SPAIGHT, James Molony, C.B. 1936; C.B.E. 1927; O.B.E. 1918; Principal Assistant Secretary, Air Ministry since 1934; b. Ireland, 1877, y. s. of Robert Spaight, J.P.; m. 1907, Dolly, y. d. of Colonel W. F. Spaight, J.P., R.E. (retired); one d.. Educ.: Dublin University (Trinity) (Scholar), Double Senior Moderator, 1900; LL.B. and LL.D., 1905 (first place in both, together); member of Senate, 1905; entered higher division of Civil Service, 1901; Director of Accounts, Air Ministry, 1930-34. Publications: War Rights on Land, 1911; Aircraft in War, 1914; Aircraft in Peace and the Law, 1919; Air Power and War Rights, 1924; Aircraft and Commerce in War, 1926; Beginnings of Organised Air Power, 1927; Pseudo-Security, 1928; Air Power and the Cities, 1930; An International Air Force, 1932; papers in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Army Review, British Year Book of International Law, R.A.F. Quarterly, Cavalry Journal, Journal of Comparative Legislation, etc. Address: Inglemere, Smitham Downs Road, Purley.
Who's Who 1937. London: A & C Black, 1937.
J. M. Spaight (1877-1968) was easily the most prolific British writer on airpower during the first half of the 20th century, with over a dozen books to his name. He was unusual in that he was not a pilot, nor did he have any military experience. Instead he was a civil servant trained in law; from 1918 until his retirement in 1937 he was at the Air Ministry, ending up in quite a senior position. So his books tended to be legalistic and perhaps presenting the official point of view (though there was never any question of him speaking for the Ministry). He was also very precise and scholarly; this may have made his books less accessible to a popular audience, but his meticulous footnotes and references are an absolute gold mine for later historians. In particular, The Beginnings of Organized Air Power (1927) is essential on the early history of the Air Ministry and the various boards which preceded it, while the three editions of Air Power and War Rights (1924, 1933, 1947), about the legal questions surrounding bombing, are excellent guides to contemporary aviation literature and viewpoints. Because much of what Spaight wrote was summary and synthesis of the views of others, his own beliefs are sometimes difficult to discern. But his basic legal and ethical viewpoint was that aerial bombardment of cities was permissible to the same extent as were naval and land bombardments — which is to say, it was permissible if there were military objectives within the city which could be attacked without indiscriminate harm to the inhabitants. Therefore he rejected morale or terror bombing as such, and indeed he came to doubt that such a strategy could be effective (that is, he moved away from a belief in the knock-out blow); however, during the Second World War he defended Bomber Command's policy of area bombing, in Bombing Vindicated (1944).
Spaight's other aviation books were: Aircraft in War (1914, just before the First World War), Aircraft in Peace and the Law (1919), Aircraft and Commerce in War (1926), Pseudo-Security (1928), Air Power and the Cities (1930), An International Air Force (1932), Air Power in the Next War (1938), Can America Prevent Frightfulness from the Air? (1939), The Sky's the Limit (1940), The Battle of Britain (1941), Blockade by Air (1942), Volcano Island (1943), The Atomic Problem (1948), and Air Power can Disarm (1948). His sole non-aviation book was his first, War Rights on Land (1911).
See also Robin Higham, The Military Intellectuals in Britain: 1918-1939 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1966), 230-3; Oxford DNB. A list of archival sources is available at the National Register of Archives.
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Airminded · An alternative Battle of Britain -- I
[...] This is the front cover of a book by J. M. Spaight on British airpower, called The Sky’s the Limit. It was published in 1940, a not-insignificant year for the RAF. In fact, this ‘New and up-to-date’ edition was published in August, right in the middle of the Battle of Britain. (The first edition was published prior to the fall of France, judging from the number of references to the Armée de l’Air, now in the past tense.) It’s a familar image—the young fighter pilots sitting in their Spitfires on a glorious summer’s day, standing by for the word from Ops to hurl themselves into the sky to repel the hordes of Nazi invaders. In fact, it’s almost iconic. But hang on—something’s not quite right here. Take a closer look at the aeroplane in the background: [...]
Airminded · Anti-Semitism in British airpower literature
[...] neither did many writers take trouble to refute this libel. The only one I've come across is J. M. Spaight, in Air Power and War Rights (1924): No doubt, on the whole, London took the air raids with dignity [...]
On Googling British terror bombing
[...] two important works relating to the Blitz, The People's War and The Myth of the Blitz; and with J. M. Spaight, a senior Air Ministry civil servant whose writing career on airpower issues stretched from just [...]
Volcanic warfare — I
[...] J. M. Spaight was a lawyer by training and a civil servant by profession, and as was such not generally prone to flights of fancy. His prewar books are scholarly and judicious compilations of various opinions and precedents regarding aerial warfare. But his wartime writing, such as The Sky's the Limit (1940) and Bombing Vindicated (1944), was much more populist, even propagandist, in tone (while never quite dispensing with the references, for which I am grateful). Volcano Island (1943) seems to have taken him the farthest from his comfort zone, if only in the striking, if overwrought, framing device: Britain as a volcanic island with Bomber Command's airfields as volcanoes (with more than a touch of Old Testament wrath in there as well): War came to it [Britain], war horrible and overwhelming. Enemies rose up against it. The men of the evil cities which forge the arms of destruction encompassed it. Its freedom and its very existence were threatened. [...]
Volcanic warfare — II
[...] some time ago I promised to write more about J. M. Spaight's Volcano Island (published in 1943 but written late in 1942). I probably should do that at some [...]