Quotulatiousness

July 23, 2012

Disproportional British and Canadian combat casualties in Afghanistan

Filed under: Asia, Britain, Cancon, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:35

Although the total losses hide it, British and Canadian soldiers took higher casualty rates than Americans during combat in Afghanistan:

In the last year, British troops in Afghanistan have been getting killed at twice the rate (1,300 per 100,000 troops per year) as Americans during the height of the fighting in Iraq. Canadian troops, until they withdrew from combat, had an even higher rate of loss. But the U.S. has a lot more troops in Afghanistan. Thus total combat deaths since late 2001 are; U.S.-2,050, Britain-422 and Canada-158.

The British military describes “major combat” as an operation where losses (killed) were greater than 600 per 100,000. Thus only recently did British losses go north of 600. There are several reasons for these different death rates. For one thing, a higher proportion of British and Canadian troops in Afghanistan are in combat. The Americans handle a lot more of the support functions and thus a smaller proportion of the U.S. force is combat troops. Finally, the U.S. had more helicopters for moving troops and a much larger number of MRAP (bomb resistant vehicles) for troops moving on the ground.

[. . .]

Despite the higher casualty rates for the British and Canadians, the overall death rate for foreign troops in Afghanistan is still lower than it was in Iraq. In the last four years, foreign troops in Afghanistan lost about 300-400 dead per 100,000 troops per year. In Iraq, from 2004-7, the deaths among foreign troops ran at 500-600 per 100,000 per year. Since al Qaeda admitted defeat in Iraq four years ago, the U.S. death rate in Iraq has dropped to less than 200 dead per 100,000 troops per year within two years, and to nothing by the end of 2011 (as the last Americans troops left). Meanwhile, the rate in Afghanistan peaked at 400 dead per 100,000 troops in 2010 and has been declining ever since.

July 11, 2012

President Hollande “dwarfed” by Coldstream Guards

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, Media, Military, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:08

So much for a honeymoon period in office for French President Francois Hollande:

Francois Hollande was ridiculed today after allowing himself to look like a ‘dwarf’ alongside a British regiment which won battle honours at Waterloo and then occupied Paris.

During an official visit to London on Tuesday, the French President inspected a guard of honour from the 1st Battalion of the Coldstream Guards at the Foreign Office.

He then appeared in hugely embarrassing photographs alongside Major James Coleby, who looked around two feet taller than the Gallic head of state.

Comments alongside the image on a website of pictures taken by AFP, France’s national news agency, suggested Hollande had fallen into a ‘trap’ made to make him look ridiculous.

‘Poor France,’ wrote Jean-Marc Rameau, from Paris, while Dmitri Kovaley mocked Mr Hollande, who is 5ft 7ins, with the words ‘Dwarfs rule the world’.

H/T to Nicholas Packwood for the link.

July 8, 2012

Britain’s “two-tier” army after the recently announced cuts

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:49

At the Thin Pinstriped Line, Sir Humphrey looks at some of the potential problems the reconfigured British army may face:

In summary, the Army will comprise two very distinct elements, the so-called ‘Reaction Force’ and the ‘Adaptable Force’. The Reaction Force will comprise what appears to be a slimmed down Armoured Division, built around three brigades, and augmented by 16 Air Assault Brigade (and effectively 3 Commando Brigade) plus supporting units to provide the short notice rapid response capability. The Adaptable Force is built around those units which are held at longer readiness to move, and which will provide the routine garrison, training and roulement duties. Within this structure some units will be held at different levels of readiness depending on how the security situation looks. Essential to this plan is the use of some 30,000 trained Army Reserve personnel to augment both forces, through a bolstered set of employment rules.

[. . .]

That said, there are real challenges that will need to be overcome in order to make this a success. From the outset real leadership is going to be needed to avoid the accusation and emergence of a ‘two-tier army’. It seems clear from looking at the wiring diagrams that large swathes of the Infantry and supporting units is going to be working under what was previously seen as the Regional Forces. Assuming that the Arms Plot has not been reintroduced, and that battalions will remain locked into their roles, it is going to take a lot of effort to convince people to join a unit which is posted to the ‘Adaptable Forces’. Who is going to want to join the part of the Army that is unlikely to deploy anywhere exciting, or where deployment is likely to be peace keeping, and not high intensity warfare? It will be a real blow to the morale of many soldiers if they perceive that their soldiering careers are in future going to be spent on Salisbury plain practising feeding Orphans or watching fake militias simulate slaughtering innocent civilians whilst they have to stand and watch in accordance with their UN ROE. Meanwhile their peers in the Reaction Forces will be charging around playing with the best equipment, newest kit, and better deployment prospects.

The Army manning cell at Glasgow is going to have to come up with a very good way of ensuring that those who join for a career regularly cross between the two forces. There already exists a sense of ‘them and us’ between the Regional Forces and the rest of the Army. One feels that this will only get worse over time, particularly if deployments go to units such as the Paras or Guards, which enjoy better publicity in the eye of politicians.

The danger is that the best posts get earmarked for the high flyers, and that over time the Officer Corps will emerge with the best and brightest occupying all the promotion jobs, while everyone else is left to stay in the Adaptable Forces. This could lead to a real challenge as good officers walk early, not leaving sufficient leadership across the Army as a whole.

July 6, 2012

Maybe Obama has scaled back the War on Drugs

Filed under: Government, Law, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:45

At least, that’s the highly charitable conclusion reached by some supportive media folks. Jacob Sullum explains how they came up with this revelation:

One-upping GQ‘s Marc Ambinder, who recently predicted that Barack Obama “will pivot to the drug war” in his second term if he is re-elected, The Daily Beast‘s James Higdon claims the president already has scaled back the crusade to stop Americans from altering their consciousness in politically disfavored ways. Higdon’s evidence: less money in the administration’s fiscal year 2013 budget for marijuana-spotting helicopters. Seriously:

    Until now, the DEA and state law enforcement could count on the National Guard to fly hundreds of helicopter hours over national forests and other public land, where growers became active following the passage of property-seizure laws in the Reagan years—but the FY13 budget changes that.

    The 50-percent cut is not being apportioned evenly across the states — it’s a two-thirds cut in Oregon and a 70-percent cut in Kentucky, while the Southern border states are receiving less severe reductions in funding. It’s essentially a diversion of Defense Department assets away from the interior American marijuana fields to where the national-security risk is greatest: along our Southern border.

Higdon sees this budgetary rejiggering, which by his own admission will have no impact on the amount of marijuana supplied to or consumed by Americans, as a landmark on “the road map to pot decriminalization.”

I guess you need to pretend there’s a pony somewhere when you’re digging through that much horse shit.

July 5, 2012

British army reduces and consolidates 17 units

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:47

As reported earlier, the British army will be losing several battalions of infantry in the consolidation effort to reduce the army’s total manpower by 20,000:

The four infantry battalions to disappear are the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, the 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards), the 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment and the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh.

A fifth infantry battalion, the 5th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders), will become a single company to carry out public duties in Scotland.

The Armoured Corps will be reduced by two units with the mergers of the Queen’s Royal Lancers and the 9th/12th Royal Lancers and the 1st and 2nd Tank Regiments.

The Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers, the Army Air Corps, the Royal Logistic Corps, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and the Royal Military Police will also be affected.

[. . .]

Details of the other changes are:

  • The Royal Artillery will be reduced from 13 to 12 units with the withdrawal of the 39th Regiment Royal Artillery
  • The Royal Engineers will be reduced from 14 to 11 units with the withdrawal of 24 and 28 Engineer Regiments and 67 Works Group
  • The Army Air Corps will reduce from five to four units as 1 Regiment AAC merges with 9 Regiment AAC
  • The Royal Logistic Corps will be reduced from 15 to 12 units with 1 and 2 Logistic Support Regiments withdrawn from the Order of Battle and 23 Pioneer Regiment disbanded
  • The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers will be reduced to seven units with the withdrawal of 101 Force Support Battalion
  • 5 Regiment Royal Military Police will be removed

Update: As you’d expect, the changes are not being welcomed by current or former soldiers.

The reforms have caused anger and frustration within senior ranks. Earlier this week, a leaked letter to General Wall from one senior officer in the Royal Fusiliers showed the anger brewing over the scale of the proposed cuts.

Brigadier David Paterson, the honorary Colonel of the Regiment of Fusiliers, said the decision to axe one of its battalions would not “best serve” the armed forces and “cannot be presented as the best or most sensible military option”.

He added: “I, as Colonel, have the duty to tell my men why it is their battalion, which at the time of the announcement will be the best manned battalion in the army, with recruits waiting in the wings, was chosen by CGS. I will then also have to explain to my Fusiliers in a fully manned battalion why they are likely to be posted to battalions that cannot recruit. This will not be an easy sell.”

July 3, 2012

Details of British army cuts leaked

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:19

The Guardian has some details on the upcoming cuts to the British army, which will include the elimination of several battalions of infantry and the merging of some armoured regiments:

The acrimony and chaos surrounding plans to cut 20,000 troops from the army have been laid bare after details of the battalions to be scrapped were leaked before a ministerial statement on Thursday.

The proposals, whose publication has been delayed by Downing Street because of their sensitivity, show historic units to be axed include the third battalion of the Yorkshire regiment and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the fifth battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. One battalion will be lost from the Royal Welsh, the Mercians and the Royal Fusiliers.

[. . .]

Official letters to army commanders were sent out on Tuesday, ready for the announcement in parliament by the defence secretary, Philip Hammond. The hope had been that soldiers would hear about the cuts from senior officers, but this has been dashed by the leak in Tuesday’s Sun.

[. . .]

The army is losing a fifth of its overall strength because of budget cuts and restructuring set out in the much criticised 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review.

A subsequent MoD re-evaluation — last year’s so-called “three-month exercise” — more than doubled the number of troops to be lost to 20,000.

[. . .]

The battalions to be saved include the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, the Queen’s Dragoon Guards and the Royal Dragoon Guards. The Parachute Regiment’s three battalions will be spared.

Under the proposals, the Queen’s Royal Lancers will be merged with the 9th/12th Lancers, and the 1st Royal Tank Regiment with the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.

US Army’s UCP camouflage pattern “makes soldiers more visible, not less”

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:06

As I mentioned briefly last week, the US Army is abandoning their most recent camouflage patterned combat uniforms:

The United States military is abandoning its recently-adopted pixelated camouflage uniforms, according to articles this week in The Daily as well as Stars and Stripes.

The drab grey digital pattern, known as the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), will be discarded after only eight years following mounting evidence that the colour scheme makes soldiers more visible, not less.

The articles pull few punches in their appraisal of the move to adopt the pattern in 2004.

“Army brass interfered in the selection process, choosing looks and politics over science,” reports Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the United States armed forces.

And while the Pentagon spent $5 Billion on the much-heralded uniforms, some of the earliest attempts to conceal soldiers on the battlefield were considerably less expensive.

The This is War blog has a discussion of the development of camouflage over the last century and a half.

June 29, 2012

US Army reluctantly admits USMC did better

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:06

In developing camouflage, that is:

The U.S. Army has decided to scrap its digital pattern camouflage combat uniforms for the more effective, but more expensive, MultiCam. In the last decade, both the army and marines adopted new, digital, camouflage pattern field uniforms. But in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers noted that the marine digital uniforms (called MARPAT, for Marine Pattern) were superior to the army UCP (Universal Camouflage Pattern). There’s been growing dissatisfaction with UCP, and it has become a major issue because all the infantry have access to the Internet, where the constant clamor for something better than UCP forced the army to do something. This is ironic because UCP is a variant of MARPAT, but a poor one, at least according to soldiers who have encountered marines wearing MARPAT. Even more ironic is that MARPAT is based on research originally done by the army. Thus some of the resistance to copying MARPAT is admitting the marines took the same research on digital camouflage, and produced a superior pattern for combat uniforms.

A digital camouflage pattern uses “pixels” (little square or round spots of color, like you will find on your computer monitor if you look very closely), instead of just splotches of different colors. Naturally, this was called “digital camouflage.” This pattern proved considerably more effective at hiding troops than older methods. For example, in tests, it was found that soldiers wearing digital pattern uniforms were 50 percent more likely to escape detection by other troops, than if they were wearing standard green uniforms. What made the digital pattern work was the way the human brain processed information. The small “pixels” of color on the cloth makes the human brain see vegetation and terrain, not people. One could provide a more technical explanation, but the “brain processing” one pretty much says it all.

June 28, 2012

Don’t expect Korean re-unification to follow the German script of the 1990s

Filed under: Asia, China, Japan, Media, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:03

Some potentially chilling geo-strategic news from China:

The government has had reports issued denying American and Japanese studies of the rapid expansion of Chinese military power in the last decade. The Chinese reports were issued in Chinese, English and Japanese. China’s official line is that their armed forces are only for defense and are growing at a far more modest rate than foreign analysts are claiming. The Chinese are having a hard time refuting the foreign analysts, given the availability of satellite photos and many cell phone images of new Chinese weapons. China tries to control this sort of information leak, but has been unable to do so.

Another problem for China is the fact that internal propaganda campaigns cannot be kept secret from the outside world. This was never possible, but even with a heavily censored Chinese Internet, such embarrassing news quickly gets to an international audience very quickly. The latest example of this is remarks by Chinese officials about the “Great Wall of China.” The new claims are that the wall was larger than its current official size, and incorporates parts of North Korea. This was alarming news in South Korea, which is preparing to take over North Korea when the communist dictatorship up there collapses. The collapse is expected soon. With this new “Great Wall” argument the Chinese are announcing that if the North Korean government losses control, China will reclaim some “lost provinces” and the foreigners (including South Korea, Japan and the United States) had better stay out of it.

Given the Chinese claims in the South China Sea (that is, almost all of it), it is probably no surprise to the other nations that China might also have designs on part or all of the territory of modern day North Korea. When the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany) collapsed in the early 1990s, the Federal Republic (West Germany) was able to pick up the pieces in a relatively co-ordinated manner. China may not want South Korea doing the same thing after a North Korean collapse.

May 29, 2012

A review of the War of 1812 (non-Canadian-centric version)

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:08

The DiploMad appears to be blogging again, and for proof, here’s a neat little capsule of the War of 1812 without the Canadian aspect being treated as the most significant campaigning area of the war:

The war was brought about by British arrogance and American stupidity. The British were not reconciled to an independent United States, and could not take the place and its bombastic pronouncements about liberty seriously. They basically ignored the USA’s assertion of being a sovereign state, and proceeded to treat American ships and seaman as some sort of Brits gone rogue. The USA, for its part, could not understand that the British were in what they saw as a life-and-death struggle with Napoleon Bonaparte. We did not respect that. We reckoned we could trade and make deals with France, such as the spectacular Louisiana Purchase which filled Napoleon’s coffers and served his aim of helping create a huge potential rival to Britain, without raising British concerns or provoking them into action.

[. . .]

The British, despite the war in Europe managed to put together a more than credible military and naval force against the distant United States. The Americans, in turn, showed a talent that would serve us well in future wars by getting our act together at the last minute and putting on a damn good defense of the country. The US army, however, remained plainly horrendous throughout the war with its corrupt and politicized officer corps, and its half-baked, ill-planned and even worse executed invasion of Canada. The US also set the precedent of burning York — today’s Toronto — which led to the British burning of the nascent US capital which the army failed to defend. The army partially redeemed itself in the Battle of New Orleans, under the otherwise reprehensible Andrew Jackson (Note: Why is he on our $20 bill?)

The US navy, however, proved completely different, and did an amazing job of fighting off the much larger British navy, wreaking havoc on it, carrying the war into British waters, and even eliciting a warning from the Admiralty to the Royal Navy to avoid one-on-one combat with US ships. The US navy also fought a superb campaign on the Great Lakes which resulted in the British fleet withdrawing from those waters.

Minor quibble: the Royal Navy withdrew from Lake Erie, not from all the Great Lakes. Lake Ontario was still the scene of a major fleet-building contest with vessels of up to 130 guns under construction or entering service when the war ended.

May 15, 2012

Israel and the draft dodgers

Filed under: Middle East, Military, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:21

Israel’s growing ultra-orthodox community are exempt from the military draft, and even those who choose to join the military are demanding changes in the way the military operates. Strategy Page explains:

Israeli police have declared open season on young men and women who refuse to serve in the armed forces. Last year 2,700 Israeli men and over a thousand women illegally avoided military service. That’s fifty percent more than in 2010. This trend is partly in response to the growing number of Jewish Israelis claiming religious exemptions. Government efforts to placate the religious conservatives have not worked. This perceived unfairness is making it difficult to maintain morale and high standards in its armed forces.

The most obvious sign of this declining morale is the growing number of young men and women who are avoiding service (draft dodgers, in U.S. parlance). The Israeli armed forces has about 175,000 people on active duty, about 60 percent of those are draftees (men serving for 36 months, women for 21 months) and a third are women (who can serve in 90 percent of military jobs). There are another 450,000 reservists (those who have already completed their active service). You get drafted at 18, unless you have a deferment. Currently about a quarter of men and nearly half the women get some kind of deferment.

The military expects this deferment rate to keep increasing. In an effort to get more young men with a religious deferment to volunteer, the army is giving in to conservative Jewish sects that demand unmarried men and women remain separated while in the military. At first, this meant smaller (company and battalion size) units containing only “religious” (actually, very religious) Jews. But when these units came together for operations or ceremonies, the religious Jews demanded that female soldiers be segregated from the men. They also demanded that women soldiers not sing (Israeli soldiers sing a lot) when religious male soldiers are around. In general, female soldiers were increasingly not allowed to mingle with male soldiers if there are religious soldiers present. All this sort of thing has been bad for morale, angered the female soldiers and caused a public uproar over the issue.

[. . .]

But the most contentious problem is, ironically, the religious one. Israeli women know very well how women are mistreated in Moslem countries and they see ultra-religious Jews as a local version of that. The ultra-orthodox (Haredi) Jews are becoming more aggressive in imposing their rules on others. Violence by religious extremists is becoming more common. The most conservative religious Jews have increasingly used violence in Jerusalem. For example, they oppose the government allowing cars to park near Haredi neighborhoods on Saturday (the Sabbath). They also oppose billboard ads that feature women anywhere near where Haredi live, and segregate women on buses in their neighborhoods. Now they want to segregate the military as well, in addition to keeping most of their young men and women out, and that has aroused a lot of public opposition.

May 13, 2012

The military trade-off between protection and mobility

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:55

Strategy Page on what’s weighing down American infantrymen now:

There is a rebellion brewing in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. It’s all about the protective vest. This lifesaving bit of equipment has saved thousands of lives in the last two decades, but has, because of political grandstanding and media distortions, become too heavy and restrictive. The troops want lighter body armor, even if it does increase vulnerability to bullets. Marine and army experts point out that the drive (created mainly by politicians and the media) for “better” body armor resulted in heavier and more restrictive (to battlefield mobility) models. This has more than doubled the minimum weight you could carry into combat.

Until the 1980s, you could strip down (for actual fighting) to your helmet, weapon (assault rifle and knife), ammo (hanging from webbing on your chest, along with grenades), canteen and first aid kit on your belt, and your combat uniform. Total load was 13-14 kg (about 30 pounds). You could move freely and quickly like this, and you quickly found that speed and agility was a lifesaver in combat. But now the minimum load carried is twice as much (27 kg) and, worse yet, more restrictive.

While troops complained about the new protective vests, they valued it in combat. The current generation of vests will stop rifle bullets, a first in the history of warfare. And this was after nearly a century of trying to develop protective vests that were worth the hassle of wearing. It wasn’t until the 1980s that it was possible to make truly bullet proof vests using metallic inserts. But the inserts were heavy and so were the vests (about 11.3 kg/25 pounds). Great for SWAT teams, but not much use for the infantry. But in the 1990s, additional research produced lighter bullet proof ceramic materials. By 1999, the U.S. Army began distributing a 7.3 kg (16 pound) “Interceptor” vest that provided fragment and bullet protection. This, plus the 1.5 kg (3.3 pound) Kevlar helmet (available since the 1980s), gave the infantry the best combination of protection and mobility. And just in time.

May 12, 2012

What’s in a name? Just centuries of military tradition

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:33

The military bureaucrats and their civilian masters are well on the way to stamping out all those awfully old-fashioned names and symbols of the Scottish highland regiments:

Senior Downing Street sources said David Cameron is not yet at the stage of overruling Philip Hammond, his Defence Secretary, over his proposal to replace iconic names like the Black Watch with battalion numbers.

But they were keen to emphasise that no final decision has been made and the Prime Minister is aware of the potential political damage to the campaign to prevent Scotland separating from the UK.

[. . .]

Fury has been mounting since the Defence Secretary told the Daily Telegraph earlier this week that the “ancient cap badges have largely gone” and some traditional regimental names are now just “attached in brackets”.

Under Mr Hammond’s proposals, the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS), would become just 3 SCOTS and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlands would be names 5 SCOTS.

[. . .]

The former Labour Government faced a fierce backlash when the battalions were amalgamated in 2005 to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland, but they were promised they could keep their historic names.

Jeff Duncan, who managed the Save Scotland’s Army Regiments campaign, said yesterday it had restarted and nearly 1,500 had signed up in only 48 hours using the social networking site Facebook.

US Postal Service develops a lithium allergy

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:34

The United States Postal Service has announced that they will no longer allow shipments that include lithium batteries, as of May 16th:

If you want to send an iPad, a Kindle Fire, an iPhone, a laptop, or a similar device overseas, now is the time to send it, because as of next week, the U.S. Postal Service will be banning all electronic gadgets that contain a lithium battery.

The reason? Those lithium batteries can potentially explode or catch fire when devices are shipped with a full charge, improperly stored, or improperly packed. Lithium battery related fire incidents have occurred 17 times on passenger flights since 2004, and have been implicated in at least one major crash of a UPS plane.

As a result of the ban, people who want to ship electronic devices to troops or to family overseas will have to use a private delivery service, such as UPS, DHL, and FedEx, which are pricy alternatives.

[. . .]

USPS’s refusal to ship devices with lithium batteries will have the greatest impact on military serving overseas (DHL and UPS do not deliver to APO or FPO boxes) and commercial resellers, who will have to increase shipping costs and rely on FedEx, DHL, and UPS, which still have challenges in countries like Russia.

May 7, 2012

Royal Flying Corps, 100 years on

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Technology, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:25

April 13th was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), which was merged with the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) to become the Royal Air Force in 1918. BBC Magazine has an interesting article about the early days:

In most accounts of WWI, mention of the Royal Flying Corps goes hand-in-hand with stories of the fighter aces, men like Albert Ball and James McCudden, who downed dozens of enemy planes.

The romance of gladiatorial combat in the air — initially firing revolvers at one another from the cockpit, and then shooting machine guns through the propellers of the aircraft — makes their adventures against such legendary foes as the Red Baron some of the most stirring tales of the Great War.

But as a division of the British Army, the main role of the Royal Flying Corps, with its hundreds of pilots and thousands of ground crew, was very different.

It was the eyes of the army.

For the first time in history, it was possible not only to get a detailed view of the enemy lines from above, but to see what was going on behind those lines — the trench systems, the support routes, the railways and road vehicles that manoeuvred troops and weaponry into position.

The real heroes of the war in the air were the pilots and observers who flew in all conditions to maintain British air superiority, and to keep the ground troops aware of everything that the enemy was doing.

During the First World War, Canada hosted a training unit for British aircrew, the Royal Flying Corps Canada (Wikipedia link), from 1917 onwards. It operated the following air stations in southern Ontario:

  • Camp Borden 1917–1918
  • Armour Heights Field 1917–1918 (pilot training, School of Special Flying to train instructors)
  • Leaside Aerodrome 1917–1918 (Artillery Cooperation School)
  • Long Branch Aerodrome 1917–1918
  • Curtiss School of Aviation (flying-boat station with temporary wooden hangar on the beach at Hanlan’s Point on Toronto Island 1915–1918; main school, airstrip and metal hangar facilities at Long Branch)
  • Deseronto Airfield, Deseronto 1917–1918 (pilot training)
  • Camp Mohawk (now Tyendinaga Mohawk Airport) and Camp Rathburn — located at the Tyendinaga Indian Reserve near Belleville 1917–1918 (pilot training)
  • Hamilton (Armament School) 1917–1918
  • Beamsville Camp (Aerial fighting)

List sourced from the Wikipedia page on the RFC.

[Lt Col (later Brig Gen) Cuthbert] Hoare made several agreements with U.S. Brig Gen George O. Squier (US Army Signal Corps) and the US Aircraft Production Board. Squier had overall responsibility for the US Army’s air service, which was short of flight instructors. The RFC released five experienced American pilots to the US Army, where they became squadron commanders. The US Air Board acquiesced in the British opening a recruiting office in New York City, ostensibly to recruit British citizens, but in fact also soliciting US citizens, of whom about 300 were successfully signed up. The RFC would also train many US Army flight personnel: 400 pilots; 2,000 ground-crew members; and 20 equipment officers. These Americans would then collect aircraft and equipment from the UK, before coming under RFC control in France. Ten American squadrons would train in Canada during the summer of 1917, while RFC squadrons were allowed to train during the winter in Fort Worth, Texas.

During the last two years of the war 3135 pilots and 137 observers trained in Canada and Texas for both the RFC and the new Royal Air Force (RAF). Of these trainees, 2,624 went to Europe for operational duty.

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