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‘A Swift Agent of Government’: Air Power in British Colonial Africa, 1916–1939*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

David Killingray
David Killingray
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths' College, University of London
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Extract

In the inter-war years one major role for the Royal Air Force was imperial defence. The Air Staff further argued that air power, used in substitution for the Army, would provide a more economical and effective means of policing and subjugating unrest in the remoter and more inaccessible areas of the colonial empire in Asia and Africa. The first successful major operation by the R.A.F. in Somaliland in 1920 encouraged the extension of air policing to the troublesome Middle East. The R.A.F. saw the Sudan as an integral part of its Middle East operations and throughout the late 1920s and 1930s military aircraft stationed in Khartoum were used to deal with revolt in the Southern Sudan. Continued Army opposition to substitution led the R.A.F. to seek a role in the sub-Saharan colonies. The need for defence economies as a result of the Depression, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and unrest on the Copperbelt persuaded the authorities in both London and the colonies of the need for an Air Force presence in East and Central Africa.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 1984 , pp. 429 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

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26 Clifford to Milner, 3 April 1920, encl. ‘Report on “Aviation in Nigeria” by Sqd. Ldr. J. C. P. Wood, R.A.F’, CO 583/85/20183, also Guggisberg to Churchill, 18 May 1921, encl. ‘Report by Insp. Gen. W.A.F.F. on Gold Coast Regt., March 1921’, CO 445/55/29035. Amery, as under-secretary for Colonies, in 1919 offered Clifford, then governor of the Gold Coast, a number of surplus Air Ministry planes. He wrote: ‘You could have them both for military and for civil purposes. The Darfur campaign and the present Afghan campaign show how effective they are for the former.' Clifford Papers, Woking; Amery to Clifford, 31 May 1919.

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32 Archer to Milner, 15 May 1920, and Group-Capt. R. Gordon to Wing Comm. Steel, Air Ministry, London, 9 Feb. 1920, AIR 1/23/15/1/116.

33 In a Cabinet Memorandum, 1 May 1920; See also CAB 5/4, C.I.D. paper by Trenchard, , 135–6, March 1921.Google Scholar

34 Quoted in Jeffrey, Keith, ‘Sir Henry Wilson and the defence of the British Empire, 1918–22’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Hist, V, 111 (May 1977), 286.Google Scholar

35 Howard, Maj. C. A. L., ‘Operations in British Somaliland, 1920’, J.R.U.S.I., LIII (Jan. 1923), 201–218Google Scholar, followed by a retort from Group Capt. Chanier, J. A., ‘Operations in British Somaliland’Google Scholaribid. LIV (Jan. 1924), 103–9, and Howard's reply, ibid. LV (Jan. 1925), 128–36.

36 Jardine, Douglas, The Mad Mullah of Somaliland (London, 1923), 280.Google Scholar The argument continued to the 1960s: see letters to the Daily Telegraph by Ismay, Lord, 13 April 1962Google Scholar, and Collie Knox, 27 April 1962. See Waldie, , ‘Relations’, 37 ff.Google Scholar

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40 ‘The part of the Air Force of the future in Imperial Defence’ conf. Feb. 1921Google Scholar, AIR 9/15/3.

41 AIR 9/18/20/10/1–3, 1929–32.

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45 Air Vice-Marshal T. Twidible Bowen, A.O.C. R.A.F. Middle East, to Sir Hugh Trenchard, C.A.S., 3 March 1928, FO 141/519/19215. The ‘normal sequence of action’ by the authorities in the Sudan was laid down as follows: ‘(a) Issue of ultimatum and warnings by Political Officer; (b) Bombing of inanimate objects as moral demonstration; (c) Destruction of cattle or other animals; (d) Action against hostile personnel.’ FO 141/519/19215, ‘Warning to Lau Nuer before air action’, Civil Sec., Khartoum, secret, 9 Jan. 1928, by Col. F. P. Nosworthy, Chief Staff Officer for Raid, Sudan Defence Force.

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52 Occupation of Boma Plateau, 1936’, AIR 20/693. For air operations against Ethiopian cattle raiders in 1930s, see ‘Operations at Gaderef’, AIR 20/688.

53 ‘Note on the status of the R.A.F. in the Sudan’, draft by Dep. Dir. Operations, May 1936, AIR 9/49/18. For air policy in 1937 see ‘Operations – Annuak-Beir (Murle), May 1937’, AIR 20/694.

54 Gwynn, Sir Charles W., Imperial Policing (London, 1934), 352–353.Google Scholar

55 Beaumont, , ‘Policing the Empire’, 86–87.Google Scholar

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57 See House of Lords Debates, vol. 77, cols. 23–9, 9 April 1930. for Trenchard's views on substitution. File AIR 9/62 contains letters to newspapers following the speech. For an earlier lecture by Trenchard, when he was C.A.S., see ‘The employment of air power in overseas defence’, addressed to Secretary of State for Air, 3 Jan. 1925, AIR 9/15/20.

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60 House of Lords Debates, vol. 77 (3 April 1930), cols. 39–42, speech by Lord Lloyd.

61 House of Commons Debates, vol. 280, cols. 353–4, 5 July 1933. See ‘H. W.’ (Wing Commander E. L. H. Williams), ‘Air bombing - in humanity's name’, African Observer (Bulawayo), IV, iv (Feb. 1936), 20–30Google Scholar; and Sqd.-Ldr. Kinston-McCloughry, E. J., Winged Warfare. Air Problems of Peace and War (London, 1937), 209 ff.Google Scholar For the background to the debate on aerial bombing see Royse, M. W., Aerial Bombardment and the International Regulation of Warfare (New York, 1928)Google Scholar, and Lester, H Bruce, ‘An effort to regulate aerial bombing. The Hague Commission of Jurists, 1922–23’, Aerospace Historian, XXIX 111 (1982) 183–185.Google Scholar

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64 Cabinet Paper 332 (29), ‘The fuller employment of air power in Imperial defence,’ memorandum by C.A.S., Nov. 1929, AIR 8/45.

65 See the various papers in ‘Defence of colonies and protectorates - air questions, 1932–35’, AIR 9/44.

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67 Extract from letter of Gp.-Capt. Arthur Harris to C.A.S., 1932, AIR 9/18/20/2/9.

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69 ‘East Africa and Substitution’, memorandum by Gp.-Capt. Arthur Harris to C.A.S., secret, 20 July 1933, AIR 9/59. Wilkinson, O.C. K.A.R., in an attempt to exclude the R.A.F., proposed a Volunteer Air Unit for Kenya.

70 ‘Report on organization of defence in East and Central Africa’ by Brig. C. C. Norman and Air Vice-Marshal C. L. N. Newall, 7 March 1934, AIR 9/66, and also AIR 9/18/20/16. See also Moyse-Bartlett, H., The King's African Rifles. A study in the Military History of East and Central Africa (Aldershot, 1956), 466.Google Scholar

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76 FO 371/35607/35608; Gilkes, Patrick, The Dying Lion. Feudalism and modernization in Ethiopia (London, 1973), 189–191.Google Scholar Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, had since 1917 used aircraft to assert central government control, e.g. in the siege of Magdala in 1917 and in the Oromo revolt in 1930.

77 Haywood, A. and Clarke, F. A. S., The History of the Royal West African Frontier Force (Aldershot, 1964), 476–480Google Scholar, which details the use of transport aircraft during the troubles on the Cameroon and Togo borders and unrest at Kano and Kumasi.

78 Foran, W. R., The Kenya Police 1887–1960 (London, 1962), ch. 32.Google Scholar

79 Reeves, Ambrose, Shooting at Sharpeville (London, 1960), 34, 58.Google Scholar