Air defence

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Future schemes of air defence

MONSTER EAR TRUMPETS FOR AIR DEFENCE

During the last years of the Great War, sound detectors played an increasingly important part in the air defences of all the belligerents. Since those days they have undergone great development. Here the emperor of Japan is inspecting the huge trumpet-like detectors that work in conjunction with the anti-aircraft guns (seen right)

This last in a series on 'Things of tomorrow' draws upon Boyd Cable, 'Future schemes of air defence', in John Hammerton, ed., War in the Air: Aerial Wonders of our Time (London: Amalgamated Press, n.d. [1936]), 310-6. (There was a seventh in the series, but by another author and on a non-military subject, that of stratospheric flight.) The previous posts looked at 'Death from the skies', 'The doom of cities', 'New horrors of air attack', 'If war should come' and 'When war does come: terrifying effects of gas attacks'.
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In 1910, two Army officers, Second Lieutenant Bowle-Evans and Lieutenant Cammell independently put forward a new idea for an anti-aircraft weapon: the vortex ring gun.

In principal, it involved the formation of a vortex in the air, by the firing of an explosive charge inside a conical 'gun' which, if it were pointed upwards, would propel the vortex towards the intended airborne target on which, it was suggested, the violent air movement within the vortex would have a sufficiently destructive effect. Some practical support for the theory was provided firstly by a Dr Pernter of Germany who had some years earlier carried out some experimental firings which were said to have torn apart birds and other objects, and secondly by the farmers of a large region ranging from Hungary to northern Italy, who appeared to use such guns routinely in the belief that they could disperse hailstorms.1

These proposals seem to have been made to the War Office; in any case a year later the Secretary of State for War, Richard Haldane, was corresponding on the subject with Sir Oliver Lodge, the eminent physicist. Lodge told Haldane that 'I really think the thing is worth a trial', but although he proposed acquiring a vortex ring gun from Piedmont for testing purposes it's unclear whether this ever happened.

The idea of using a vortex ring gun for air defence was aired in public at an Aeronautical Society lecture given on 3 December 1913 by Captain C. M. Waterlow, Royal Engineers, on the topic of the 'The coming airship'. In a discussion of the potential for aerial combat between aeroplanes and airships, Waterlow thought the former would be disadvantaged because of its inferior weight-carrying capacity: the airship could afford to be much better armed. This is perhaps not surprising since he was himself an airship pilot. When it came to the weapons which would be used, he suggested vortex rings:

The question of a suitable weapon had hardly been considered, but he would remark that there were great possibilities in the use of vortex rings, such as had been used in France in connection with vineyards. To show the destructive effects that they can produce, he stated that when fired horizontally they were capable of breaking up a wooden fence at a distance of 100 yards.2

The basic principle behind vortex ring guns is quite sound: a smoke ring is a common form of vortex ring, and toy vortex guns can bought or even made at home. Practical uses are a bit more dubious. The use of vortex ring guns (or hail cannon) to disperse hailstorms has a long history but little scientific evidence to back it up. More recently, militaries have looked at vortex ring guns as non-lethal weapons, to knock people down, but they don't seem to be able to do this even over a distance as short as 30 metres.
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  1. Malcolm Hall, From Balloon to Boxkite: The Royal Engineers and Early British Aeronautics (Stroud: Amberley, 2010), 204. [↩]
  2. '"The coming airship"', Flight, 13 December 1913, 1362. [↩]

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I have been very remiss in not noting until now the posting of Military History Carnival #30 at Cliopatria. It's a good one, as usual. The post I found most interesting this time is at Bring the Heat, Bring the Stupid (as it was last time, actually) on the US Linebacker II bombing offensive against North Vietnam in December 1972. It strikes me that this was really the last Second World War-style strategic bombing campaign fought by a major power, at least in terms of having to fight through determined air defences. These included fighters and anti-aircraft (in the form of missiles rather than guns), though with the latter much the most dangerous -- to the USAF's surprise and loss. The US lost 16 of the 207 B-52s it deployed in the eleven-day campaign -- 8 out of 99 on one night alone -- which was an unsustainable casualty rate, especially when you consider that the factories back home weren't churning out plentiful replacements as they had done in the Second World War. Still, the USAF successfully adapted to the threat (or North Vietnam started running out of SAMs, take your pick): by the last few days it was running out of targets but no longer out of aircraft. Compare with Desert Storm less than two decades later, when (despite some scary moments) the Coalition as a whole lost only 42 aircraft to enemy action in over 100,000 sorties.

And speaking of Cliopatria, I must note with regret its passing. I was a member at the end of its 8.5 years, an opportunity of which I definitely did not make best use. My thanks go to Ralph Luker for affording me that wasted opportunity, but much more for making Cliopatria one of the few history blogs to even try to link the disparate elements of the historioblogosphere together. I hope he enjoys the copious amounts of free time his blogging retirement will doubtless free up!

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Darwin, 19 February 1942

Thirteen days ago, it was the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin, the first and most devastating Japanese air raid on Australia. In fact, there were two air raids on 19 February 1942: one from the same carrier task force which had attacked Pearl Harbor a little over two months previously, and another later in the day by land-based bombers from recently-occupied airfields in the Netherlands East Indies. Around 250 people were killed, mostly from the military since two-thirds of its pre-war population of 5800 had already been evacuated. Ten ships were sunk, including an American destroyer, the USS Peary. The RAAF station was hard hit too. Electricity and water services were cut (though soon restored); port and oil facilities severely damaged (shown above).

Despite Darwin's status as Australia's northern gateway (it was a prewar QANTAS staging post on the Singapore route) it was poorly defended. There were few anti-aircraft guns, no radars, and only two RAAF squadrons, one of general purpose Wirraways and the other of Hudson light bombers. Only the accidental presence of a squadron of American P-40s returning from an abortive flight to Timor allowed any sort of defence to be mounted in the air. Of the ten P-40s, five were out of fuel and had to land; four were shot down; one claimed two Val dive bombers. Anti-aircraft accounted for another Val and two Zeroes. Wing Commander Archibald Tindal was killed manning a Lewis gun against the enemy; RAAF Tindal is named after him.
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Death from the skies

The images in this post are from Boyd Cable, 'Death from the skies', in John Hammerton, ed., War in the Air: Aerial Wonders of our Time (London: Amalgamated Press, n.d. [1936]), 20-4 (see below).

The article itself is a short story describing an air raid in the next war. I won't summarise it in detail, but it argues for the futility of both air defence and civil defence. The RAF's interceptors never even encounter the enemy bombers (in part because they are stealthy thanks to their silenced engines, only 20% as loud as normal aircraft engines). Though the populace has been drilled well and resists panic, at least at first, they are too vulnerable. A first wave of bombers uses high explosives to block the streets with rubble, making it impossible for fire engines to pass; the second drops incendiaries which set the city ablaze and, crucially, force civilians out of their shelters; and the final wave drops poison gas, which starts killing the now-exposed people on the streets. Now the panic starts and the mob flees, their suffering increased by strafing raiders. The RAF now has its chance, but the city is doomed...

"Proof enough of what we've said so long," growled the one [Air Staff officer]. "Defence as such is a wash-out. Attack is the only useful form of defence."

"If we can hit them harder and faster and oftener than they can hit us, we win," said the other. "We can do it, too, if we have more bombers -- men and machines -- than they have."

"Yes -- if," said the other wearily. "That's what we were arguing as far back as the first R.A.F. expansion scheme in -- what was it -- 1935 and '6, wasn't it?"

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In my previous post, I discussed a mysterious aeroplane seen over Hobart in 1938 which was interpreted in a context of concern about vulnerability to air attack. I said that by contrast a similar incident that year over Darwin was seen as a curiosity rather than a threat, but in looking at it more closely I find that the threat element was present in the press accounts more than I thought. Let's see if there's any discernable pattern.

There were actually two aeroplanes seen (and heard) over Darwin, or perhaps the same aeroplane was seen (and heard) on two different occasions.

Last Thursday evening [3 February 1938] two men saw a machine fly over Darwin at a great height heading south. One of the men is employed at the aerodrome and it is considered unlikely that he could have made a mistake. Another man who is an aviation engineer also heard the drone of an engine and stated emphatically that it was an aeroplane engine.1

The other sighting was initially a hearing. A foreman at Darwin's electrical power plant by the name of Maurice Holtze quite ingeniously used the sound of the plant's diesel engines as a sound detector:

This engine develops about 1000 revolutions at normal speed, and Holtze observed that the presence of any other machine in the vicinity developing more or less than 1000 revolutions is reflected clearly in the exhaust beat of the power house engine. At 4.30 a.m. yesterday [8 February] he was attending the engine when he noticed a distinct change in the note of the exhaust. Accustomed to the departure of air mail planes from the local aerodrome about 5 o'clock on three mornings of the week he at first paid little attention to the antics of his unofficial sound detector. Then he realised suddenly that no machines were scheduled to leave Darwin on Tuesday morning. He rushed outside and saw a machine in the air.2

Holtze couldn't make out any identification marks on the aeroplane, but said that he could see the glow from the cockpit lights; it appeared to be a large, multi-engined machine.3 Apparently inbound from the Timor Sea, it circled over Darwin and then flew south.4 A former superintendent of police named Lovegrove also heard an aeroplane at 4.30am, while a post office employee saw 'strange lights moving across the sky [...] similar to those shown by aircraft'.5 The government was informed of these reports, and while Canberra appeared sceptical it ordered local representatives of the Civil Air Board and the defence forces to investigate.
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  1. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 1938, 17. [↩]
  2. Cairns Post, 10 February 1938, 6. [↩]
  3. Argus (Melbourne), 10 February 1938, 1; Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 10 February 1938, 7. [↩]
  4. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 1938, 17. [↩]
  5. Morning Bulletin, 11 February 1938, 8. [↩]

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At about 5.20pm on Friday, 29 July 1938, hundreds of people saw a mysterious aeroplane diving from high over Hobart. According to Pegasus, the Hobart Mercury's aviation correspondent,

A large crowd collected near the corner of Liverpool and Murray streets, and traffic was impeded. The machine descended to a comparatively low level, yet not low enough to enable the identification numerals to be read. It was a grey biplane, larger than a Gypsy Moth.

As the watchers were preparing to rush for cover to avoid the expected crash, the machine sheered away and disappeared in the evening mists towards the south-west.1

Some observers thought that they could see the aeroplane's navigation lights.2 Engine sounds ('described as having a peculiar note') were heard in the posh Sandy Bay area (just southwest of Hobart's centre) soon thereafter, and a single-engined aeroplane was heard over Campania (20 miles to the north) by Dudley Ransom, pilot and owner of a private aerodrome, at 7pm.3 Enquiries at Tasmanian and Victorian aerodromes found no aircraft aloft that evening.4 Nor, apparently, did it belong to the RAAF.5
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  1. Mercury (Hobart), 4 August 1938, 13. [↩]
  2. Ibid., 30 July 1938, 9. [↩]
  3. Ibid., 4 August 1938, 13. [↩]
  4. Ibid., 30 July 1938, 9; Examiner (Launceston), 1 August 1938, 7. [↩]
  5. Mercury, 4 August 1938, 13. [↩]

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The RAF Displays held at Hendon between 1920 and 1937 were unique, in that no other air force attempted to project a vision of itself, its capabilities and its responsibilities in so public a way, on such a large scale and over such a long period. Of course, that's largely because there weren't many air forces around. Or rather, they did exist, but not independently of their nation's army and navy. Putting on such a big show was important for the RAF precisely because it was newborn: it needed to convince everyone (parliamentarians, journalists, the public, the other services, other nations) that it was necessary and/or that it was successful. Hendon seemed to have fulfilled this very well, judging by press attention and attendance numbers.

But viewed another way, the RAF Displays weren't unprecedented at all. Both the British Army and the Royal Navy had their own forms of public display. The Army had long performed in public, in fact, such ceremonies as trooping the colours, and the 19th century witnessed a huge growth in the popularity of military reviews, according to Scott Hughes Myerly 'the most popular and elaborate public manifestation of the military spectacle':

The action on the field consisted of evolutions of drill, musket volleys with blanks, and cannon salutes. Often a sham battle or mock, siege would be staged between two opposing units, or a bayonet or cavalry charge would be a part of the show.1

I'm not sure of the actual content of these mock battles, though the fact they they were performed during the Napoleonic Wars suggests an obvious ideological function. For its part, the Navy also developed fleet reviews into what Jan Rüger has termed 'a new form of public theatre'.2 This happened much later in the century, however, dramatically increasing in frequency after the review held for Victoria in 1887 on the occasion of her golden jubilee. By their nature, naval reviews afforded fewer opportunities for presenting narratives of actual combat. There were some, though, for example a 'mock-attack carried out by torpedo boats and submarines' at the 1909 Spithead review.3 Like the RAF later, and doubtless the Army before it, the Navy rather dubiously insisted that these were not mere spectacles but training for war.

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  1. Scott Hughes Myerly, '"The eye must entrap the mind": army spectacle and paradigm in nineteenth-century Britain', Journal of Social History 26 (1992), 105-31, at 106. [↩]
  2. Jan Rüger, The Great Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 24. [↩]
  3. Ibid., 26. [↩]

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Flight, 25 June 1936, c

In June 1936, Flight published a short story entitled 'If, 193--? A conjectural story'. It's interesting as an example of an air force view of the next war. That is, for the RAF it goes pretty much according to plan: the enemy's attempt at a knock-out blow against Britain fails, whereas the RAF plays a key part in Britain's victory. The author and illustrator, H. F. King, was only 21 or so when this story was published; in July 1940 he became a pilot officer in the RAF, and after 1945 wrote a number of books about aeroplanes (including a couple of entries in the authoritative Putnam series). I don't know what his relationship to the RAF was at this point, but he seems to have been pretty well-informed. Or perhaps he just read his Flight cover to cover every week.

The situation is as follows:

Through indefensible aggression Eurland had secured a number of Continental bases, the nearest being not more 400 miles distant from the English coast. It was apparent that the enemy intended to push his way toward the coast and to acquire additional aerodromes from which to operate all manner of aircraft, including his short-range fighters.1

One of the few characters in the story, a planespotting young ship's engineer (perhaps modelled on the author himself) muses that it was 'Funny to be thinking about war with Eurland, of all countries. Still, there was no accounting for the machinations of the politicians'.2 The reader should NOT identify this 'Eurland' with any real Germany, as an editorial comment makes clear. Did I say 'Germany'? Sorry, I meant 'country'.

THIS story is not intended as a forecast. Indeed, any mention of politics, foreign countries or exact period have purposely been omitted. Rather it is intended to tell something of what might be expected should Great Britain be attacked from the air after her Royal Air Force has been made stronger than it is to-day.2

This last sentence gives the game away: the story is an argument for the continuation of RAF rearmament (i.e. the one triggered by German rearmament), which had begun only a year or so earlier. King has a paragraph on how expansion has fared by the fateful year of 193-:

Some of the fighter units were still flying the Gauntlet. More were using the four-gun Gladiator and the improved Fury. The Hawker monoplane was just beginning to percolate into the Service and threatened to turn all fighter tactics topsy-turvy. We had scores of Blenheims, Battles, and Wellesleys, in addition to the obsolescent Hinds and Ansons. Our heavy bombers included the Heyford and Hendon (both due for replacement), the Whitley, and various types of more modern design.2

'None of these' latter, King remarks, 'bore any trace of the slackening in the pace of bomber development during 1933, when the British Government recommended restrictions on the all-up weight of bombing aircraft', presumably referring to Britain's proposals at the World Disarmament Conference.2
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  1. Flight, 25 June 1936, c. [↩]
  2. Ibid. [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩]

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Military History Carnival #29 is up at Cliopatria. There are quite a few airpower posts this time around; consider this one at Bring the Heat, Bring the Stupid on the DEW Line, the North American continental early warning system built in the 1950s and lasting into the 1980s. I knew about the DEW Line itself, a radar chain built along the north coast of Canada and Alaska to provide early warning of Soviet bombers. But I didn't know about the Texas Towers, effectively radars sited on oil rigs, nor did I know about the radar picket lines formed from destroyer escorts and Lockheed Constellations. The former bring to mind the Maunsell forts in the Thames and Mersey estuaries, some of which were for air defence, fitted with AA and searchlights (though I'm not sure if they were used for early warning as such). The latter remind me of suggestions made in 1939 (April) by the pseudonymous Ajax for both sea pickets ('observation ships equipped with sound locators, detectors, range-finders, and searchlights') and air pickets ('reconnaissance air-cruisers', five-man flying boats with long range and endurance) to extend the pitiful range of land-based sound locators and give some warning of an impending air raid on London.1 Nothing new etc.

  1. Ajax, Air Strategy for Britons (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1939), 82, 83. [↩]