#ResearchNote – Orders of Precedence Matters…

By Dr Ross Mahoney

Editorial note: This post originally appeared on the author’s website and is cross-posted here with permission.

In 1922, an interesting episode in the history of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) began. In October 1922, the Secretary to the Department of Defence, Thomas Trumble, wrote to the Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department, noting that as the RAAF constituted an independent service, Air Board and Air Force members should be afforded representation at official functions.[1] Its precedence was to come after the Australian Army. The Prime Minister’s Department’s reply was straightforward, noting that:

[a]rrangements will be made for the inclusion of representatives of the Air Force in connection with any general function to be held by the Commonwealth Government.[2]

Such a straightforward administrative request should have ended, but it did not. In 1924, the Governor-General sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, that ‘no precedence was accorded’ to the First Air Member at the inaugural dinner of the Lord Mayor of Melbourne that he recently attended.[3] It was suggested that to solve this issue, changes should be made to the Commonwealth Table of Precedence, namely paragraph 10.

While the changes suggested were eventually made, this episode highlights several issues related to the status of the RAAF and its emerging place in Australia’s defence establishment. First, the RAAF appeared to have a clear ally in the form of the Governor-General, Lord Forster. While Forster had not served in the military, he saw air power as important to Australia’s defence. In his memorandum to the Prime Minister, he wrote:

In view of the great and growing importance of the Air Service […] it would be desirable that the head of the Air Force should in future receive definite recognition on such occasions.[4]

Given the status of the Air Board in Australian defence planning, this is an interesting comment.[5]

Second, the issue that happened and had to be raised by Lord Forster illustrates the place of the RAAF in Australian thinking more broadly. Despite this issue being raised more than two years previously, nothing appears to have been enacted. Thus, it can be suggested that despite gaining its independence in 1921, Australian thinking had yet to adjust to the idea of an independent air force.[6] Thus, while orders of precedence may seem a curious relic to the modern audience, such things matter to the military cultures, especially to new organisations such as air forces. They are a status issue and illustrate to the broader public where an organisation might fit within the government’s thinking. By not giving the proper order of precedence to the RAAF, it could be argued that a clear message was being presented to the Australian body politic – independent air power did not matter. But was that so?

Dr Ross Mahoney is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and an independent scholar specialising in the history of war with particular reference to the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum in the UK. In Australia, he has worked as a Historian for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and taught at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University based at the Australian War College. His research interests are focused on the history of war, specifically on the history of air power and air warfare, military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents.

Header image: Port view of a RAAF De Havilland DH-9. This aeroplane was one of 128 gift aeroplanes presented by the British government to the newly formed RAAF, including thirty DH.9a (Source: Australian War Memorial)

[1] National Archives of Australia (NAA), A705, 4/1/35, Secretary, Department of Defence to the Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, 14 October 1922.

[2] NAA, A705, 4/1/35, Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department to the Secretary, Department of Defence, 17 October 1922.

[3] NAA, A705, 4/1/35, Memorandum by the Governor-General to the Prime Minister, 11 November 1924.

[4] NAA, A705, 4/1/35, Memorandum by the Governor-General to the Prime Minister, 11 November 1924.

[5] John MacCarthy, Australia and Imperial Defence, 1918-39: A Study in Air and Sea Power (St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 1976), p. 27.

[6] MacCarthy, Australia and Imperial Defence, pp. 34-43.