Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

“ Aviation, by the wide field of observation it commands, by the speed with which it can collect and transmit information, to a great extent lifts the fog of war and enables a general to act on knowledge where before he acted largely on deduction. Information once obtained, its mobile and far-reaching offensive power introduces the element of surprise, and permits of lightning strokes against the enemy's vital points. ”

“ In the phase of world commerce of which we are on the threshold, science, brain-power, energy, and faith must, and increasingly will, be harnessed to the work of perfecting air communication so that human mobility can be increased, knowledge interchanged, and the fruits of production distributed throughout the world.
As a soldier I have of course dwelt on the possibility of war in the future and of the part which aviation would play in it, but it would be a great mistake—though I think that mistake is constantly made—to suppose that soldiers look forward with equanimity to the prospect of war. ”

“ Fortunately, although with the other great scientific additions, chemical warfare and the submarine, its potentialities for destruction are very great, yet aircraft, unlike the submarine, can be utilized not only in the conduct of war but in [8] the interests of peace, and it is here that we can guide and strengthen it for good. Just as the naval supremacy of Britain was won because commercially we were the greatest seafaring people in the world, so will air supremacy be achieved by that country which, making aviation a part of its everyday life, becomes an airfaring community. ”

“ It was in this atmosphere that the soul was formed which later under the great strain of war impelled our pilots forward cheerfully to face every duty and every danger in the true spirit of manliness and fearless confidence. ”

“ And there had to be developed a new spirit, combining the discipline of the old Army, the technical skill of the Navy, and the initiative, energy and dash inseparable from flying. There were the inevitable accidents, but training had to be done. We existed for war and war alone would show whether we had thought and worked without respite aright. We had to prove our value to the other arms, many of the leaders of which, owing to a long period of peace, found difficulty in differentiating between the normal usages of peace and war and in understanding the right use of aircraft. ”

“ Civil aviation is not, however, merely a method of amplifying service air power. It has a vast potential value of its own. Communications shape human destinies. The evolution of our civilization bears strongly the marks of the systems which at various stages have made the intercourse of men and ideas possible. Its history is one of endeavour to extend the limits imposed upon human living and mobility in each of the great phases through which it has passed. ”

“ Speaking generally, the evolution of the machine, as apart from the engine, which hung behind, followed upon the evolution of air tactics. As soon as experience, often hard won at the cost of a valuable life, opened up new fields of activity for aircraft, the designer and constructor evolved new designs to meet the new requirements. It was no small achievement in this period to have solved the problem of inherent stability, both in theory and practice, so successfully, that from the aerodynamic standpoint our machines in 1914 compare favourably with those in use at the end of the war. ”

“ We may at least assume that another great war will not be allowed in our generation. But war, in spite of its horrors, in spite of its bereavements, is only too quickly forgotten. A comparatively few years, and those who have passed [138] through its fire are no more. New wealth is created; new antagonisms arise; and a new generation remembers only the romantic stories and the martial deeds of its fathers, or, more fatally, organizes itself to avenge defeat. ”

“ The war lasted long enough to prove the effect [100] of the strategic offensive by air. In spite of the dictates of humanity, it cannot be eliminated. It is true that modern war is inimical to the progress of mankind and brings only less suffering to the victors than to the vanquished. To ensure peace should therefore be our ideal. But a great war once joined is to-day a war of peoples. ”

“ Meanwhile, if [133] civil aviation can be built up as a productive organization to a position relative to that held by our mercantile marine, we must understand that it will ensure air supremacy better than a large unproductive outlay on armaments. And I am convinced that, with public support, this can, and will, be done. Others will do it if we do not. But air power, although drawing its vitality from the expansion of air commerce and the growth of the civil aircraft industry, must at the same time rely upon the nucleus of a highly trained and technical air force. ”

“ It is obvious therefore that the capacity of the construction industry to expand cannot be fostered by service aviation alone; furthermore, in the event of another war of attrition, expansion will be more essential than any amount of machine reserve power immediately available, and in the event of a war of short duration that power will win which has the greatest preponderance of machines, service or civil, fit to take the air. ”

“ In spite of the great decrease of accidents, in spite of the increased comfort of air travel, in spite of increased regularity, the average person is slow to realize that the communication of the busy man of the future will be by air. The majority of the business world is too conservative to make general use of the opportunities offered by aircraft for the quick transmission of its correspondence, while, though speed must be paid for, the high fares hitherto charged have deterred the general public from substituting the aeroplane for the train or boat. ”

“ If the air is to be a prime factor in the world-phase to come, how will the British Empire be affected? Stretching from Great Britain to Australia and the Pacific Ocean, the Empire depends more than any other political and commercial organization on the most modern and speedy communications, and as each of its portions assumes greater responsibility there is greater need for co-operation, the distribution of information, and the personal contact of statesmen and business men. "The old order changeth, yielding place to new"; and in communications the new order is air transport. ”

“ Though in air, as in every other form of warfare, attack is more effective than defence, we cannot afford to keep our air forces up to war strength in peace any more than our Army or Navy.
The problem, from a military point of view, is therefore to ensure an adequate reserve and to maintain our capacity for expansion to meet emergencies. The number of units maintained at war establishment should be the absolute minimum for safety and of the type immediately required on mobilization, i.e. long-range bombing and naval reconnaissance squadrons. ”

“ Cavalry, unless retained, as I think they should be, in the form of mounted machine-gunners, will, I think, disappear in European warfare, but infantry will remain, and it will be the object of aircraft to assist their advance by reconnaissance, ground attack, artillery and tank co-operation, and the destruction of the enemy's supplies and communications. In this connection ground tactics and air tactics must develop pari passu and commanders of Corps and Armies must work out during peace training the fullest schemes for the most intimate co-operation between air and land forces. ”

“ Just as gas was used notwithstanding the Hague Convention, so air war, in spite of any and every international agreement to the contrary, will be carried into the enemy's country, his industries will be destroyed, his nerve centres shattered, his food supply disorganized, and the will power of the nation as a whole shaken. Formidable as is the prospect of this type of air warfare, it will become still more terrible with the advent of new scientific methods of life-destruction, such as chemical and bacterial attack on great industrial and political centres. ”

“ Service aviation must be the spearhead, civil aviation the shaft, of our air effort.
The present isolation of England in terms of air from the rest of the Empire, and the geographical conditions already described, certainly render the national expansion of aviation, both external and internal, a difficult problem. It is clear that for this reason it must rather develop on an Imperial basis. The Dominions have already started valuable civil air work and have appointed Air Boards. ”

“ Aircraft revolutionize the speed of intercommunication by letter, and banks and financial houses will gradually realize that large savings can be made by utilizing air mails for the transaction of business. A difficulty lies in the fact that the area of the British Isles is not very favourable for an extensive air mail service, which can only operate by day, since by the existing means of transport mails are carried during the out-of-business hours and can generally reach their destination in a night, while the distances to Paris and Brussels are too short to afford outstanding advantage. ”

“ In Africa, Canada, and Australia are found the great distances suitable to the operation of aircraft, the wide undeveloped areas through which air transport may prove more economic than the construction of railways, and the trans-oceanic routes over which travel by [124] steamship has reached, and in many cases passed, its economic maximum speed. Air transport, careless whether the route be over land or sea, unhampered by foreign frontiers, gives the Empire precisely those essential powers of direct, supple, and speedy intercommunication which ship and rail have already shown us to be vital. ”

“ A large commercial air fleet will provide, not only a reserve of men and machines, but it will keep in existence an aircraft industry, with its designing and constructional staffs, capable of quick and wide expansion in emergency; and such an industry will not be employed on the design of contrivances for use in a possible war, but on meeting the practical requirements of everyday air transport and navigation. ”

“ The ultimate use of the air, however, is not exemplified by a few passengers flying daily between London and the Continent any more than by a few squadrons of fighting craft. In a decade or two overhead transit will become the main factor in the express delivery of passengers, mails, and goods. It is the one means left to the Empire of speeding up world-communication to an extent as yet unrealized. For the price of a battleship a route to Australia could be organized, the value of which would be beyond computation.
The British Empire as a whole offers vast fields for expansion. ”

“ French policy is fostering civil aviation as a part of its military policy and, a portion of the subsidy being given to machines fulfilling service requirements, there is a strong tendency for French civil aviation to be military air power camouflaged. British policy, on the other hand, should aim at fostering civil aviation primarily as a commercial concern and believes that air commerce is the basis of air power as a whole. We are prepared to face the tendency of military and civil machines to diverge if that divergence is essential to the commercial machine. ”

“ At the beginning of the Great War, in 1914, England found herself with an air service which, though much smaller than those of Germany or France, was so excellently manned and organized, trained and equipped, that it placed her at a bound in the front rank of aviation. ”

“ The iron of confidence, both to used and user, had to be welded with the first great blows on the anvil of war. For these reasons it was vital that every available trained pilot and suitable machine should be employed with the Army, even at the danger of serious initial depletion at Home. The smooth progress of expansion was largely attributable alike to the strength of the pre-war spirit, organization and training, [2] and to the results actual and moral obtained by the first four squadrons during the Retreat and the following weeks of the war under centralized control. ”

“ Thus a natural, practical and healthy, as opposed to a stereotyped and artificial, growth will be ensured. Our naval supremacy is largely attributable to the interest which the people as a whole have traditionally taken in naval policy; in other words, to the fact that we are a seafaring nation. Similarly air supremacy can only be secured if the air-sense of the man in the street is fostered, and aviation is not confined to military operations, but becomes a part of everyday life. ”

“ The commercial exploitation of air transport is passing through a period of experiment, and suffering [107] in the general war reaction from the incapacity of the public to think of aviation except as a fighting service. The machines hitherto used on the lines to and on the Continent are principally converted war machines, and to transform military into commercial craft and to use them as such is of small assistance to civil aviation, which requires reliable, economic machines as one of the basic conditions of its financial success. The cost of running an air transport service is considerable. ”

“ One feels as if one were no longer a human being. One air raid after another. In my opinion this is no longer war but murder. Finally, in time, one becomes horribly cold, and one is daily, nay, hourly, prepared for the worst. ”