The Naval Review The copyright of this article rests with the author, or the author's estate.

Inter-Service Co-operation

A DELIBERATELY PROVOCATIVE ESSAY, IN WHICH THE SOLUTION IS PROMPTED BY THE RECENT GRANT OF HONORARY MILITARY AND AIR FORCE RANKS TO THE NAVAL OFFICER APPOINTED CHIEF OF COMBINED OPERATIONS.

I.

A FEW days ago the Minister for Information informed the House of Commons that between 1st September, 1939, and 30th June, 1942, the three Services had spent the following amounts on advertising :­

Navy. . . . £63,000

Army. . . . £133,400

R.A.F. . . £414,000

These figures are concrete evidence of the way in which the R.A.F. has been boosting itself ever since the war began. The Air Ministry issues daily communiques in which frequently there is nothing but reference to another fighter sweep over France or another bomber shot down. Well might the Admiralty issue similar daily communiques stating that our minesweepers carried out another sweep in the approaches to Spithead and another mine was destroyed! When any operation, which is primarily a naval or military one, is carried out the Air Ministry at once issues a communique to draw attention to the fact that the R.A.F. had a hand in it even if it was a small one. The Admiralty might as well issue a communique every time any military operation took place abroad drawing attention to the fact that all the troops who took part were conveyed safely there by the Navy. The Air Ministry has rushed into print with booklets like "The Battle of Britain" and "Bomber Command "-whilst the Admiralty appears to have issued none until "Ark Royal" came out the other day. Members of all branches of the R.A.F. are particularly prolific with books describing their experiences in prose and poem. Finally, every journal, whether it be a great newspaper like the "Sunday Times" or a society weekly like "The Tatler," has a vociferous air correspondent who, in these days of rigid paper economy, is accorded several times the space allowed to his confrere the naval correspondent, if he exists at all.

Now I yield to none in my admiration for the officers and men of the R.A.F. who really do the work both in the air and on the ground; but this continuous overstressing of the case for the air has one big defect-it shows lack of co-operation with the other two Services. Doubtless it is partly due to an inferiority complex as the result of being the youngest and, taking the long view, most inexperienced of the three Services; but it also shows a failure to realize that all three are in reality one, and that the aim of each should be "all together," rather than "let's see if we can get there first even if it involves pushing the other out of the way to do it." .

There was a time during the "phoney" days of the first six months of the war when the War Office was similarly guilty in the way in which it continually issued information about home leave and Christmas leave for the troops in France to the fury of the Navy, which, at the time, was being overworked at sea and saw then precious. little hope of getting any leave at all. But since then the Admiralty and War Office seem ,to have co-operated very well over publicity matters.

The question of undesirable publicity on the part of one Service may be in hand, since it was stated in the House of Commons not long ago that the question of issuing combined Service communiques in lieu of independent ones by each Service was under consideration. One hopes so since (though it may seem a small matter) it cannot be too strongly stressed that it may have the cumulative effect of leading the public of the future-from which incidentally our statesmen will be drawn-to give undue preponderance to the needs of the R.A.F. after this war, when it once again comes to the question of meeting the needs of the Fighting Services from an inelastic purse.

But there is something much worse than this. The R.A.F. also appears-I am very careful to stress the word "appears" because I find it so difficult to believe-appears to be ignorant of the rudiments of strategy. Speaking on the 30th of July, 1942, the Under Secretary for Air said: "This is the most important moment in our history, and we believe that it is through the R.A.F. that we are going to achieve victory against the Axis Powers." I am not sure who was meant by the italicised "we." Surely not the Government. It was certainly not the whole British public, since there are not a few of us who believe that it is through all three Services. So per naps we is just the Air Ministry -or at least such officers therein as the rather senior one who broadcast the following statement shortly after Dunkirk: "The fact is that the R.A.F. is now free to perform its proper function, that for which it has been organized and trained. It is no longer hampered by the necessity of acting as long range artillery for the B.E.F." This was tantamount to an admission that the R.A.F. believed that its function was the independent bombing of enemy territory and not co-operation with the other Services.

It is generally realized that our ability to win the war depends on the Navy's success in protecting Great Britain from invasion and in ensuring a continuous flow of supplies to it. If it fails in the former we lose both the heart of the Empire and the advanced base for the United Nations' offensive against our principal enemy. If it fails in the latter the other two Services lose both the material and the motive power essential for both aerial and land warfare. Also, the population will starve. .

It is generally realized that our ultimate victory depends on our Army which, fighting side by side with the armies of the United Nations, is the Service which in the end must overthrow the armies of our enemies and occupy their territory.

The paramount importance of adequate fighter protection for the Mother Country is acknowledged. It is slowly being appreciated, as a result of such disasters as the loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse and Rommel's advance into Egypt, that neither Navy or Army can operate effectively without adequate air support.

But there are not a few people who doubt the value of independent bombing raids on enemy territory. Such raids have, we understand, two main objects; undermining the morale of the enemy population and hence the nation's will for war; and destroying his factories, arsenals and transport system and hence his war potential. There is as yet no evidence that the former can be achieved in any useful period of time. Such evidence as is available from China, Spain and our own Islands even suggests that the heavy bombing of cities such as Chungking, Barcelona and Coventry merely served to strengthen the natives' will to war and overall productive capacity. Certainly the 1940-41 blitz of Britain did much to stir the whole of our population towards making that great united effort without which no democratic nation can hope to defeat one ruled by a dictatorship. Some of us have not forgotten that in the last war Lord Kitchener, referring to the early Zeppelin raids on London, said that each was worth a whole division to him.

As regards the destruction of factories, arsenals and transport systems, there is likewise no evidence as yet that the results are, to say the least, proportional to the effort expended on them. If 1,000-bomber raids had been practicable every night from the beginning of the war it would doubtless have been a different story. But no nation with other than deliberately aggressive intentions could have maintained in peace the necessary force for the purpose. Even now, when we have the necessary force, such heavy raids cannot be' carried out daily for various reasons, of which weather is an important one.

The effort necessary to produce raids even on our present scale is very great; so great in fact that there is a serious suggestion that it affects adversely the extent of our naval and military effort by taking an undue proportion of our productive capacity, man-power and shipping. Furthermore, it is suggested that it results in insufficient air support being available both for our naval and military forces in the various theatres of war throughout the world. As Admiral Richmond in recent letters to "The Times" pointed out, we are apparently committing the cardinal error in our present stategy of pursuing more than one object at the same time.

In short, available evidence suggests that the first objects of the R.A.F. should be defence of our island base and co-operation with our land and sea forces, whilst independent bombing should be a secondary object only to be brought into use as a final battering ram to assist the other two Services in hastening the final collapse of the enemy when our final great offensive begins. Or, to put it rather more crudely, the R.A.F. should not be pursuing an offensive whilst the other two Services are still on the defensive fighting for their lives.

II.

The core of this thesis is lack of co-operation on the part of the R.A.F. with the other two Services. Consequently it is proposed now to examine briefly the whole question of co-operation between the Fighting Services.

Hundreds of years ago all battles, whether on land or sea, were fought by land forces. When the need for naval warfare arose soldiers were embarked in ships whose seamen crews were wholly employed to propel them by means of oars alongside the enemy whereby they might be boarded. The actual fighting was similar to a land combat, the decks of ships taking the place of dry land. As the years passed the development of the gun changed the nature of sea fights: they became artillery duels. At the same time the advent of sailing ships resulted in their crews not being wholly employed in their propulsion; they were consequently used to man the guns. Hence, by a process of evolution, the crews of fighting ships became a fighting force, and the employment of land forces afloat slowly died out. The separation of a nation's armed forces into two Services was in fact a natural one due to the differences in the nature of warfare by sea and by land, coupled with the fact that co-operation was only normally required in the higher strategic sphere. Nevertheless, there remained occasions on which close co-operation was necessary, particularly in what are termed Combined Operations. These, even when ultimately successful, were seldom entirely satisfactory due to the necessity for employing separate commanders of the land and sea forces and the lack of understanding between them, not to mention lack of knowledge on the part of each Service of the other's problems. Whilst the problem of co-operation existed it was not, however, up to the present century, treated as a serious one, largely because such combined operations were seldom more than isolated affairs of relatively small importance in a war as a whole.

Things have now changed. The internal combustion engine has given to land forces a degree of mobility approaching that of ships, with the result that wars on land are radically different to those of previous ages to the extent that the area covered by individual battles and campaigns is vastly larger. Radio has given a military commander the means of controlling his forces thus widely scattered over a great area. These two facts have resulted not only in closer strategical co-operation between the Navy and the Army but also in more frequent tactical co-operation than was formerly the case. Thus the need for effective co-operation between the Services has become an important one. The existence of a third Service, the R.A.F., which, in addition to strategical co-operation, must work tactically with both land and sea forces in nearly every operation they undertake, and must do it practically daily, ,has made effective inter-service co-operation a vital factor in modern war.

It can be argued that the first solution of this problem is the abolition of the R.A.F. and its replacement by separate naval and military air arms. The former would absorb the present Fleet Air Arm and Coastal Command; the latter, whilst providing all necessary aircraft for co-operation with ground troops, would also provide fighter protection for our bases great and small and, at the right time, carry out independent bombing raids. But there are also arguments for maintaining the R.A.F. as a separate force and, since its abolition will not provide a complete solution to the problem of effective inter-Service co-operation, it is not intended to enter further into it here. The proposed solution which now follows will apply in any case. '

III.

It is suggested that from the officers of each Service who reach the rank of commander or its equivalent, the most suitable shall then be seconded to a Combined Service in which they would bear a common rank regardless of their previous service. Promotion to the more senior ranks in the individual Services would remain, but the officers concerned would be limited to appointments in which inter-Service co-operation did not arise such, for example, as that of admiral superintendent of a dockyard.

Combined Service officers would first undergo, say, two years' training in the necessary details of the Services other than their own previous one, and also in general staff work; thereby absorbing, incidentally, the functions of the present staff colleges.(1) Promotion in Combined Service rank would be by selection. On reaching the equivalent of flag rank, all would undergo a course in the higher aspects of war; absorbing, incidentally, the functions of, for example, the Naval War College.(2) Officers of this Combined Service would be employed in command of, or on the staffs of, Service units of all types-ships and squadrons, brigades and divisions, squadrons and groups. It is not, of course, intended that an officer lately in the Army should be appointed to command a battleship or one lately in the Navy in command of a brigade. Commands of units great and small of any one Service would normally be held by officers lately in that Service. On staffs, however, they might to a limited extent be interchangeable. But, consequent on being in the Combined Service and having received proper training therein, it would at any time be practicable for them to assume overall command of a Combined Force in which there would be a real chance of effective co-operation between units of different Services by virtue of the fact that their individual commanders would also belong to the Combined Service.

Space will not permit any further examination of this suggestion. Obviously there are many details which would require solution before it could be implemented, for which reason it must wait until the present war is over. But these should not be insoluble; and it would be a real and effective step towards what is seen to be required to-day, the practical consolidation of our three Fighting Services in one Service.

1. As they existed in September 1939

2. As it existed in September 1939

WALRUS.