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How Not to Run an Air Force! -The Higher Command of the Royal Australian Air Force During the Second World War

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How Not to Run an Air Force! -The Higher Command of the Royal Australian Air Force During the Second World War How NOTTO RUN AN AIR FORCE! THEHIGHER COMMAND OF THE ROYAL AUSTRALIANAIR FORCE DURINGTHE SECONDWORLD WAR O Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2000 This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without permission from AusInfo. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Manager, Legislative Services, AusInfo, GPO Box 84, Canberra ACT 2601. First published in 2000 by: Air Power Studies Centre RAAF Base Fairbairn ACT 2600 Australia National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Ashworth, Norman, 1933- . How not to run an air force! -the higher command of the Royal Australian Air Force during the second world war Bibliography Includes index ISBN 0 642 26550 X (vol. 1) ISBN 0 642 26551 8 (vol. 2) 1. World War, 1939-1945 - Australia. 2. World War, 1939-1945 - Australia - Sources. 3. Strategy - History - 2oth century. 4. Australia- History, Military - 1939- 1945 - Sources. 5. Australia - History - 1939-1945 - Sources I.Australia. Royal Australian Air Force. Air Power Studies Centre. 11. Title. (Series: Heritage series (Canberra ACT)). Other titles in the series: Secret Action of 305 Smith & Coghlan Winner of the 1988 Heritage Award The RAAF Mirage Story Compiled by Wing Commander M.R. Susans Winner of the 1989 Heritage Award Alfresco Flight - The RAAFAntarctic Experience David Wilson Winner ofthe 1990 Heritage Award Edge of Centre - The eventj5l life of Group Captain GeraldPacker Chris Coulthard-Clark Winner of the 1991 Heritage Award Beaufighters Over New Guinea - No. 30 Squadron RAAF 1942-1943 George Turnball Dick Winner of the 1992 Heritage Award Defeat to Victory -No. 453 Squadron RAAF John Bennett Winner of the 1993 Heritage Award Not to be Shot at or Exported -An Airman's Letters Home 1942-1945 Leslie Howard Sullivan Winner of the 1994 Heritage Award Odd Jobs - RAAF Operations in Japan, The Berlin Airlif7, Korea, Malaya and Malta 1946.1960 Steve Eather Winner of the 1995 Heritage Award McNamara VC -A Hero's Dilemma Chris Coulthard-Clark Winner of the 1996 Heritage Award Skylarks - The Lighter Side oflife in the RAAF in World War I1 Eric Brown Winner of the 1997 Heritage Award Up and Away - Memoirs of a Pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force 1950-1981 John Jacobs Winner of the 1998 Heritage Award Contents Maps, Figures and Photographs vii Foreword ix Acknowledgments xi.. Introduction Xlll Time Line xv Summaq xix Section One - The British Connection 1 Prewar 2 Early Developments 3 Reorganisation 4 Functional Commands Section One - Conclusion Section Two -The American Connection 5 Higher Command of the War 6 A Marriage Proposal 7 Drawing up the Contract 8 The Minister Objects 9 Search For a New Leader 10 A Divided Organisation 11 Dual Leadership Section Two Conclusion Section Three - Some Adjustments 12 Air Board Lives On l3 Two New Formations Section Three Conclusion Section Four - An Impossible Situation l4 The Opening Shots l5 A Posting for Bostock 16 Air Officer Commanding, RAAF 17 Gone But Not Forgotten 18 The Controversy Drags On 19 And Into 1945 20 The Final Chapter 21 Postscript Section Four Conclusion Overview Appendixes Appendix A Senior Officers of the RAAF Appendix B Air Order of Battle 3othApril 1942 Appendix C Senior Command and Staff Appointments Bibliography List of Documents in Volume TWO Index Maps, Figures and Photographs Maps 3.1 RAAF Area Commands 1940 5.1 The ABDA and Anzac Areas 5.2 The Pacific Theatre 12.1 RAAF Area Command Boundaries, June 1943 18.1 Proposed Area Command Boundaries Figur.es 1 Higher Organisation of the RAAF as at August 1945 xxiv 1.1 Organisation of the Royal Australian Air Force, August 1939 4 3.1 Goble's Proposal for the Organisation of the RAAF 25 7.1 Attachment to Memorandum of Measures, dated 20" March 1942 72 Organisation of Combined Air Forces in Australia - Annex A to Memorandum of Measures 73 Organisation of Combined Air Forces in Australia - Attachment to Letter from the Commanding General USAFIA 79 Organisation of Combined Air Forces in Australia - Annex A to Letter from the Minister for Air 82 Proposed Organisation of Allied Air Headquarters - Annex A to Memorandum of Organisation of Allied Air Forces 91 Organisation of Combined Air Forces in Australia Annex B to Memorandum of Organisation of Allied Air Forces 92 Royal Australian Air Force: Organisation Prior to Formation of Allied Air Headquarters 130 Royal Australian Air Force: Proposed Organisation After Formation of Allied Air Headquarters 131 Organisation of the Royal Australian Air Force on a Functional Basis, with Higher Command Superimposed 133 Royal Australian Air Force Proposed Reorganisation on Geographic Basis - October 1943 216 Royal Australian Air Force Proposed Reorganisation on Geographic Basis -August 1944 230 Simplified Organisation of the Royal Australian Air Force, Early 1942 284 Simplified Organisation of the Allied Air Forces, Mid 1942 285 Simplified Organisation of the Allied Air Forces, Early 1943 286 Possible Organisation of the Allied Air Forces with AOC, RAAF 287 Possible Alternative Organisation of Allied Air Forces, 1943 298 viii Photographs Air Vice-Marshal Stanley Goble, circa 1943 Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Bumett, RAF Air Vice-Marshal William Anderson Air Board, February 1940 Air Board, mid-l941 The Hon. John McEwen and Air Marshal Richard Williams, September 1941 Air Commodore George Jones, April 1942 Air Vice-Marshal Henry Wrigley Air Vice-Marshal William Bostock, March 1944 Air Vice-Marshal George Jones and General George Kenney, July 1945 Foreword Air Marshal Ray Funnell (Ret'd) The Second World War was a defining event in the development of Australia's air force. Founded as a very small force in the aftermath of the First World War, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) struggled to maintain its separate existence throughout the 1920s and the depression years of the early 1930s. The RAAF of those years was hardly a force of any significance. The rise and increasing power and belligerence of Fascism and Nazism in the i mid-1930s led to greater national emphasis on security and increased spending on defence. Even so, the expansion of the RAAF was modest, from a force of 800 regulars in 1934 to one of 3,500 in 1939. What happened then was extraordinary. In five years the service expanded 50 times in numbers and in even greater proportions in terms of capabilities. A token force became one of great power, responsibility, and organisational complexity. Although many of its members had seen combat in the First World War, until 1939 the RAAF itself had never been engaged in combat. In these circumstances, if the RAAF were to perform effectively and give the Australian people the air power they needed, its leadership and management had to be of the highest quality. How the RAAF and the people who led and managed it performed during those critical years is the subject of this work by Air Commodore Norman Ashworth. With a keen and well-practised eye for the significant, and a critical but objective capacity for judging what he sees, Air Commodore Ashworth has set before his readers an account that is both interesting and educational. Although students of the development of the RAAF have been well aware of the organisational and functional issues and difficulties within the service during the critical years of the early 1940s, I have not seen until now such a comprehensive account of the events, the organisational arrangements and rearrangements, and the inter-personal interactions which formed the wartime RAAF. The methodology is both interesting and effective. Using documentary sources (files, documents, books, and official histories), the author describes the actual events with commendable objectivity. He then comments on those events and offers opinions and judgments. The account starts in 1939. From there, we are guided through the complex arrangements needed to expand the force and undertake the major task of providing air crews to the RAF for the war in Europe through the Empire Air Training Scheme. Hardly had the expansion of those tasks gathered momentum than the service was required to develop a fighting force to defend the homeland and prosecute the war against Japan. The account continues through the years of greatest combat activity (1942-45) and concludes with the return of Australian forces to national command on 2 September 1945. Throughout these years, the RAAF recruited, trained, equipped and operated in highly dynamic and increasingly complex combat and operational environments. In his final Overview chapter, Air Commodore Ashworth offers a summary critique of both decisions and people and gives his view of what lessons we should draw from these great events. This work shows in bold relief both the virtues and the faults of Australia and Australians, the nation and its people. It tells how in a remarkably short time a small and insignificant air force of a nation that was essentially agricultural and pastoral expanded to a combat force of size, complexity and great power supported by a highly developed manufacturing and logistics base. The organisational, leadership and management skills needed for that were remarkable and must he acknowledged. The story also, however, describes squabbles, inter-personal animosities, pettiness and sheer bloody-mindedness that diminished those who were so involved. The best-known example of inter-personal dysfunction, to which the author devotes considerable attention, was the relationship between the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal George Jones, and the RAAF's senior operational commander, Air Vice-Marshal William Bostock. The dispiriting combination of politics, personality and pettiness that characterised that relationship makes for a sad and sobering tale. Such behaviour must never be allowed to happen again. The RAAF of today is a very different force from that which Air Commodore Ashworth surveys in this volume.
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