The Evolution of AIR MATERIEL COMMAND By AIR VICE MARSHAL C. L ANNIS, OBE Air Officer Commanding, Air Materiel Command spent the first 22 years of my RCAF career in a variety of operational and staff appointments far removed from I Air Materiel Command or its forbears. The four years I have since passed within AMC itself have been fascinating years of discovery. It is mostly having in mind our RCAF personnel who have never served a tour in AMC that I am composing this article at the request of The Roundel. Reprinted from Roundel Volume 4, Number 4, May 1962 Summer 2008 THE CANADIAN AIR Force JOURNAL 65 Air Materiel Command Headquarters, Rockcliffe, Ont. Expressed in the most modern terms, the have been provisioning and quality control. role of AMC is to accomplish, with utmost Provisioning is the computing, specifying and economy, an adequate materiel logistic budgeting for what the procuring agency is to support of the RCAF’s operating and training procure; quality control is the inspection and commands, i.e. of the stations and other units other technical precautions to ensure that the which comprise them. In tabloid form, we in specifications have been met before the materiel AMC express it as “the right thing in the right is accepted into RCAF inventory and paid for. place at the right time—with utmost economy”. Because logistics comprises maintenance, It is the US Armed Forces who, from the old supply and procurement it will be apparent French term “logistique’, have in recent years that it is anything but a function exclusive to developed highly for the West both the art AMC. Almost every component of the RCAF of logistics and the meanings the term now from AFHQ downwards and outwards is also generally conveys. One trend is that whereas engaged in some or all elements of logistics. ‘logistics’ used to convey also the idea of food It will be obvious, then, that AMC’s role is and quarters it now tends, unless qualified, to distinctive not so much because almost its denote material goods and services. entire pre-occupation is with logistics as that the portion of RCAF logistics which AMC per- In US practice the four broad fields which are forms is distinct. combined to produce a logistics organization are maintenance, supply, transportation and To generalize, it can be said that what AMC procurement. It has been RCAF practice, so does is too specialized and complex technically far, to regard transportation as an element of for the operating and training commands supply; and thus logistics to be the product of to do without deflecting them unduly from grouping maintenance, supply and procurement their main roles; and too much an “operating” into a package under one head. function for AFHQ to be involved in without vitiating AFHQ’s duty of thinking out and The RCAF, however, has only a limited though providing policy guidance to the field. essential part to play in procurement. In 1921 there was a technical directorate in the Air Air Materiel Command was born out of Board which conducted air force engineering, Maintenance Command merely by changing supply and procurement. The responsibilities the latter’s name. Maintenance Command for contracts and purchasing were transferred came into being in 1945 by the creation of in 1923 to a director of contracts outside the a new unit—one eventually to become its air force. The only parts of the procurement largest, namely Maintenance Command function which have remained with the RCAF Headquarters—through withdrawing from 66 THE CANADIAN AIR Force JOURNAL Summer 2008 AFHQ not only the major portion of the both a Repair and Supply Depot. Its terms of detailed responsibilities for maintenance reference read: engineering, supply administration, materiel provisioning and direct control of all the 1. Repair all aeronautical equipment which specialized logistics units then existing, but could not be undertaken by other Air Force also most of the actual personnel who had been stations, and, performing these functions at AFHQ; and by grouping all the specialized logistics units in 2. Receipt of technical stores off contract, the RCAF under the command and control of and issue of same to all Air Force stations. the MCHQ thus fashioned. It will therefore Reference 1, above, is even today a fairly be obvious that to trace the maturing of the accurate statement of the role (and the RCAF towards the formation of Maintenance relation to the maintenance work done by Command, it will be necessary to review both RCAF stations) of AMC’s No. 6 Repair the previous history of the pertinent elements Depot at Trenton and repair contractors. The of AFHQ as well as of the types of units which precise extent of “repair . which could not eventually came under the control of MCHQ. be undertaken by . stations” has changed Let us first examine the types of units. with the years and circumstances, but the spirit has remained the same. This is that the The first purely logistics unit of the Air Force main purpose of squadrons and sections on in Canada precedes the RCAF. It was an stations is to operate equipments rather than (un-named) Air Stores Park of the Canadian to maintain them. Thus front line or “first Air Force (CAF) located at Camp Borden line” maintenance is, in principle, confined about 1921. Little seems to be recorded about to such processes as servicing, testing by it except that it burned down early in 1923. operating, minor inspections, simple repairs- The place where it stood can still be seen in by-replacements, etc., of the aeroplanes, the form of a rather large concrete-paved gap vehicles, radars, kitchen equipment and near the north end of the old line of Besserer so on which they may be operating. The hangars at Camp Borden. “second line” or station level is more complex, requires more costly and specialized tools, test This fire apparently induced the CAF in equipments and personnel, and takes longer. 1923 to take over from the Department of In principle it comprises such things as major Public Works a site on Victoria Island in inspections, repair-by-replacement of major Ottawa, which had been successively a mica components, embodiment of moderately factory, carbide plant and boatyard; and there complex modification kits, simple repair-by- to establish what became the RCAF’s No. 1 rebuild and the like. The “third line” or “depot (Aircraft) Depot. level” maintenance is so complex as to require returning the equipment to AMC for major It is interesting to note that the RCAF’s first repair, modification, rebuild, etc; and having it logistics unit was a Depot; and that it was replaced at the station by equipment which is in running condition. Engine starters—then and now. On the left is a Huck starter at Camp Borden Air Stores Park in 1922. On the right is an Argus starter unit in 1962. Summer 2008 THE CANADIAN AIR Force JOURNAL 6 Reference 2, above, is also still a fairly accurate The emergence in growing quantities of statement of the role of AMC’s supply depots, companies having production or repair although there have been changes. No. 1 Depot contracts with the RCAF was the cause of did not receive or stock other than technical bringing into being two additional types of spares. The few RCAF stations then existing logistics units-to-be in AMC. One was what made demands for their barracks equipment, is now our Materiel Laboratory; the other our clothing, motor transport and such on the Technical Services Units. nearest Army Ordnance Depot. It was not until about 1939 that the RCAF began to Late in 1927 an aeronautical inspection Test stock and issue such equipment through its House was set up as a separate element of own provisioning. Another change is that No. 1 (Aircraft) Depot. Its purpose was to AMC’s supply depots issue spare parts not only preside over the inspection of all military to RCAF stations but also to repair depots aircraft construction and maintenance with and repair contractors for embodiment into the Test House having a master gauge section RCAF materiel being repaired. From 1923 and other devices to enable verification of the to 1936 No. 1 (Aircraft) Depot remained the quality of the materiels and their processings. sole permanent wholly-logistics unit of the After a varied history of locations and names it RCAF. In 1936 the first supply depot, No 2 became an element in Maintenance Command (Equipment) Depot, was formed at Winnipeg. in 1945 and a full-fledged unit of AMC in In 1937 the first repair depot, No. 3 (Repair) late 1954. The present roles of the Materiel Depot, came into being at Vancouver. Laboratory are directed more towards assessing the capabilities and performances of the The RCAF’s repair contractors are commercial laboratories of companies having production firms, the first of which entered into contract or repair contracts than in the direct sampling in the early 1920s. Their number grew steadily of those companies’ materiel. Our laboratory through the late ‘20s and the ‘30s; and since also does, or arranges to have done at other World War II they have displaced all but one specialized government laboratories, “arisings” of the RCAF’s repair depots. The intimate and from within the RCAF itself which require detailed planning, control and surveillance analyses. which AMCHQ must exercise over the RCAF materiel entering and leaving their plants, and By 1938 the amount of production and repair over operations within them, is very similar for the RCAF had so grown in volume that it to that applied to AMC’s own units.