I am fascinated by aircraft designs that ‘could have been.’ Maybe it’s just my nostalgia for childhood drawings of imaginary aeroplanes, but I love looking at the concept for the out-of-the-box ideas that never made it off the drawing board. Recently, I was researching at the beautiful Huntington Library archives, combing through the papers of Ben Rich, who ran Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects division, ‘Skunk Works,’ between 1975 and 1990. ‘Skunk Works’ handled Lockheed’s top-secret programs, such as the U-2. I came across his files on the CL-400, also known as Project Suntan.[1] This had nothing to do with the project I was working on, but I found the files fascinating and wanted to share some of what I found here on From Balloons to Drones.
In 1955, most people dancing to Bill Haley’s new hit song ‘Rock Around the Clock’ had little idea that the Central Intelligence Agency and US Air Force had partnered with Lockheed to design a secret spy plane to fly 70,000 feet above the Soviet Union, the U-2. However, even as the U-2 began flying, Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson, then chief engineer at Lockheed’s Burbank, California plant, suspected that the U-2 would not last long – it was an effective aeroplane but vulnerable. Johnson wanted a follow-on to the U-2 that could fly even higher, further, and faster.
Lockheed turned to the advantages of high-energy fuels, specifically liquid hydrogen (LH). With a much greater energy density, hydrogen was more powerful (and hazardous). On paper, it seemed like an LH-powered aircraft could have everything Johnson needed: very long range, very high altitude, and supersonic speed. Rich led the project, working under Johnson at the ‘Skunk Works.’
Rich recalled, ‘between 1955-1958, [Lockheed] developed and built all the components and systems necessary for a liquid hydrogen-fueled airplane.’ Designing aircraft to use this unique fuel source presented major challenges. As Rich noted: ‘The hydrogen fueled airplane has very little flexibility in design configuration […] since fuel requirements dictate a long fuselage with attendant balancing and C.G. [center of gravity] travel limitations.’
Nevertheless, the concept went through a series of iterations. The original CL-400 was a two-seat reconnaissance plane, 160 feet long with a 10-foot diameter. The wings resembled Lockheed’s F-104 Starfighter, and the plane’s vertical fin was retractable. It was designed to cruise at 99,500 feet, going Mach 2.5, for a maximum range of 2,200 nautical miles.
An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
That was just the beginning. Variant designs on the CL-400, Rich says, ‘were studied from the standpoint of achieving maximum range rather than maximum altitude.’ As evident from the accompanying series of plan drawings, the original CL-400 was near the size of the massive Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber, but increasing its range meant increasing the fuel capacity. So, the designs got bigger. Much, much bigger.
Drawing of the CL-400-12. (Source: An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
The CL-400-12 was more than double the size of a B-52 and designed for a 4,720 nautical mile range with four engines blasting it to Mach 2.5. Rich’s notes simply stated that ‘the aircraft size is quite large.’
Drawing of the CL-400-13. (Source: Drawing of the CL-400-12. (Source: An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
The CL-400-13 took the idea even further with a cone-delta design and forward canards. The aeroplane was almost the length of one football field, with a gross take-off weight of 376,000 pounds. Nevertheless, it could cruise at Mach 4 for a total range of 9,000 nautical miles. The CL-400-14 was similar in size to the -13 but used four smaller engines instead of two big ones.
Drawing of the CL-400-14 (Source: Drawing of the CL-400-13. (Source: Drawing of the CL-400-12. (Source: An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
Hydrogen, as readers familiar with the Hindenburg disaster will attest, is also very dangerous. Lockheed had an approach to address the danger: try to cause a series of hydrogen explosions. Rich’s notes explained that ‘Numerous hydrogen ignition tests were made so as to get a feel for the damage potential in such an explosion, and it was found that the danger was not nearly as great as expected. Explosions were generally mild, and hydrogen fireball radiation was much less than that from a comparable kerosene fire.’ They tried to create an explosion 61 times, and only twice (when purposefully mixed with oxygen and ignited) did it cause ‘a bona fide explosion.’ Lockheed engineers were convinced LH could be handled safely – even more critically since the top-secret nature of the program meant that if there were an uncontrollable fire, they would not be able to call the fire department.[2]
Lockheed built a massive facility to test methods to produce, store, and transport the large quantities of liquid hydrogen necessary to operate a fleet of huge, LH-guzzling aeroplanes a few hundred yards away from the Burbank Municipal Airport. Dr Russell Scott, a leading expert on liquid hydrogen from the U.S. Bureau of Standards, visited the facility and said, ‘My God in heaven, you’re gonna to blow up Burbank.’[3] Ultimately, the logistical challenges of operating a fleet of LH aircraft proved insurmountable at the time. After examining the international basing requirements for the necessary fuel, Johnson gave up on the project. He called the Secretary of the Air Force, James Douglas, and said, ‘I’m afraid I’m building you a dog. My recommendation is that we cancel Suntan.’[4] Today, U-2s are still flying, and the Burbank site, which was once the home for testing and production of classic Lockheed aircraft, has been turned into a giant shopping complex featuring a Best Buy and Wal-Mart. In a way, maybe Burbank did blow up.
It is tempting to write off this story as a historical footnote, but the story of Suntan has three important takeaways: First, failure is important. Just because the project never went to production does not mean it was insignificant. With the aerospace industry currently looking into the potential use of hydrogen fuel, projects like this are still relevant. Second, failed designs still have a strong influence on those that succeed. Going through the process of designing these aircraft and thinking through potential solutions taught these engineers a lot. Many of the design elements first experimented with on the CL-400 went on to have a strong influence on the design of later aircraft – especially the A-12, the forerunner of the SR-71 Blackbird.
Finally, the CL-400 shows the importance and power of imagination. These planes might seem wild, but the effort shows that engineers could push themselves to think outside the box. This reveals the mindset underneath American Cold War aviation design – that it often gravitated to the massive or even outlandish, but it is also inspiring. I am not an aircraft designer, but I hope that in my own life and work, I am pushing myself to think beyond the boundaries of what I think might be possible, explore new ideas and see where they lead.
Dr Michael Hankins is the Curator for US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps post-World War II Aviation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the author of Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (2021). In addition, he is a former Professor of Strategy at the USAF Air Command and Staff College eSchool, and a former Instructor of Military History at the US Air Force Academy. He earned his PhD in history from Kansas State University in 2018, and his master’s in history from the University of North Texas in 2013.
Header image: An artist’s impression of the CL-400 in flight. (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all information, quotations, and images in this article are taken from: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400.
[2] John L. Sloop, Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel, 1945-1959 (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1978), p. 149.
[3] Ben Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1994), p. 173.
In 1970, the United States Air Force’s (USAF) Contemporary Historical Examination of Current Operations (CHECO) project, which produced around 250 volumes on various subjects, published a volume on the air operations of the RAAF over Vietnam.[1] The volume on the RAAF was one of several that examined non-US subjects – other air forces analysed included air operations by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, the Royal Thai Air Force, and the Republic of Korea Air Force. Notably, the report on the RAAF, authored by James T. Bear, described the Australian effort over Southeast Asia as producing a ‘fruitful association’ with the USAF.[2] However, while the Americans, through the extensive distribution of this report to various commands, were aware of the views espoused by Project CHECO, the RAAF was not, as they were not included on the distribution list. As a result, this issue is often ignored by those using this source when writing on Australian air operations over Vietnam. For example, in a recent 2019 article in Sabretache, the journal of the Military Historical Society of Australia, Justin Chadwick made much of Bear’s report by describing its contents. However, Chadwick failed to discuss the distribution issue and whether the RAAF knew the report’s contents.[3] Nonetheless, Bear’s report, and others covering subjects pertinent to Australian air operations over Vietnam, were used by Chris Coulthard-Clark when researching and writing his volume on the RAAF in Vietnam as part of ‘The Official History of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-1975.’ Moreover, the report is a valuable starting point for any discussion about Australia’s place in the air wars over Vietnam and the impact of the conflict on the RAAF.
More recently, however, air power historians have begun to discuss the air war over Vietnam more nuancedly. For example, in his 2021 history of the air war over Vietnam, Air Power’s Lost Cause, Brian Laslie, building on the work of the likes of Mark Clodfelter, argued that the US fought six separate air wars during the conflict.[4] These campaigns were the strategic air campaign against North Vietnam, the battle for air superiority over North Vietnam, the USAF’s air war over South Vietnam, the US Navy’s air war – both over North and South Vietnam, air operations over Laos and Cambodia, and the US Army’s air mobility operations. However, while this classification helps describe US air operations over Vietnam, in excluding the experience of other nations involved in these ‘air wars,’ historians fail to tell a cohesive story about the use of air power over Vietnam.
Rations and supplies are unloaded from a UH-1B Iroquois helicopter of No. 9 Squadron RAAF, by troops of 7th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, near the village of Long Dien during Operation Ulmarra, August 1967. (Source: Wikimedia)
Two reasons explain why historians fail to tell the cohesive story of air operations over Vietnam effectively. First, from an American perspective, Vietnam is viewed as an inherently US war, especially regarding military operations. As Andrew Weist has remarked, ‘[r]emainders of the Vietnam War litter the cultural landscape of the United States.’[5] These reminders and the associated issues of ownership over the experience of the Vietnam War are often reinforced by popular accounts of the war, such as Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s 2017 documentary The Vietnam War and debates related to America supposedly repeating the mistakes of Vietnam in its recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.[6] This has led historians to focus solely on the American experience and not to fully incorporate the story of those other nations that fought in the Vietnam War. Where they are included, their experience is often viewed as a sideshow to the main American effort. Indeed, as Bear’s CHECO report on the Australians noted, in the view of the USAF, ‘only Australia played a significant role in the air war.’[7]
The second reason relates to how the history of the RAAF over Vietnam has been written. This relates to the state of Australian military historiography and how, from the perspective of the RAAF, the latter’s narrative has been shaped by the Air Force.[8] Apart from Coulthard-Clark’s 1995 official history, The RAAF in Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War 1962-1975, the literature on the RAAF’s service in Vietnam has primarily been the preserve of either the Air Force’s official histories or popular accounts, including veterans’ memoirs.[9] This situation mirrors concerns highlighted by John Ferris in 1998 when he reflected that most writers on air power history more broadly tend to be:
[t]he children of airmen, have been military personnel themselves, and have been employed at a historical office or service school in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States.[10]
This is undoubtedly the case with the history of the RAAF over Vietnam. Indeed, the RAAF has shaped the narrative surrounding the Air Force’s operations over Vietnam in two ways. First, the RAAF has published two official histories that straddle the period of the Vietnam War. The first, Going Solo, covered the period from 1945 to 1972 and was written by Alan Stephens, the former RAAF Historian. The second volume, Taking the Lead, written by Mark Lax, a RAAF Air Commodore, covers the period from 1972 to 1996. Neither book focuses singularly on Australian air operations over Vietnam. However, given the importance of the conflict to the RAAF, the war forms an integral part of their analysis, especially Stephens’ volume. While both Stephens and Lax served in the RAAF, as academically trained historians, they were well placed to write these histories, strengthening the value of these books. Nonetheless, as official histories, these works can often be viewed as providing a definitive account of their subject. However, official histories are often the first rather than the last word on their topic.
The second way the RAAF has influenced the narrative of its operation over Vietnam is that the first book on Australian air operations during the conflict, Mission Vietnam, was commissioned by the Air Force. Research for Mission Vietnam, written by George Odgers, the Director of Public Relations in the Department of Air, began in 1971 before Australian air operations in Vietnam ended in 1972.[11] The book appeared in 1974, the year before the RAAF deployed Detachment ‘S’. As such, it does not comprehensively capture all RAAF operations associated with the war in Vietnam. On publication, the RAAF News was convinced that Odgers’ volume would have ‘widespread appeal’ while one 1974 review in The Canberra Times described it as ‘essential reading.’[12] Illustrative of its importance in shaping the narrative, Mission Vietnam will be republished by the RAAF’s History and Heritage Branch.
Beyond these volumes, discussions of RAAF operations over Vietnam have typically been left to popular accounts or memoirs, including those published under the auspicious of the Air Force’s Air and Space Power Centre and the History and Heritage Branch.[13] For example, Jeff Pedrina’s account Wallaby Airlines was initially published in 2006 by the Air Power Development Centre (as ASPC was then known). It was recently reissued in 2023 as part of the Australian Air Campaign Series (AACS) produced by the History and Heritage Branch.[14] Similarly, as part of the AACS, in 2022, the History and Heritage Branch published an abridged version of Air Vice-Marshal Reed’s autobiography, Invited to a War.[15] Reed had served in Vietnam, flying Phantoms on exchange with the USAF. Many of these works represent what has invariably been described as Australia’s ‘democratic’ approach to military history that focuses on the experience of veterans.[16] In this sense, every participant’s views and recollections are equal and should be heard. There are, however, exceptions to this democratic approach. For example, Steven Paget’s recent examination of the operations of No. 2 Squadron over Vietnam usefully places the challenges confronted by the RAAF regarding its interoperability with the USAF into context.[17]
Aerial view of the aircraft revetments at Phan Rang airbase in July 1967. No. 2 Squadron RAAF Canberra bombers are parked in the bays located in the immediate foreground. (Source: Australian War Memorial)
Given much of the above, how would a more integrated and cohesive account of Vietnam’s air wars look? First, from an Australian perspective, we need to move away from focusing solely on the Australian experience of Vietnam. As Thomas Richardson argued, such perspectives distort our view of Australian ‘success or failure’ in Vietnam.[18] This applies as much to the RAAF as it does to the Australian Army. Second, with regard to the broader picture of air operations over Vietnam, consideration of the experience of non-US units would help inform wider discussions on the character and challenges of coalition air operations in this period by considering issues such as cooperation and friction. While official and authorised accounts touch on some of these challenges, their desire to bring the Australian experience to the fore using a functional approach to history based on roles undertaken by the RAAF limit how far they could analyse these issues.[19]
Some indication of how to produce such a history can be gleaned from Paget’s work on No. 2 Squadron operations. Paget rightly noted that the experience of No. 2 Squadron highlighted issues such as command and control, standardisation, tactics, training and procedures, and sustaining operations. However, these themes can be analysed further using other examples of Australia’s experience in Vietnam. For example, the experience of RAAF officers on secondment as airborne Forward Air Controllers offers a valuable opportunity to understand how lessons are learnt and shared between air forces. Similarly, before the deployment of No. 2 Squadron, No. 35 Squadron was already fully integrated into the USAF command and control apparatus. Moreover, unlike No. 2 Squadron, No. 35 Squadron operated a type of aircraft that the US would not deploy to South Vietnam until later in the war. However, it appears the USAF did not take the opportunity to study the RAAF’s use of the Caribou, which opens questions as to why that might have been.[20] As such, understanding the experience of No. 35 Squadron would further enrich our understanding of the air wars over Vietnam by exploring cultural issues that either help or retard the lessons learnt process. Finally, we must consider what the deployment of RAAF air assets to Vietnam delivered to the overall war effort given that, for example, during February 1968, at the height of the Tet Offensive, the Air Force only accounted for around one per cent of all attack sorties flown.[21] This was undoubtedly a significant effort for the RAAF. Still, it also highlights the problem of only deploying singular unit types rather than a more cohesive operational package of several squadrons of the same type. As such, within the context of wider coalition operations, we must further question why the RAAF deployed the force it did and how it sought to influence and shape ongoing operations.
Dr Ross Mahoney is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones. He is 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 City Architecture and Heritage 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. His website is here, and he can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header image: DHC-4 Caribous of the RAAF Transport Flight arrived in South Vietnam in 1964 to work with the South Vietnamese and U.S. Air Forces to transport soldiers and supplies to combat areas in South Vietnam. (Source: Wikimedia)
[1] James T. Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA’ (CHECO Division, 1970); Warren A. Trest, ‘Projects CHECO and Corona Harvest: Keys to the Air Force’s Southeast Asia Memory Bank,’ Aerospace Historian 33, no. 2 (1986), pp. 114-20; Major Daniel Hoadley, ‘What Just Happened? A Historical Evaluation of Project CHECO’ (MA Thesis, USAF School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2013).
[2] Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA,’ p. 1. During the Vietnam War, the RAAF contributed significantly to the Australian effort in the conflict. While some flights had taken place in South Vietnam by a Dakota of No. 2 Squadron’s transport flight in 1963, the first significant deployment of RAAF assets took place in 1964 when six DHC-4 Caribous of the recently formed RAAF Transport Flight Vietnam – later renumbered as No. 35 Squadron in 1966 – were deployed as part of Australia’s early efforts in supporting the war. After the deployment of No. 35 Squadron, the RAAF’s primary involvement took the form of No. 9 Squadron equipped with Bell UH-1B Iroquois helicopters and No. 2 Squadron with English Electric Canberra bombers. Notably, 36 fighter pilots served as airborne Forward Air Controllers with the USAF’s 19th and 20th Tactical Air Support Squadrons flying Cessna O-1 Bird Dogs, Cessna O-2 Skymasters, and Rockwell OV-10 Broncos. Additionally, six RAAF pilots flew USAF McDonnell F-4 Phantoms during the war as part of the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing. There were also those units – Nos. 36 and 37 Squadron – who maintained a strategic air bridge between Australia and Vietnam, including aeromedical evacuation. Lockheed Neptune maritime patrol aircraft regularly patrolled the sea lines of communication between Australia and Vietnam, such as during Operation Trimdon in 1965. As well as those squadrons deployed, various elements of the RAAF provided valuable ground support, including airfield construction, air defence guards and medical personnel. Officially, RAAF operations over Vietnam ended in February 1972 when the last Caribous of No. 35 Squadron left the country. However, in 1975, as South Vietnam finally fell, the RAAF deployed Detachment ‘S’ to Vietnam to withdraw Australian national and embassy staff and distributed Red Cross aid.
[3] Justin Chadwick, “Nothing to diminish their glamour’: Project CHECO and the RAAF,’ Sabretache 60, no. 4 (2019), pp. 23-34.
[4] Brian Laslie, Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2021), p. 2; Mark Clodfelter, ‘The Limits of Airpower or the Limits of Strategy: The Air Wars in Vietnam and Their Legacies,’ Joint Forces Quarterly 78 (2015), pp. 111-24.
[5] Andrew Weist, ‘Introduction’ in Andrew Weist (ed.), Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 200), p. 16.
[6] Andrew Gawthorpe, ‘Ken Burns, the Vietnam War, and the Purpose of History,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 43, no. 1 (2020), pp. 154-69.
[8] Jeffrey Grey, ‘Cuckoo in the Nest? Australian Military Historiography: The State of the Field,’ History Compass 6, no. 2 (2008), pp. 455-68.
[9] Chris Coulthard-Clark, The RAAF in Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1962-1975 (Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1995). For the RAAF’s official histories, see: Alan Stephens, Going Solo: The Royal Australian Air Force, 1946-1971 (Canberra, ACT: AGPS Press, 1995); Lax, Taking the Lead. For memoirs and autobiographies, for example, see: Gary Cooper and Robert Hillier, Sock it to ‘em Baby: Forward Air Controller in Vietnam (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2006); David Evans, Down to Earth: The Autobiography of Air Marshal David Evans, AC, DSO, AFC (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2011).
[10] John R. Ferris, ‘Review Article – The Air Force Brats’ View of History: Recent Writing and the Royal Air Force, 1918–1960,’ The International History Review 20, no. 1 (1998), p. 119.
[11] George Odgers, Mission Vietnam: Royal Australian Air Force Operations, 1964-1972 (Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1974); ‘History of War,’ The Canberra Times, 18 June 1971, p. 1.
[12] ‘“Mission Vietnam” sure to have widespread appeal,’ RAAF News, 1 August 1974, p. 3; “Written the Way it Was in Vietnam Air War,’ The Canberra Times, 16 August 1974, p. 9.
[13] Examples of books published under the auspicious of the RAAF’s Air and Space Power Centre that discuss Vietnam include: John Bennett, Highest Traditions: The History of No. 2 Squadron RAAF (Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995); Graham O’Brien, Always There: A History of Air Force Combat Support (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2009); Chris Clark, The RAAF at Long Tan (Canberra, ACT: 2010); Evans, Down to Earth; Bob Howe, Dreadful Lady over the Mekong Delta: An Analysis of RAAF Canberra Operations in the Vietnam War (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2016). For an example of a book produced in conjunction with the History and Heritage Branch, see: Bob Grandin, Answering the Call: Life of a Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam and Beyond (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2019).
[14] Jeff Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve Months Caribou Flying in Vietnam (Tuggeranong, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2006). Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve Months flying the Caribou in Vietnam (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2022).
[15] Air Vice Marshal Alan Reed, Invited to a War (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2002).
[16] Thomas Richardson, Destroy and Build: Pacification in Phuc Tuy, 1966-72 (Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 5.
[17] Steven Paget, ‘Magpies and Eagles: Number 2 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, and the Experience of Coalition Warfare in Vietnam’ in Steven Paget (ed.), Allies in Air Power: A History of Multinational Air Operations (Lexington, KT: The University Press of Kentucky, 2021), pp. 142-67.
With an abiding interest in how air power has been presented and written about, I, like many others, am an inveterate buyer of second-hand books. I recently added to my library a volume entitled Air Power: An Overview of Roles by R.A. ‘Tony’ Mason, published in 1987. Mason is arguably the key British air power thinker of the late-20th Century. He was appointed the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) first Director of Defence Studies (DDefS) in 1977. Since then, he has widely commented on, lectured, and written about air power. When he wrote this book, Mason, an Air Vice-Marshal, served as Air Secretary.
The book formed part of a series published by Brassey’s Defence Publishers, consisting of 11 titles – see the list below. I have read several of these during my career, including Mason’s title. However, I had not realised several interesting aspects of this series until now. Namely, these volumes were written for a specific audience and authored by serving RAF officers.
Dealing with the first issue, the series outline in the book’s frontmatter noted that ‘[t]his new series […] is aimed at the international officer cadet or junior officer level.’ Thus, the series had a specific pedagogical aim in mind. The series was designed to provide the knowledge that new officers joining an air force needed regarding the use and development of air power. In the case of the RAF, it was clearly aimed at those attending the RAF College at Cranwell and junior officers undertaking staff education. It would be interesting to find out whether the books ended up on the reading lists for these institutions and whether they were used as part of the curriculum. More research…
This leads to the second interesting aspect of this series, namely that they were all written by serving RAF officers. Indeed, many, such as Mason, Armitage, Knight, and Walker, were officers holding Air Rank. As noted, Mason was an Air Vice-Marshal when writing this book – he retired at this rank. Sir Michael Armitage was an Air Chief Marshal, and at the time his book was published, he had been appointed Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies. Knight was an Air Chief Marshal at the time of publication, while John Walker was an Air Vice-Marshal – he retired as an Air Marshal. Moreover, many of these officers were regular writers on air power at the time. Aside from Mason’s own outputs, which included editing Air Power in the Next Generation (1979) and War in the Third Dimension (1986), Armitage had, by this time, co-written Air Power in the Nuclear Age (1983) with Mason. Similarly, Walker had edited a collection for the Royal United Services Institute entitled The Future of Air Power (1986), to which Armitage also contributed.
What is interesting about the choice of officers is that the views presented in these books constitute an RAF view of air power and its employment in the late-1980s and early-1990s despite the series being ostensibly aimed at an international market. More interesting is that, taken as a whole, these books can be considered a source of informal or implicit doctrine. In essence, this is a form of doctrine not codified in formal manuals and helps explore the changing debates surrounding the use of military force, in this case, air power. This is especially important given that when the first volumes of this series were published, the RAF did not have its own formal, explicit environmental capstone doctrine – it was using NATO doctrine to guide operations. Furthermore, the final edition of AP1300 was declared obsolete in the 1970s, and the first edition of AP3000 would not be published until 1990. As such, this series should not be separated from the broader context of the RAF’s re-engagement with formal doctrine.
Finally, the publication of this series, through its choice of authors, shows that despite operating in a doctrinal lacuna, the RAF of the 1980s was still a thinking organisation that thought about the role of air power in war. Critical in that process was the establishment of the DDefS position in 1977. Mason, both as DDefS and in subsequent roles, published works on air power that can be seen as informal doctrine. This started with Air Power and the Next Generation and continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, this form of publishing informal doctrine would be formalised in the 1990s when the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, established the CAS Air Power Workshop, led by DDefS. Over time, the Air Power Workshop has published several significant edited volumes on air power that can be viewed as informal doctrine. The first publication from the Air Power Workshop was The Dynamics of Air Power (1996), edited by DDefS, Group Captain Andrew Lambert and Arthur Williamson. These publications were an essential adjunct to the RAF’s formal doctrine, AP3000. Indeed, the volumes published in the late-1990s under the auspicious of the Air Power Workshop were significant because of the time taken to publish the various editions of AP3000. Put simply, informal doctrine could discuss and debate issues that took time to filter into formal codified doctrine.
Given this, the various DDefS’ have invariably played an essential role in developing British air power thinking, both formal and informal, since the establishment of the post. Moreover, the personalities who have held this role have been influential in that process. While Mason is a prominent name to cite to highlight the role’s importance, it is possible to note several other officers who held the post of DDefS and have played a role in developing British air power thinking inside the RAF and externally within academia and the broader public. These have included Air Marshal (ret’d) Timothy Garden, Air Vice-Marshal (ret’d) Andrew Vallance, Air Commodore (ret’d) Andrew Lambert, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, Air Commodore (ret’d) Professor Peter Gray and Air Commodore (ret’d) Dr Neville Parton.
Brassey’s Air Power: Aircraft, Weapons Systems and Technology Series
Mason, R.A., Air Power: An Overview of Roles (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1987).
Dutton, L. et al., Military Space (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1990).
Laite, B.C., Maritime Air Operations (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1991).
Dr Ross Mahoney is 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 City Architecture and Heritage Team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has over 15 years of experience in the heritage and education 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 warfare, transport history, and urban history. He has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here, and he can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header image: A Royal Air Force SEPECAT Jaguar GR1 of No. 2 Squadron RAF parked on the flight line during Tactical Air Meet ’78 at RAF Wildenrath, 15 May 1978. (Source: Wikimedia)
For those who study the history of the United States Air Force and its forebears, there is a noticeable gap in the historiography regarding biographies of Second World War air force commanders. There are several biographies for men such as General Carl Spaatz, General of the Air Force Henry H. Arnold, General James Doolittle, General Curtis LeMay, and even Major General Haywood Hansell. Yet, many other prominent commanders, staff officers, and theorists do not have their own biographies. However, this research note solely focuses on General Ira Eaker, who, in 1943, commanded what became the US Eighth Air Force, the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces in 1944 and was deputy Chief of the Air Staff for the United States Army Air Forces in 1945.
James Parton has largely written Eaker’s history in “Air Force Spoken Here”:General Ira Eaker and the Command of the Air. Parton’s biography is a strong defence of Eaker. In many cases, he has created much of the narrative that we accept regarding Eaker’s performance as a commander during the Second World War. However, there is one problem with Parton’s book; he was Eaker’s staff officer. Given this, Parton’s book jumps between biography and personal memoir in several places. For example, when writing about Eaker’s defence of daylight precision bombing at the Casablanca Conference in 1943, Parton slips into a personal memoir. In a paragraph, he describes the trip to Spaatz’s headquarters, the poker game he played with Eaker and Spaatz, and how he edited Eaker’s proposals for the Casablanca Conference.[1] It is unclear whether this can be classified as a biography since it is unclear if Parton is writing about himself or Eaker. Also, as a staff officer deeply devoted to Eaker, Parton may not be the general’s best or most objective biographer. Simply put, Eaker needs a new biography.
For those interested in writing a biography on Eaker, there are several places to start. First, Parton’s biography is a great place to get background information on Eaker, even if the analysis is sometimes questionable. Another series of sources that need to be examined are the books that Eaker published with Arnold before the Second World War. Arnold and Eaker wrote: Army Flyer, Winged Warfare, and This Flying Game.[2] These books lay out their vision for the future of air power and, in some cases, offer analysis of air campaigns during the Second World War before the entrance of the United States into the conflict. These books give some insight into Eaker as an air power theorist and precision bombing advocate before the war. Three major archives should be consulted for wartime records. First, the Library Congress has Ira Eaker’s papers. Speaking from personal experience, they are well-organised and easy to work through. Even better, several vital figures whom Eaker corresponded with also deposited their papers at the Library of Congress. Another archive to consult is the Air Force Historical Research Agency, where you can find records on the Eighth Air Force and Mediterranean Allied Air Forces. Finally, the National Archives and Records Administration has more records and correspondence.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris shakes hands with Lieutenant General Ira Eaker at a handover ceremony of a US Army Air Force airfield into RAF control, c. November 1943. (Source: IWM)
Research is not the problem with writing a biography on Eaker. He wrote a lot about air power before, during, and after the Second World War. There is much research readily available on Eaker. This is purely speculation, but the reason why there is not a biography on Eaker is most likely that it is a hard biography to write. Eaker is not a polarising figure. Biographers note that they either fall in love with or hate the person they are writing about. It is hard to do that with Eaker. He is a likeable person and, at times performs quite well as a commanding officer. Yet, he also makes several significant mistakes during the war as well. It is hard to write a book analysing an officer whom both deserves blame for the failures of the 1943 air offensives against Germany and, in the same breath, say he played a major role in the success of the air war in 1944 and 1945.
In conclusion, it is time to put the James Parton book on Eaker aside and write a new biography on Eaker to start a proper historical debate on his career. There is ample archival material available to sift through and analyse. The challenge will be how to assess his performance during the war. Here is a thought to possibly hang onto for those who might want to take up this project. Maybe the challenge of writing a biography about Eaker is that he is representative of the struggles that early American air commanders faced during the strategic bombing of Germany in 1942 and 1943. Eaker was testing new ideas in a new form of warfare and without ample resources as the commander of the Eighth Air Force. He made several errors in 1943 that was amplified by his lack of resources. Yet, with more resources and experience, his performance improved over time. In many ways, Eaker represents the struggles that many American officers faced during the air war against Germany.
Dr Luke Truxal is the Book Review Editor at From Balloons to Drones and an adjunct at Columbia State Community College in Tennessee. He completed his PhD in 2018 from the University of North Texas with his dissertation ‘Command Unity and the Air War Against Germany.’ His previous publications include ‘Bombing the Romanian Rail Network’ in the Spring 2018 issue of Air Power History. He also wrote ‘The Politics of Operational Planning: Ira Eaker and the Combined Bomber Offensive in 1943’ in the Journal of Military Aviation History. In addition, Truxal is researching the effectiveness of joint air operations between the Allied air forces in the Second World War.
Header image: Major General Ira C. Eaker presents an award to an enlisted man of the 479th Anti-Submarine Group during a ceremony at an air base in St Eval, United Kingdom, c. 1943. (Source: NARA)
[1] James Parton, “Air Force Spoken Here”: General Ira Eaker & the Command of the Air (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler Publishers Inc., 1986), p. 220.
[2] Henry H. Arnold and Ira C. Eaker, Army Flyer (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1942); Henry H. Arnold and Ira Eaker, Winged Warfare, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941); Henry H. Arnold and Ira Eaker, This Flying Game, (Ramsey, New Jersey: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1938).
Established in 2016, From Balloons to Drones is an online scholarly platform that analyses and debates air power history, theory, and contemporary operations in their broadest sense, including space and cyber power. To date, with have published over 250 articles on various air power-related subjects.
Since its emergence at the start of the 20th Century, air power has increasingly become the preferred form of military power for many governments. However, the application and development of air power are controversial and often misunderstood. To remedy this, From Balloons to Drones seeks to provide analysis and debate about air power through the publication of articles, research notes, commentaries, book reviews, and historic book reviews – see below for a description of the range of articles published.
The study of air power is to be understood broadly, encompassing not only the history of air warfare, including social and cultural aspects but also incorporating contributions from related fields, such as archaeology, international relations, strategic studies, law and ethics. Possible subjects to be explored might include, but are not limited to:
Strategy, Theory and Doctrine | Organisation and Policy | Roles
Operations – Kinetic and Non-Kinetic | Tactics, Training and Procedures
Strategic and Operational Effect | Technological Developments
Ethical and Moral Issues | National, International and Transnational Experiences
Personal Experiences | Culture | Memory and Memorialisation
From Balloons to Drones welcomes and encourages potential submissions from postgraduates, academics, and practitioners involved in researching the subject of air power.
A US Air Force Fairchild C-119B Flying Boxcar air-dropping supplies near Chungju, Korea, in 1951. (Source: Wikimedia)
We publish:
Scholarly Articles
From Balloons to Drones publishes informative peer-reviewed articles on air power that range from historical pieces to the analysis of contemporary challenges. These well-researched articles should attempt to bridge a gap between the specialist and the non-specialist reader. They should be around c.3,000 words, though From Balloons to Drones will accept larger pieces. We reserve the right to publish them in parts.
Air War Books
From Balloons to Drones publishes a series of review articles that examine the top ten books that have influenced writers on air power. See more here.
Commentaries
From Balloons to Drones publishes opinion pieces on recent news on either contemporary or historical subjects. These should be no longer than c.1,000 words.
Research Notes
From Balloons to Drones publishes research notes on contributors’ current research projects. These take the form of more informal pieces and can be a discussion of a source or a note on a recent research theme. These should be c.500 to 1,000 words.
Book Reviews
From Balloons to Drones publishes regular book reviews that aim to be an accessible collection of appraisals of recent publications about air power. If publishers are interested in having a publication reviewed, then, please contact us via the email address below. See more here.
Historic Book Reviews
From Balloons to Drones publishes occasional historic book reviews that aim to be an accessible collection of appraisals of critical historic publications about air power history, theory, and practice. See more here.
Submissions should be submitted in Word format and emailed to the address below with ‘SUBMISSION’ in the subject line. Also, please include a 50-100 word biography with your submission. References can be used, and please be careful to explain any jargon. However, if you are unsure if your idea fits our requirements, please email us with ‘POTENTIAL SUBMISSION’ in the subject line to discuss.
If you are interested in contributing, please email our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here.
Header image: A Panavia Tornado GR4 of No. IX(B) Squadron on a training sortie in preparation for deployment to Afghanisation, c. 2012. (Source: Wikimedia)
Editorial note: Defence-in-Depth, the blog of King’s College London’s Defence Studies Department based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College and The Wavell Room have been running a series of interesting articles about military education. The author has read these articles with some interest given his interest in the education of air forces. This research note covers an interesting episode in the process of the establishment of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Staff College in the early 1920s.
The opening of the RAF Staff College at Andover in 1922 marked a crucial step in the early development of the RAF. Andover gave the RAF its own institution that provided higher education tailored towards the needs of the Service. However, many historians have been critical of Andover. For example, Tony Mason, the RAF’s first Director of Defence Studies, suggested that Andover ‘lamentably failed’ in providing a developed air power theory for the RAF while Vincent Orange argued that the Staff College served, ‘as a disseminating station for approved doctrine, seasoned by essays on riding, hunting and how to cope with the bazaars of Baghdad.’[1]
However, one aspect not often considered is how the RAF went about preparing for the Staff College’s formation. Key to this is the role played by its first Commandant, Air Commodore Robert Brooke-Popham who was adamant that the RAF should learn from the teaching methods used by both the British Army and Royal Navy at their Staff Colleges at Camberley and Greenwich.[2] Brooke-Popham was a pre-First World War graduate of Camberley, and it is clear that this educational experience played a role in how he approached his position as Commandant. More broadly, before the opening of Andover, it was to the Army and Royal Navy that the RAF looked to provide a staff college education for nurtured officers. Indeed, it is significant that, apart from Group Captain Robert Clark-Hall, the initial Directing Staff – Wing Commanders Philip Joubert de la Ferte, Wilfrid Freeman and C.H.K. Edmonds and Squadron Leader Bertine Sutton – were all graduates of Camberley or Greenwich. However, while the British experience of higher military education was a significant influence, it was not the only source of information.
More interesting is that Brooke-Popham also considered whether anything could be learnt from the methods utilised by the French Army at the Écoles Supérieures de Guerre in Paris, which in the early 1920s was commanded by General Marie Debeney.[3] Before the opening of Andover, Brooke-Popham and Joubert visited Paris to examine French pedagogical methods, and the critical source concerning this visit comes in the latter’s 1952 autobiography The Fated Sky.[4] Joubert’s recollections provide an insight into the teaching methods at the Écoles Supérieures de Guerre. However, it is clear that he was not impressed with the quality of education present although, as he recalled, the Écoles Supérieures de Guerre was considered, ‘the centre of all military knowledge.’[5]
Joubert’s criticisms fell broadly into three categories. First, Joubert was critical of the lack of cooperation with the French Navy and their equivalent school for higher education. Second, instructors lacked familiarity with the students they were teaching. Finally, Joubert was not impressed with the formality of the lectures and lack of what in modern teaching is often referred to as ‘white space’ in the timetable to allow for reflections and questions.[6]
Joubert’s criticisms raise several interesting observations about the differences between the British and French militaries in this period. Notably, the lack of co-operation between the French Army and Navy at the staff college level maps to many of the problems that plagued the French military in the interwar period. Joubert recalled Debeney’s ‘look of blank amazement’ when asked about co-operation with his naval counterpart.[7] Conversely, while there were definite problems at the strategic level, the British military regularly co-operated via combined operations exercises at the staff colleges that Joubert himself described as ‘one of the most pleasant periods’ of his time at Camberley, which he attended in 1920.[8] This perhaps suggests something about Britain’s pragmatic military culture in this period. Individual service cultures certainly existed, but when co-operation was required, the British military appeared to be able to do this.
Furthermore, Joubert recalled of his time at Camberley that while heated discussions between students occurred, ‘it was always possible to come to an agreement over a round of pink gins in the Mess’ thus highlighting the importance of socialisation between the services as means of breeding understanding between them.[9] It also seems clear that Joubert’s perception of the lack of formality in British Staff Colleges bred a willingness to question accepted views while the French military maintained a ‘Maginot’ mentality for much of this period. However, even this must be understood within the context of differing service cultures. Joubert himself reflected on these differences when he wrote that:
Naval officers would discuss Naval affairs freely amongst themselves and before members of another service and would unhesitatingly attack any ideas which they thought themselves were wrong. But let an outsider in the audience offer a criticism and Naval ranks closed up solidly. The Army seldom, if ever, discussed their problems in the open. If they were asked for a statement of policy Field Service Regulations and Army Council Instructions were solemnly quoted. As for the Air Force, they would fight amongst themselves in private and in the open, and would quite ruthlessly disagree with their instructors before a mixed audience. Nothing was sacrosanct.[10]
The final criticism of the lack of ‘white space’ in the timetable is significant as this is considered a crucial element of the pedagogical process and differentiates higher education from training. The lack of this ‘white space’ in the French Staff College system suggested an unwillingness to allow French officers to think more broadly about their place within the profession of arms and the conduct of war more generally. This raises fundamental questions concerning leadership development within the French Army such as whether the French system was developing senior leaders or staff officers. Moreover, it is clear that the French system differed from the British with the existence of the Centre des Hautes Études; a war college, which existed to educate senior Colonels and Brigadiers.[11] A ‘war college’ was something the RAF lacked, and as such an exact comparison between the two systems is fraught with challenges.
While Joubert’s recollection should, as with any autobiography, be treated with some care, from the perspective of the provision and development of military education in the RAF they are useful. This is primarily because of Joubert’s affiliation with education in the RAF. As noted, he attended Camberley and was Directing Staff at Andover. However, he would also go on to be the first RAF member of the Directing Staff at the Imperial Defence College as well as going on to being Commandant at Andover in the early 1930s. As such, he was well placed to comment on such issues.
In conclusion, this episode shows that the RAF was willing to move outside of national confines to learn lessons for what was the world’s first air force Staff College. However, that the methods examined in France were not adopted also highlights issues related to how militaries perceive themselves. As Joubert himself noted, ‘[i]n the event we did not adopt […] the French Staff College methods [and] [w]e went our own perfectly normal and unspectacular British Way.’[12] This reflection says as much about the RAF and its culture as it does the perceived failings of the French system of higher military education. The final important point is that in looking to other Staff Colleges, whether in Britain or France, the RAF were looking to similar institutions with similar objectives – the education and nurturing of future senior leaders – but axiomatically these educational establishments were not similar. Putting aside national proclivities, the critical difference was the military service these institutions served. The Écoles Supérieures de Guerre served the French Army, not an air force, though of course at this time, the French air service formed part of the army. Similarly, Camberley and Greenwich served the British Army and Royal Navy respectively. As such, while the RAF could, and did learn from their counterparts, it still had specific service challenges that it would have to solve on its terms. Indeed, the focus of Brooke-Popham and Joubert’s visit to Paris was more on ‘how’ to teach rather than ‘what.’
Dr Ross Mahoney is a contract Historian at the Departments of Veterans’ Affairs in Australia as well as the owner and Editor of From Balloons to Drones. He is a graduate of the University of Birmingham (MPhil and PhD) and the University of Wolverhampton (PGCE and BA). His research interests include the history of war in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, air power and the history of air warfare, and the social and cultural history of armed forces. To date, he has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and a Vice-President of the Second World War Research Group. He can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header image: The modern day Ecole Militaire, which previously housed the Écoles Supérieures de Guerre (Source: Wikimedia)
[1] Tony Mason, ‘British Air Power’ in John Andreas Olsen, Global Air Power (Washington D C: Potomac Books, 2011), pp. 26-27; Vincent Orange, Churchill and his Airmen: Relationships, Intrigue and Policy Making, 1914-1945 (London: Grub Street, 2013), p. 87.
[2] Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, ‘The Formation of The Royal Air Force Staff College,’ The Hawk, 12 (1950), p. 19.
[3] For a British overview of the Écoles Supérieures de Guerre, see: ‘The “Ecole Superieure De Guerre,” Paris,’ Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, 70:477 (1925), pp. 1-7.
[4] Sir Philip Joubert de la Ferte, The Fated Sky: An Autobiography (London: Hutchinson, 1952), pp. 87-88. Joubert also recollected that Brooke-Popham also considered ‘Madam Montessori’s ideas.
Editorial Note: In this Research Note, Assistant Editor, Dr Brian Laslie reflects on his contribution to a new volume about military professionalism entitled Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics that has been edited by Ty Mayfield and Nathan Finney and published by Naval Institute Press.
In the Summer of 2015, I packed up some clothes and (a lot of) books and moved down to Montgomery, Alabama to attend the United States Air Force’s (USAF) Air Command and Staff College (ACSC). I had been selected along with about a dozen other civilians to attend the 10-month course. I looked upon those ten months in front of me as something of a sabbatical and a chance to research and write.
On the back end of my time at ACSC, I received a call from Ty Mayfield, of The Strategy Bridge, about a book project he and a team of authors were working on. This forthcoming project, Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics, published by the phenomenal people at Naval Institute Press, was an effort by the team at The Strategy Bridge to push the ball forward on the discussion of professionalism, ethics, civil-military relations, and professional education in the modern U.S. military. Following in the footstep of Samuel Huntington, Ty and co-editor Nate Finney collected chapters from a group including international and American officers as well as six academics holding both college and professional military education (PME) positions. It was a robust group, especially considering that most of the chapter authors only knew each other through Twitter. It turns out, Ty and Nate had covered all of their bases except one. In the end, they had no one writing about the USAF, the air domain, or the Airmen’s perspective. Thus, the phone call to me.
It turns out Ty and Nate decided to reach out to me at a somewhat fortuitous time. Ty asked me if I had any thoughts about professionalism and the USAF. As a current student at a PME institution who had spent the better part of seven months pouring over USAF history, I had plenty to say. I titled my chapter, ‘Born of Insubordination: Culture, Professionalism, and Identity in the Air Arm,’ and I am somewhat taciturn that my chapter contribution turned into something of “Oh and ANOTHER THING!” ranting about problems of USAF PME and the Air Force writ large. Ty and Nate did not see it that way.
What I produced, at least the way Ty and Nate ended up describing it was a chapter about the:
particularities inherent in the air arm of the U.S. military. Born from a culture of insubordination, Laslie describes three case studies that display how the positive aspects of this trait, one he titles “pragmatic professionalism”, has shaped – and will continue to shape – the Air Force. Using a historical lens to show the USAF’s unique history, identity, and culture Laslie uses these contemporary case studies to demonstrate that while the Air Force has long suffered with an internal identity crisis amongst its officer corps, the “stovepipes” that developed over the course of the past 70 years are actually conduits for professional advancement in different career fields and not something that needs to torn down.
My chapter on the USAF is but one of twelve. Other chapters include: ‘Questioning Military Professionalism,’ by Pauline Shanks-Kaurin, ‘Professionals Know When to Break the Rules,’ by H.M. ‘Mike’ Denny, ‘Ethical Requirements of the Profession: Obligations of the Profession, the Professional, and the Client,’ by Rebecca Johnson, plus eight others as well as an introduction and conclusion from the editors.
The book proper opens with:
[t]he challenging task of self-assessment for the military profession going into the twenty-first century. Crafted by military officers with recent experience in modern wars, academics who have trained and educated this generation of combatants, and lawyers and civilians who serve side by side with the defense enterprise at all levels, this volume seeks to begin the process of reevaluation for the 21st century.’
While discussing professionalism is not our usual milieu here at From Balloons to Drones, we have been known to stray into the realm from time to time; for example, see our recent post on John Boyd. Indeed, we believe that self-examination in any organisation is an essential part of development and Mayfield, and Finney should be commended for seeing this project through to publication. (We would encourage anyone interested in writing about issues related to professionalism within the context of air arms – air force, naval or army – to get in contact. Ed.)
In the age of social media, we have an entire generation of company and field grade officers who are taking their professional military education into their own hands. Through mediums like The Strategy Bridge, the Military Writer’s Guild and From Balloons to Drones, younger officers are studying and communicating about their profession in new ways. Ty and Nate seized on this moment to produce, what I hope, is a book that will generate discussion across the services and the military establishment at large. My contribution is modest, but this book surely has something for everyone. From company grade officers to flag and general officers, I hope it will do what it sets out to do, which is nothing less than ‘Redefine’ the modern military.
Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and currently the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). He is an Assistant Editor at From Balloons to Drones and a 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies. He received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.
Header Image: A flight of Aggressor F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons fly in formation, 5 June 2008, over the Nevada Test and Training Ranges. The jets are assigned to the 64th and 65th Aggressor Squadrons at Nellis Air Force Base. (Source: US Department of Defense)
As I have mentioned here, my current research is focused on the culture of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and how this has affected the Service’s effectiveness, ability to adapt to changing geostrategic challenges and its place within Australia’s broader strategic culture and national security framework. As such, this research has implications for discussions bridging several disciplines, including history, military sociology, and strategic studies. One of the critical research questions I am examining is what have been the key influences on the developing culture of the RAAF. While one source of RAAF culture is the values and beliefs that service members bring to the organisation, another is the Air Force’s relationship with other air forces. This importance of such relationships is especially significant for small air forces, such as the RAAF, who maintain close relationships with larger air forces, such as the RAF. Indeed, if we think about the organisations that have influenced the culture of the RAAF, key within Australia is, of course, the Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy. The former is especially important because of the experience of the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) during the First World War. However, further afield significant influences have been the RAF, the United States Air Force, and the US Navy. The latter two are important because they represent the shift in Australia’s geostrategic relationships after 1942. Their significance is best represented in the platform choices the RAAF has made since the 1960s. Broadly speaking, the RAAF shifted from British designs to US ones, though there was also the Dassault Mirage IIIO. The relationship between technology and culture is a post for another time.
In terms of air forces, it is the RAF that has influenced the RAAF the most. Even to this day, the materialist influence of the RAF can be seen in cultural artefacts such as ranks. As such, the emergence of a distinct culture for the RAF in the inter-war period had implications for that service and those that emerged in the Dominions. Indeed, at the 1923 Imperial Conference, it was expected that ‘the development of Air Forces in several countries of the Empire’ would be along the lines of uniform training and doctrine, which essentially meant those of the RAF.[1] This illustrates both an imperial and transnational dimension to the impact of the RAF’s cultural practises that require greater exploration. Indeed, the RAF itself remained imperial in composition in the inter-war period with officers from the Dominions, such as the future Air Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, serving in the Air Force. Moreover, while the RAAF had the example of the AFC on which to build an identity, it still looked to the RAF for guidance both for ideas about the employment of air power and character. AP1300, the RAF’s War Manual, would eventually be adopted as the RAAF’s formal doctrine in the 1950s despite the unsuitability of certain sections of this publication for the Australian context, especially the fourth edition’s discussion of nuclear weapons.[2] Indeed, Alan Stephens’ work on RAAF doctrine, Power Plus Attitude, is perhaps the closest we have come to a history of RAAF culture. This is because doctrine points to key values and beliefs of an organisation and its views about the employment of force. Regarding cultural artefacts, the diffusion of RAF culture along imperial lines is evident in areas such as ranks and mottos. Moreover, King George V acquiesced to the title ‘Royal’ being conferred on the Australian Air Force when it was formed.[3] Furthermore, several officers who would go on to senior roles in the RAAF during the Second World War were educated at the RAF Staff College at Andover, where they were immersed in the ideas and culture of the RAF, including British doctrine, AP1300. Finally, RAF officers were regularly sent to Australia to advise on air matters, though, as in the case of the visit of Marshal of the RAF Sir Edward Ellington in 1938, this could create friction.[4]
This latter issue raises questions that help us open up the black box of culture. Principally, was the culture and ethos of the RAF a pervasive influence on the RAAF? Did it help or hinder the development of the RAAF? Were there better options? As the power of RAF culture has reduced, what has taken its place and has this affected how the RAAF views itself and behaves?
Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent historian and defence specialist based in Australia. He is the Editor of From Balloons to Drones. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the resident Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum, and he is a graduate of the University of Birmingham (MPhil and PhD) and the University of Wolverhampton (PGCE and BA). His research interests include the history of war in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, air power and the history of air warfare, and the social and cultural history of armed forces. He has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and is an Assistant Director of the Second World War Research Group. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and an Assistant Director of the Second World War Research Group. He blogs at Thoughts on Military History, and can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header Image: From left – a RAAF C-130J Hercules lands at Nellis Air Force Base during Exercise Red Flag 17-1. Visible in the background are a pair of USAF B-1B Lancer bombers; an RAF Sentinel R.1 surveillance aircraft; and an RAF C-130J Hercules transport aircraft. (Source: Australian Department of Defence)
[1] TNA, AIR 8/69, Cmd 1987, Imperial Conference, 1923: Summary of Proceedings (1923), pp. 16-7.
[2] Alan Stephens, Power Plus Attitude: Ideas, Strategy and Doctrine in the Royal Australian Air Force, 1921-1991 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1992), pp. 136-8.
[3] NAA, A705, 4/10/30, Australian Air Force – establishment and development and the title “Royal” for AAF, 1921-22.
[4] C.D. Coulthard-Clark, ‘“A Damnable Thing”: The 1938 Ellington Report and the Sacking of Australia’s Chief of the Air Staff,’ The Journal of Military History, 54:3 (1990), pp. 307-23.
Oral history is challenging. It is challenging to conduct and to use as a source. It takes a skilled oral historian, such as Peter Hart, to conduct an interview that brings the best out of an interviewee. Much of this has to do with the ability of the interviewer to put the interviewee at ease to allow them to discuss their experiences as openly as possible as well as having an understanding and empathy for the subject matter. As a source, arguably, the principal criticism of oral history remains the charge of viewing the past through ‘rose-tinted glasses.’ In short, the passage of time can distort the remembrance of the past; however, as someone with an interest in military culture, this is also a strength. Culture has as much to do with perception as it does with the archival record of the time so how people remember and reflect on their service is just as important as what happened at the time.
As such, it is great to see that the RAF Centre for Air Power Studies is currently making available a number of interviews that were conducted from the 1970s onwards. The first two were conducted at the RAF Staff College at Bracknell in the early 1990s. It was not unusual to have after-dinner speakers at Bracknell, and it formed part of the pedagogical process at the Staff College. In these cases, the interviewees were Group Captain Sir Hugh Dundas and Wing Commander Roland Beamont. The final interview was conducted in 1978 by the RAF’s first Director of Defence Studies Group Captain Tony Mason. The interviewee was Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, and this talk formed part of a series conducted by Mason, which included an interview with Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris. The unifying theme of the videos is leadership through the participants experience of their service in the RAF.
Here are the videos with their respective descriptions:
In this interview, Wing Commander Roland Prosper “Bee” Beamont, CBE, DSO*, DFC* talks about his experiences during the Second World War with Group Captain (Retd) J P (Phil) Dacre MBE DL RAF at the RAF Staff College, Bracknell (April 1991). Wing Commander Beamont served as a fighter pilot with Fighter Command from the start of the War until he was shot down and captured in October 1944 on his 492nd operational mission. After the War, Wing Commander Beamont went on to become a leading test pilot on aircraft such as the Meteor, Vampire, Canberra and Lightning as well as writing several books.
In the second of the RAF Centre for Air Power Studies rarely-seen before historic ‘leadership’ themed videos, Battle of Britain legend Group Captain Sir Hugh ‘Cocky’ Dundas CBE DSO* DFC presents his thoughts on ‘Leadership in War’ followed by an informal question and answer session at an after-dinner speech given circa 1991 at the RAF Staff College, Bracknell. Group Captain Sir Hugh Dundas joined the Auxiliary Air Force as an acting pilot officer in 1938 before being called up to active service early in the war. Initially, he served on 616 Squadron flying Spitfires during the Battle of Britain fighting ‘hard and fiercely’ throughout. He went on to serve as a squadron commander and then subsequently as wing leader and had, by 1944, become one of the youngest Group Captains the RAF at the age of just 24. He left the RAF in 1947 to pursue a successful career in the media. His autobiography, Flying Start: A Fighter Pilot’s War Years, describes his wartime experiences in more detail.
In the third of the RAF Centre for Air Power Studies rarely-seen before historic ‘leadership’ themed videos, inspirational wartime leader and world-renowned humanitarian, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, Baron Cheshire VC OM DSO** DFC is interviewed by Group Captain (later Air Vice-Marshal) Tony Mason CB CBE DL at the RAF Staff College, Bracknell, February 1978. During the interview Group Captain Cheshire discusses his now legendary record of achievements throughout his service during WWII.
Group Captain Cheshire received a commission as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 16 November 1937. Although he demonstrated considerable prowess in training as a single seat pilot, by a vagary of the system he was destined to be posted to Bomber Command. During the War, his command appointments included 76 Squadron, 617 Squadron, and RAF Marston Moor and he was, at one time, the youngest group captain in the RAF. By July 1944 he had completed a total of 102 missions, for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His citation simply states: ‘Cheshire displayed the courage and determination of an exceptional leader’. After the war, Cheshire founded the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability and devoted the remainder of his life to pursuing humanitarian ideals. His obituary in the Independent (1992) declares that ‘LEONARD CHESHIRE was one of the most remarkable men of his generation, perhaps the most remarkable’.
Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent historian and defence specialist based in Australia. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the resident Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum, and he is a graduate of the University of Birmingham (MPhil and PhD) and the University of Wolverhampton (PGCE and BA). His research interests include the history of war in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, air power and the history of air warfare, and the social and cultural history of armed forces. To date, he has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and is an Assistant Director of the Second World War Research Group. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and an Assistant Director of the Second World War Research Group. He blogs at Thoughts on Military History, and can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
I started writing this post several months ago, but for various reasons, it lay dormant until a recent Twitter exchange began with Brian Laslie. Brian suggested that Mark Clodfelter’s The Limits of Air Power was the ‘foundation of modern air power studies.’ This immediately got my attention, and I queried this, which led to a fruitful exchange of views on the subject between several participants.
Not only a great book & the foundation for modern air power studies, but written by a great individual as well. https://t.co/deDxWdOwvi
The original source for this post came from comments I provided to the Second Sir James Rowland Seminar at the Australian Defence Force Academy, which is an initiative between UNSW Canberra and the Royal Australian Air Force’s Air Power Development Centre. Another source was a post by Nicholas Sarantakes with an update on the ongoing debate on the ‘decline’ of military history in academia. These sources originally got me thinking about the state of air power studies in the English-speaking worlds and the recent Twitter exchange brought that process to the fore again.
In my reply to Brian, I made the argument that in the UK, the mantle of ‘father’ of air power studies, in my opinion, belongs to Air Vice-Marshal Tony Mason who was the RAF’s first Director of Defence Studies (DDefS). To my mind, Tony generated the space for the subject both within the RAF and with external partners. There are, of course, other names we could put into this mix including Dr Noble Frankland, J.M. Spaight, Professor Phil Sabin and Professor Richard Overy, but I am unsure whether these writers ever created enough mass for the field to evolve. For example, while Overy wrote on air power issues early in his career, he then moved onto other subjects, though has more recently returned to the field. Conversely, through the creation of the DDefS post, the RAF has provided a platform for the development of air power studies in the UK. The position still exists, and there have been several notable holders of the post including Dr Peter Gray, who is now Senior Research Fellow in Air Power Studies at the University of Birmingham, and the current Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stu Peach. Indeed, since moving to the University of Birmingham, Grey has helped generate a mass of air power scholars in the UK and beyond.
Despite my views on the origins of air power studies in the UK, some important issues came out of the discussion on Twitter. One is that while we might identify Clodfelter or Mason as defining the field in the US and UK respectively, this does not answer the question of whether there is someone who crosses national boundaries. One name that did spring to mind was John Andreas Olsen. However, as Travis Hallen, one of the editors over at The Central Blue, reflected, Olsen has been more productive in bringing together people to produce worthwhile edited volumes. Furthermore, as David Benson, a Professor at the USAF School of Advanced Air and Space Power Studies, noted these writers may have defined the field but should they define it today? David provided an interesting reflection on this issue in a number of Tweets, and while I do not agree with all of his points, his views on how we define the field are critical.
I think a more accurate description would be that the field was “defined” in the past, but what counted as defined has changed. Both…1/
Knowledge is not static and as such how we define the field of air power studies should not be fixed either. Indeed, David suggested that this might be the case with it being argued that the study of air power might not be keeping up with changes in the field of social science. Here lies one problem as this essentially suggests a social science view of the study of air power and raises the question of where the subject fits as a discipline? Is the study of air power a social science or is it interdisciplinary? Moreover, are we looking at air power from the perspective of how it is defined in doctrine or do we need to take a broader view that encompasses a wider remit and brings in other fields including history? I would suggest the latter.
Take, for example, myself, I am an air power specialist, but first and foremost I am a historian, though I admittedly make use of interdisciplinary methodologies. My views on air power, even when looking forward, is essentially historical in outlook. I believe that we cannot understand the future without first considering past challenges, but does this lead to a ‘classical’ analysis of air power? I do not think so. I would argue that my broader perspective allows me, hopefully, to push the field forward. In this, I agree with David’s view that is up to those of us currently working in the field to ‘push it from its origins into modernity as a scholarly field’. Another advantage of broadening the scope of air power studies is that by encompassing a more comprehensive approach that includes aspects such as the history of air warfare and the social and cultural analysis of the armed forces, then we can further understand how we develop the knowledge that defines the field. We should also add other disciplines into this comprehensive mix including ethics and law.
Despite much of this rambling and reflection the crux of the issue remains how we develop air power studies as a scholarly field? What are the mechanisms that can be used to develop and disseminate knowledge? For me, one of the key issues here is the insular character of the field. As John Ferris reflected in 1998, those studying air power are either:
[t]he children of airmen, have been military personnel themselves, and have been employed at a historical office or service school in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States.[1]
My reading of the situation is that not much has changed and broadly speaking those of us writing on air power are a homogenous group who come from similar backgrounds. Again, using myself as an example, I am the child of a soldier, my PhD supervisor was a retired one-star officer, and I work for an institution devoted to preserving the history of an air force. Therefore, I accept there will always be a degree of subjectivity in my work. As such, how do we break free from that mould to further develop our field?
Part of the answer, of course, lies in establishing networks beyond our traditional insular boundaries. How do we, for example, encourage the study of air power beyond military academies? How do we work with colleagues who might ask difficult questions that do not fit our subjective paradigms? We need to be willing to accept these challenges and be prepared to discuss these issues freely and openly rather than dismissing them.
Further to a conceptual and personal willingness to engage, which I suspect most of us are happy to do, there is the question of the mechanism for discussion. While online platforms, such as From Balloons to Drones, The Central Blue, The Strategy Bridge and War on the Rocks are useful for generating discussion, are there other ways of pushing and developing knowledge? Has the time come, for example, to establish an academic journal devoted to air power that moves us beyond the service sponsored journals?
I have no silver bullet to these questions and what I have written here is part of an ongoing reflection on the subject, and I welcome any further thoughts people have. Nevertheless, I do think the time has come for us to reflect on the field and start ‘push it from its origins’.
Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent historian and defence specialist based in Australia. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the resident Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum, and he is a graduate of the University of Birmingham (MPhil and PhD) and the University of Wolverhampton (PGCE and BA). His research interests include the history of war in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, air power and the history of air warfare, and the social and cultural history of armed forces. To date, he has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and is an Assistant Director of the Second World War Research Group. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and an Assistant Director of the Second World War Research Group. He blogs at Thoughts on Military History, and can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header Image: An RAF Atlas (A400-M) at night during Operation Mobility Guardian. (Source: MoD Defence Imagery)
[1] John R. Ferris, ‘Review Article – The Air Force Brats’ View of History: Recent Writing and the Royal Air Force, 1918–1960,’ The International History Review, 20:1 (1998), p. 119.
From Balloons to Drones 
