmd out what in fact was the nature of the emergency. It seemed to boil down to troop movements on the Laotian side of the Mekong, some insurgency activity in the border regions of Thailand and just a general feeling of an unease throughout the country.

This was of little concern to us since we were more concerned in getting to Ubon, where we felt we would get a clearer picture of the threat. We could get little information about the base, however, or the nature of the surrounding countryside, or of the town itself. There was a 5,000 foot strip (it could have even been less than that actually from memory), a small American radar unit called Lion which was training the Royal Thai Air Force personnel, a non-directional beacon, jet fuel facilities and a control tower of sorts, but that was all. We understood that the governor of the province and some of the local dignitaries would be flying in from Korat together with the Australian Ambassador and the press to meet our Sabres on arrival. We were also told there would be little crowd control at the air field and that the Buddhist monks in saffron robes, interested locals and even cattle could all present problems in having a clear runway to land on.

At our briefing we were told that the weather at Ubon was clear and the visibility unlimited (CAVU); from memory this weather report was supplied by the Thai Navy in the Gulf of Thailand. We planned therefore, to fly at 10,000 feet on high revs so we would just have enough fuel to do one low-level formation run over Ubon for the assembled dignitaries and then land with relatively light aircraft on the short strip, made shorter, we understood, by not having any taxiway exits at the end of the runway. To complicate matters, we'd only been able to find two maps which went further than Korat and Korat is about half way to Ubon. So these were carried by Hubble as leader and by his number three Stu Fisher. We were not entirely happy with the map situation, but given the CAVU weather brief and the fact that there would be a high-level reception committee waiting for us at Ubon we decided to go. Well Murphy's Law was in full swing that day. Hubble lost his radio while taxiing for take-off at Don Muang and I took over the lead - one map down. During the climb Fisher also lost his radio - two maps down - and a course and ETA only left for Ubon. I still did not wony unduly as the weather report had been favourable. I was familiar with the geography of the area from Exercise Air Progress and there was anon- directional beacon at Ubon.

As we anived over Korat, however, the weather in the direction of Ubon was distinctly threatening with heavy thunderstorm activity both present and building rapidly. I had no success in getting the Ubon non-directional beacon, no RT calls were answered and we had no map. I could not just continue to overhead Ubon for

any instrument letdown as we had humt off excess fuel in preparation for the low level run over the base on arrival and a quick landing. Furthermore, there was no published letdown for the base. We could have landed at Korat, but the thought of the reception committee at Uhon and perhaps a degree of over confidence on my part resulted in the decision to continue and to try to DIR my way to Ubon, below or around or through the clouds across the plateau.

The area to the north around Udorn appeared to be relatively clear, so I turned off 60 degrees and let down to about 200 feet on the fringe of the cloud activity and tumed inbound for a timed run maintaining an approximate heading for Ubon. We picked our way around and through numerous heavy rain squalls, all the time trying to contact Ubon tower or the non-directional beacon. There was certainly no recognisable land features, but at least the land was flat. Fortunately the D R calculations worked out well and I picked up hoth the beacon, which was a really weak one, and the tower about two miles out and found the airfield. Prior to that, we did have some serious doubts as to whether we would make it, or whether there would be eight Sabres out-of-fuel spread over north-east Thailand. We had certainly passed any possibility of diverting to Udom or back to Korat.

Thankfully, we all reached Ubon, most of us on minimum fuel and landed on the wet runway between the interested public and the animals lining hoth sides. Hubble who landed as number eight was on emergency fuel as we hit initial, but of course could not tell anyone. I am sure he would have given me a burst if he could have. The weather in the area really was bad, so had in fact that the No. 36 Squadron '2-130 from Korat with the governor and the ambassador and the press onhoard had broken off their penetration attempt and retumed to Korat. That made us feel obviously much better, if perhaps a little fortunate.

Thus started our time in Uhon. It was a fascinating period. We flew patrols, intercepts with the F-100s and the F-101s of the USAF, a lot of navexes and tac recces to familiarise ourselves with the rather arid and featnreless terrain of north-east Thailand, GCIs and PP1 letdowns with Lion control, and air-to-air combat practice. While we did not mind helping the Royal Thai Air Force operators under training at Lion gain valuable radar experience, we did insist on there being an American operator on the scope during actual instrument recoveries, as we had found to our horror that the Royal Thai Air Force operator had the nasty habit of going totally quiet at the most demanding pmt of an actual recovery, refusing to talk or answer, and Leaving us uncertain to say the least. We rarely had the luxury of excess fuel on recovery, so the last thing we needed was radio silence during the latter part of the letdown.

For the record, our high-level, high-speed practice interceptions were done with the target aircraft flying at Mach.9 at 48,000 feet. And the attacker at 46,000 feet at Mach.93 for the Sidewinder attack. These maximum performance GCIs were of great value and a contidence-builder. What was also reassuring was that in all our intercepts with the F-100s and the F-lOls, our missile and gun tactics both high and low-level were proving superior and USAF pilots continued to express surprise at the performance envelope of the Avon Sabre and its tactical application. We certainly

had come a long way since Korea. They also expressed surprise at our full internal fuel load of 3,200 pounds, as that was almost their Bingo fuel figure, while we were just starting our mission.

We were to rotate at two-monthly intervals at 79 Squadron with both squadrons at Buttemrth initiallv taking turns for the aircrew mannine and with the Wing

U U U

providing the maintenance rotation. Later, when a base squadron was formed, manning took place from Australia and the tour became longer. The aircraft rotation technique is worth a special mention. We flew replacement aircraft from Butterworth, but we needed to maintain the charade that 79 Squadron was a separate unit to the Bunerwarth ones. Accordingly, when we needed to rotate aircraft, we usually did so two at a time and took the opporhmity to exchange two pilots as well. A Canberra from 2 Squadron at Butterworth would schedule a navex to and from Korat. The exchange Sabres would fly in formation with the Canberra flying close formation as the Canberra approached overhead Korat. There they would be met by the two pilots and aircraft returning to Butterworth who would exchange positions in formation on the Canberra which would then return to Butterworth. The replacement pilots would continue to Ubon as though they had been the original pair just doing an intercept on the Canberra. Again, I am sure everyone knew what was going on, although as far as the radar return was concerned, it was still the one large blip representing the Canberra and the Sabres, but it did meet both SEATO and Malaya's requirements without obviously breaching any agreement. The ground staff had no such problems and were regularly flown by direct transport flights by 36 Squadron staging through Bunerworth, as were pilots when an aircraft exchange was not necessary.

One of the more interesting events which occurred shortly after setting up the base was a visit by King Bumiphol and Queen Sirikit of Thailand. I led a flight which escorted the royal visitors to Ubon. After we landed we then had to hurry to the tent lines still in our flying gear to be presented to their majesties and to he thanked for our contribution to the security of their country. Dennis Warner, the war correspondent, also visited the base, as did Wal Crouch, another correspondent, and articles on the deployment and the situation at Ubon duly appeared in the press at home.

After we'd been at Ubon for a short time a Thai T-28 squadron joined us. They did not seem to mind initially which way they took off and landed irrespective of the duty runway, which was a bit disconcerting. Their disciplme in other areas, however, was very strict. Taxi errors such as departing the taxiway even slightly meant 28 days in the cells on bread and water, or the Thai equivalent. We would jokingly threaten our pilots with similar punishment. But that sort of discipline is the norm for the Thai military. Shortly after our arrival, John Hubble and I went to pay our respects to the Colonel of the 6th Military Circle headquartered in Ubon. Colonel Tawal was a keen tennis player and invited us to the base for a game. During our frequent visits, thereafter, we would regularly see Thai soldiers in ankle irons and chains sweeping various areas of the base, including the holes of the miniature golf course. Colonel Tawal explained that this was routine punishment for even the smallest misdemeanour - late on parade, uniform or appearance not immaculate, and so forth. Apart from our jeep, the normal transport to and from the base was the Samloh, or rickshaw.

On another occasion, during a SEATO conference of the military representatives held in Ubon, we went to see the Australian representative. Just as we arrived outside the door of the building where the conference was held, we saw a Thai military police about to shoot a Thai civilian who was on his hands and knees on the footpath. The civilian was in a restricted area and as was the practice in those days, particularly in the sensitive northern regions, infiltrators were shot on the spot. Fortunately, we were able to intervene through our Australian representative at the conference, and the person was escorted away, hopefully to be spared, but I would not be certain.

An amusing incident occurred one night early in our tour - at least it was amusing in hindsight. We had left our mess tent relatively late as there was nothing else to do in the evenings except play cards and have a few drinks, mainly the local Singha beer (12 per cent), or the Mekong whisky (even more lethal) and I seemed to have barely fallen asleep when Hubble rushed into my tent and told me to get all the pilots down to the flight line immediately. The Lion control had reported 40 plus slow-moving blips approaching Thailand from across the Mekong. This was about 3.30 or 4.00 am. I did try to establish whether we had any intelligence input indicating a build-up, but John was in no mood for questions. He just wanted to get the pilots down to the flight line ready for take off. Well we eventually scrambled two fully armed Sabres right on first light. They intercepted the blips and flew round and round in ever decreasing circles in the prevailing fog or low-level cloud, completely circling three of the blips, but seeing absolutely nothing. The blips in fact were a spurious radar return, which occurred again later. They were certainly not invading helicopters or the like. In the confusion to get the pilots and the maintenance crews to the flight line in the pitch dark, a 44 gallon tank of fuel was overturned and set alight near one of the tents at transport section. So it was really quite a time.

While at Ubon we did take the opportunity to gain reliable consumption figures for the JP4 fuel we were using and which we would be using, as 77 Squadron, on return from Clark Air Base in the Philippines to Buttenvorth in the near future. Fuel flow and flight times did not seem to match those we knew for our normal fuel. Accordingly, we flew some long range trials around Thailand. However, airborne times seemed essentially the same for a full tank of either fuel even though the fuel flow figures did not match. Now instead of going from Buttenvorth via Tan Son Nhut at Saigon, which had been the previous route for the deployment for Clarke Air Base, I felt we should be going to Clark via Ubon since that was where our ground staff were. And that we did on our next deployment after I retumed to Butternorth. Flying a tight battle formation, instead of our former, rather loose and straggly one, and using the knowledge gained through the flights around Thailand, we found that we had fuel to spare both to and from Clark and Ubon. In fact on the way back we could have overflown Ubon and made Don Muang at Bangkok comfortably, even though we had already flown 2 hours 20 minutes to Ubon. So there was some pretty vital information for future flights using the JP4 fuel.

Another benefit of the Ubon deployment came a little later once aircrews from both 3 and 77 Squadrons began to mix at Ubon, rather than come from the one squadron at Buttenvorth. The exchange of views on air-to-air combat both offensive and defensive, the opportunity to try out those views among ourselves and against the

USAF centnry fighters (F-loos, F-lOls), and the closeness of our mess life for animated discussions helped immeasurably in the development of missile and gun tactics. This in turn was reflected in the professional levels back at Butterworth (and I am sure in the succeeding years of Ubon during practice air combat with the F-4s) where previously squadrons had tended to develop their own tactics, each believing them to be the most appropriate.

During 1963, as an acting Wing Commander and OC at Ubon, I had discussions with the Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Thai Air Force on our possible commitment to an integrated air defence of Thailand. This caused me some strife with Air Commodore Phil Ford who was OC Butterworth at the time. My directive from the Air Board as OC Ubon and CO 79 Squadron placed me operationally under direct control of the RAAF Chief of Air Staff, not OC Butterworth. Hence, when I negotiated the terms of our commitment to the air defence plan, I sought and obtained approval direct from the Chief of Air Staff, but did not advise OC Bufierworth. I did not see any need to, really, because the hours to be flown for our air defence purposes were within our normal allocation. I was merely changing the nature of the daily program, not increasing it with hours or personnel in any way, nor varying the maintenance or support requirements. Phil Ford thought I should have sought his approval as he was administratively and logistically responsible for the squadron, and he was most upset. It took a letter of explanation which I and Rus Law who was then CO base squadron carefully drafted to provide an answer before I was forgiven.

Over the 18 months that I knew Ubon, it was converted from a temporary tent city to a much more permanent establishment with much more substantial domestic and working buildings. It now looked l i e an air base with permanent quarters and messes and with recreational facilities. Although I was not involved in the detailed planning of the improvements, it was common knowledge that the Department of Works' contractors who carried them out initially resisted any idea of providing an air conditioned environment in the flight line crew hut. They said that in Darwin adequate cooling was provided by huts with double side eves and fly wire screening. It took quite some time to convince them that Ubon had a continental climate, not a humid one like Darwin, and that such a climate required air conditioning in the hot dry summer months. It was interesting to see the USAF approach to a problem such as this: they flew in an environment-friendly mobile van for aircrew, a solution made necessary for them to meet temporary deployment requirements and, more particularly, 'alert' states requiring fresh air crew.

I spent just over six months at Ubon in stages over an 18-month period and feel ,

fortunate to have seen it develop from a bare base into an integral part of the Thai air defence scene. We now had a base squadron and airmen on 12 months' deployment from Australia rather than the base being manned entirely from Butterworth as originally occurred. Although I did not see it in its final form, when it served as a major base for the USAF 8th Tactical Fighter Wing F-4 Phantoms, I felt that, over the 18 months 1 had seen the base develop, it had proven to be an effective contributor to the air defence of Thailand. It was very much a major contributor to the SEATO requirement for territorial security under SEATO Plan 5 and it housed a force very much on friendly and helpful terms with the local populace.

That probably covers most of the activities associalcd with Ubon in the early days. The deployment showed our commitment to SEATO and, as we developed the base, it provided yet again a great opportunity to cement the close working relationships we had with the Americans in World War I1 and Korea. The relations with the radar unit Lion were very close. Additionally, the odd Air America aircraft would occasionally transit through Ubon in a highly clandestine fashion and while we were aware of its activities, we never pursued direct questioning. We were aware of US operations across the border in Laos and also the occasional skirmishes involving the Thai border police taking place to the south in the border area. I would like to think that our RAAF presence gave a measure of confidence to all those activities.

Finally, I believe we successhlly built and maintained an operational base from scratch. We flew effective training missions with the exception only of the air-to- ground weapons sorties, we ate the local vegetables after they were washed in Condy's crystals and we avoided eating the local river fish for fear of liver fluke. We also installed a one burning and one turning 40 gallon drum toilet system which was the envy of the Americans. We installed our own electricity and water filtration plant and we maintained close and harmonious relations with the local populace despite the difficulties of language. I should mention that our field toilet system was the envy of the Americans. They had specially flown in porcelain toilet bowls and installed a first class system over on their side of the base. Unfortunately, they had forgotten to ensure a steady and reliable supply of local water and, when this ran out, they finished up with a totally useless and embarrassing system. We were then visited by the three- star US Army General Commanding the US Army in Thailand for an inspection of our system. His staff officer took copious notes including an approximate cost and he was impressed to the extent of saying that he would have a similar system installed at other bases in Thailand.

And now for the period about which I have read and been told in various sessions, but of which I have no practical knowledge and 1 hope you'll forgive the change in style from the personal to the impersonal. In June 1965,79 Squadron officially became part of the filly integrated Royal Thai Air Force-USAF air defence system for Thailand, which, while under the nominal control of the Royal Thai Air Force, was operationally dominated by the USAF. Thus the early discussions I had with the Thai Chief of Air Staff in 1963 came to a practical head with the arrival of the F-4s to Ubon. The RAAF maintained two aircraft armed with Sidewinders and 30mm cannon on alert status 5 from dawn to dusk seven days a week, a situation filly endorsed by the Air Board. For all that, however, and not withstanding any Air Board directives, the real authority over what the RAAF did rested with the USAF Director of Operations at the TOC at Don Muang in Bangkok. He decided which fighters of the integrated system would be scrambled and under what circumstances. I will not comment on what should or should not have been constituted a 'hostile act' in Thailand allowing intercepting aircraft to engage, but suffice to say that in Thailand, as elsewhere in circumstances short of a declared war, the position for the fighter pilot was extremely uncertain.

79 Squadron was forbidden to cross any of the Thai borders, so no activities in support of American actions in Laos were permitted, and in its air defence role, it was restricted bv rules of eneaeement to attacks aeainst an aircraft which had committed a - 'hostile act' in Thailand. Most of the daily flying was routine trainmg, although several hot scrambles were in fact initiated. One involved an intercept of a high flying Mach 1.4 aircraft identified by our pilots during the climb as a ~ i g - 2 1 . ~nfo&nately for our pilots, two F-4s were diverted to finish the intercept and the Mig was subsequently shot down by a missile from one of them. Restrictions on the air defence role for the RAAF in terms of the rules of engagement and hot pursuit across the Mekong gradually saw more and more intercepts being allocated to the USAF. While undoubtedly galling for the squadron pilot when he knew that the RAAF was actively engaged in operations in Vietnam, that was the situation. Some respectability was restored, however, when the RAAF Sabres were asked to intercept F-4s returning from missions over Hanoi. The F-4s were engaging Mig-17s over Hanoi and the practice and knowledge gained by the USAF pilots in practice air-to-air combat with the Sabres on return to Ubon proved invaluable. RAAF air-to-air tactics were sound and had been developed to a high level in the early 1960s at Butterworth and refined later at Ubon. Accordingly, the contribution was greatly appreciated by the USAF pilots.

The base, which had been given permanent accommodation and recreational facilities in 1963, also had by now a protective system and extensive barbed wire fences and sandbag bunkers. While the USAF was not allowed to patrol outside the perimeter, RAAF airfield guards were, in an area seven kilometres to the north, and the security they were able to provide against an estimated potential terrorist threat of some 1,200 insurgents was a sound contribution to the overall security of the base. They also established close relations with the villages in that area through their patrol activities. Furthermore, civil aid action which saw building projects completed, school requirements met and medical assistance provided, meant the provision of intelligence of a helpful nature and general acceptance of the patrolling of the guards in what was otherwise a highly suspect insurgent area. It would certainly be fair to say that the RAAF deployment at Ubon went far beyond a routine peacetime operation. There was the constant tension associated with the day and night operations of the F-4s, the frequent red or yellow alert status of the base, and the constant flow of intelligence indicating insurgency threats in the area. Allied to all this was the frequent appearance of IL28s in the Laotian Ubon area and the threats on the radio by Hanoi Hanna for the Australians at Ubon.

In 1968, six years after our eventful arrival at tent city at Ubon, the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Defence Committee agreed that the unit's presence in Ubon had outlived its political and military usefulness, particularly with the restrictions on the air defence role of the Sabres, and the fact that they occupied valuable t m a c space which could be used by the USAF. After discussions with the Thai and American authorities, the unit ceased alert status on the 26 July 1968 and'was fully withdrawn by the end of August.

The extended deployment had been extremely important politically as it showed continued support for the alliance with the United States; it cemented operational relations with the USAF despite the restrictions of having to operate within Thailand; and it gave a large number of young RAAF personnel a taste of war, albeit precariously in viewing F-4 operations and in mixing with their American counterparts in off-duty activities. I find it very satisfying to see some limited recognition of the RAAF's contribution at Ubon between 1965 and 1968 for repatriation benefits and I wish those still fighting for complete recognition every success. In latter years, Ubon was anything but a peacetime base and the RAAF's involvement there during that time deserves the recognition now being sought.

DISCUSSION

Squadron Leader Bill Crompton: Considering how close you were to combat operations had things gone other than they did, what survival and escape and evasion training were the pilots given?

Air Vice Marshall Trebilco: You mean for Malaya or for Ubon? The answer is absolutely none for Uhon. I guess that thought never crossed our minds. A fighter pilot goes to war being very confident in his ability to survive. Thoughts about escape and evasion sort of come after the event. I mean, even in Korea we didn't have any escape and evasion briefings at all before people were actually shot down and suddenly it became a topical subject. And it certainly wasn't mentioned during my time there. The answer is none. In Malaya we did have some escape and evasion or evasion and escape which ever way you want to put it, but certainly not for the Thailand deployment.

Group Captain Herb Plenty: It's time for a bit of humour, I feel. 79 Squadron had an accident at Ubon. This must have been in 1965, I think. Flight Lieutenant Don McFarland was out on a tactical recce around the place. About 50 miles from the base, he began to lose power. It was obvious that he would not be able to fly the aircraft back to the base, so he began reciting his will to the fellow in the tower over the RT. I think Bob Richardson has a recording of this actually. Anyhow, he bailed out of the Sabre and down it went. An American chopper hrought him back to the base, but he was basically unhurt. At this stage 79 Squadron was still under my jurisdiction. Subsequently, they removed it entirely from 78 Wing but we were still required to provide maintenance support and change personnel and so forth. Anyhow, they hrought McFarland back to the base and the question arose - what caused the engine failure? I decided that perhaps if we got the engine back, it would be of some assistance.

Bruce Martin had a clutch of Iroquois choppers at Butterworth - four or five, I think, maybe half a dozen - and I persuaded Bruce to take a chopper to Ubon and see if he could retrieve the engine. So off he went, much to my surprise. He arrived at Ubon and took two or three people aboard and went out searching for the engine. They found the crash sight, but no engine. So they ran around for a while, and they found

that the local Thais, or these fellows in saffron robes or whatever, had collected the engine and they'd taken it and put it in one of their temples, and it had become a religious icon. Now this is a fact. Bruce and his boys had great difficulty in extracting this damaged engine from the temple, and from the Thais. They weren't about to part with iS it was bringing them marvellous luck and all sorts of good omens. I think Brute and his boys had to part with a certain number of Baht before they got the engine. Anyhow, they got the engine and brought it back to Ubon. It was loaded on a '2-130 and brought back to Australia, where it was found that a small bolt, a little quarter inch bolt, had gone down the spout, probably picked up on a hardstanding or on the runway at Ubon. It had damaged the compressor, and this is why he lost power.

Ubon was at one stage under command of 78 Wing, except for operational control, where we refined this business of swapping over. We didn't need the Canberra, we just turned around halfway and come back. It wasn't fooling anybody. Obviously the Malaysians knew about it. But then somebody in Australia must have got cold feet, and about halfway through my tour there, Ubon was taken completely away from 78 Wing. You know, Gilbert and Sullivan would have had a wonderful time, because I was responsible for maintaining the aircraft, for supplying their aircraft, for supplying their crews and all the rest of it. But once they'd gone, we had nothing to do with it. In fact, Ubon created a little bit of a problem so far as the Royal Air Force Far East Command in Singapore was concerned. The Sabres normally put in a daily status reports, where we had operational serviceability of 80 per cent, 86 per cent, 82 per cent, 83 per cent and something of that sort. The Hunters down at Don Muang and the Javelins at Butterworth - well let me say, they were just below 50 per cent, but nearer 30 per cent - and I was accused of not having the aircraft at Buttenvorth completely operationally serviceable, in their words, falsifying the accounts. And then, when we said, no that's not so, they said, well you were sending all the ones not fully operationally equipped to Ubon and you're just replaneing the others at Butterworth. This was quite comical, but it became quite a serious argument, until eventually the chief statistician in FEAF a civilian, a Mr Dell, I remember the name quite well, decent chap, was sent to Butterworth to have a look at how we were compiling our statistics. He spent five days there. He went through all the records, whatever he could find. He went down to the equipment store to see whether the material was coming in from Australia, and he had to give up, he had to say, yes, it is a genuine 82 per cent operational status that you've been maintaining. So once again, you remember Bob, you said that I didn't have a lot of tact with the RAF, but I say I had a lot of tact, but sometimes I lost patience with them.

Air Vice-Marshal Bob Richardson: More a quick observation, Ray. You mentioned about the arrangements for cooperation with the USAF. I remember in 1965, our fighter combat instructor Mick Fice spending quite a lot of time with the USAF actually giving them formal lectures, in a lecture room, teaching the crews about visual air combat tactics, because they'd been getting the odd aircraft shot down in combat in North Vietnam. They had had absolutely no training, as I recall, in air- to-air combat tactics, because they had been trained to expect to operate in a full radar-controlled environment, which they didn't have in North Vietnam. So they were actually most appreciative, of not only the air-to-air training we did with them,

but actually formal training in tactics - and of course the other side of the coin was what we learned of the capabilities of the F4C. What an extraordinq aircraft compared to our old Sabre! An aircraft that was doing up to tenhour missions with ten 750 pound bombs, missiles, external tanks, ten-hour missions with several air refuellings! Compare that with the capability we had. It was, of course, a portent of what was to come. But when you think of an aircraft back in 1965 that was taking over its own pilot-controlled intercept at 100 nautical miles head-on to a Sabre - in fact, that capability hardly exists even now to do that - that was a remarkable capability for 1965.

Air Vice-Marshal Trebilco: Thanks for those comments. I don't have anything further to add to that. I know the Americans, from what I've read, did appreciate very much their association with us. The fact that we weren't able to go across the Mekong into Laos or anywhere else was long since forgotten with the fact that we were able to operate and operate very extensively with their aircraft coming back from Hanoi.

CLOSING COMMENTS

Air Marshal L.B. Fisher

I would just like to make a few Oh~e~a t iOn~ . Firstly of course, the major observation is the high quality of the speakers and the excellent manner in which they presented their papers today. I think you would all agree that it was a very high-quality conference. And certainly from my perspective I am totally satisfied with the day's proceedings and see it as a highly successful conference. I think the scene-setting by Peter Edwards was very interesting. I might add that, during the time of Confrontation and the initial stages of Vietnam, I had a totally different view of the world as a junior officer in the maritime empire. In fact, I was very much part of the SEATO preparations for the war with China. And, indeed, there were major exercises going on in the Western Pacific with battle carrier groups prepared and convinced that in fact the next major war would he with China. So there was a different perspective depending on where you were at the time.

I was interested in what Mike Evans told us about the Malayan Emergency. His views on the value of bombing certainly suited my prejudices, as I guess it did for most of the people in the audience today. But the jury will be out for some time on the value of the bombing offensive. In relation to Alan Stephens' and John Mordike's presentations, I was surprised at the quite fundamental changes that took place in the RAAF during the period 1953 to 1965. Those fundamental changes affected everything. The overall strategy for the defence of Australia, the organisation of the aircraft, the move to a functional form, force structure and infrastructure, education and training, all those things were significant developments of this period. Those fundamentals are still basically in place with only, 1 think, variations on the theme. And those changes that took place were, I think, excellent for the time. For those of you in the audience that were involved in the decisions that took place then, I thank you very much. You did an excellent job and set the Air Force on an expansion and an increasing capability that serves Australia well today.

I might add, in the education and training side of the things, the College became the Academy a little earlier than what John thought. It was actually started in 1959 and I was one of the casualties of that change. It was quite an extraordinary example of how not to implement a new training scheme and serves as a good lesson to all of us. As all leaders know, we like to implement things yesterday but fast changes are not the way to go about our business. Changes have to he thought through and implemented with care.

I would like to make a brief comment in relation to the use of Reservists as aircrew, an issue which arose in today's proceedings. I must admit, I probably have a different view to a number of people in the audience. I think Reserve aircrew can play an

important part in the RAM, like they do in the other Services. And certainly the Royal Air Force and ourselves are both examining that issue again. I know that there is a lot of prejudice against it, but it is prejudice, I think, that we have to get over.

We had an interesting presentation on the RAAF Museum. David Gardner has brought a totally professional approach to the RAAF Museum. I would stress again, if you had not had the opportunity to see the Museum at Point Cook, you will be amazed at the developments that have taken place and the advanced techniques David has used to present the exhibitions. I think it is quite extraordinary. We are limited by resources in what we can do with the museum and I do worry about it in view of the pressures of the current Defence Reform Program. I also w o w about the restoration resources. We also have the Australian War Memorial doing quite a bit of restoration and I am concerned that we coordinate our restoration with the Australian War Memorial so that we are not restoring similar things.

Of course there is no better way to hear history than from the individuals who took part in it all, and I found that highly interesting and entertaining and I thank both those gentlemen. The weapons problem that Bob Richardson described with the Sabre continued with the Mirage aircraft. In fact we have had aircraft problems with weapons, we have had missile problems in the weapons area and we have had procedural problems in more recent days with the Harpoon missile. As Bob said, you have got to be out there firing these things regularly to make sure they work and work as expected. Bob mentioned also that we were limited to day flying. That was the case, but we did demand high standards of our people. You must remember, even today, there are people in the South-East Asian region, that when there is a bit of cloud around, or night-time comes around, they are most reluctant about getting into the air. There is a view that given the quality of the instrumentation in aircraft these days and the quality of sensors, there is no need to practise flying at night. I disagree totally with that view. I might add that for the interest of those who did participate in the Ubon operation that I had the opportunity in May this year to affix a plaque at Ubon with considerable help of the Royal Thai Air Force in recognition of the participation of 79 Squadron and the base squadron in the operation at Ubon.

I now wish to thank those people who have made a contribution to this conference. Of course today's conference was organised by the Air Power Studies Centre. I would like to thank the Director Group Captain Brent Crowhurst for the efforts of his staff. I would especially like to thank Mrs Sandra Di Guglielmo for the interest she takes each year in ensuring that all things m smoothly for speakers and participants. I would also like to thank, on your behalf, Air Commodore Brent Espeland for the excellent job of chairing today's proceedings. Once again, the speakers, make these sorts of conferences and they deserve a special mention. It takes a considerable effort to research and write these papers. And I am sure that there are many here today who have learnt from what they have heard. Thanks to the speakers for their vital contribution.

Finally, I would like to thank you all for attending and for participating. I trust that you have benefited from the experience. As was the case in previous years, you will each receive a bound copy of the papers and proceedings. It is anticipated that next

year's conference will take place on the 30th of October, but this is subject to confirmation. And, as I mentioned in my opening comments at the beginning of today's conference, the subject will be The RAAF In Vietnam. I am sure that it will be of considerable interest to all of us. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation.