RAF Centre for Air Power Studies

A couple of years ago the RAF established a Centre for Air Power Studies. The centre has at its heart an attempt to work with academia as learning tool for thinking about air power. In this it is is linked to KCL’s Defence Studies department. For an Air Power historian the most useful aspect of the Centre’s activities are the publication of the RAF’s in-house journal Air Power Review. Full of interesting articles on air power subjects it is a very useful resource. The centre has also started to make available some of the Air Historical Branch narratives that were previously on available from the AHB on the National Archives. These staff studies make for some interesting reading. RAF CAPS also holds an annual conference and several of these have made there way into publication that are available as e-books, currently available are:

Joel Hayward (Ed.) Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” (Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies, 2009)

Neville Parton (Ed.) Air Power: The Agile Air Force (Royal Air Force, 2008)

RAF CAPS has been around since 2007 and is positive move by the RAF in an attempt to think more analytical about its role in the world. The RAF has often been pragmatic in its views, for example, its strategic doctrine of the Second World War era, AP1300, was effectively only replaced in the 1990’s by AP3000, which has since its first publication in 1990 been revised four times. Indeed AP1300 was revised several times and last issued in 1964 and supplanted by NATO doctrine in the 1970’s.

It is official…

Just had the official confirmation from the university that I have passed my MPhil. I passed with no corrections or having to have a Viva. I am very happy and I can now look forward to the next step. In a perverse sort of way I am a bit disappointed that I did not have a Viva, do not get me wrong not having one is great from stress point of view and for a MPhil was always at the discretion of the examiners, however, I felt it would be good practice for the PhD. Having never had one part of me was keen to see what the experience is like but hey ho thats life.

I would just like to say thanks to those of you who have been reading the blog ad have made comments along the way. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. I plan to continue so keep reading…

The Next Stage…

Well it is time to move onto the next step for me. I finished my MPhil, though I am still waiting on my results, two months ago. I have always intended to continue onto my PhD and I was originally intending to do it part-time while working as an ‘A’ Level Lecturer, however, I was lucky enough to be offered voluntary redundancy package by my college. I know in time like this it sound odd that this was lucky but all I can say is that the package I was offered worked for both parties and that the sum involved means and can contemplate doing the PhD full-time. This means my application is currently going through the red tape and bureaucracy. All going well I will start in January, therefore, I will join the ranks of PhD bloggers like Jakob and Robert. I made a decision to stay at Birmingham and continue to work with my MPhil supervisor, Professor Gary Sheffield. I have mentioned before the importance of the good working relationship with your supervisor and this I feel I have with Gary. I will also have a second supervisor in the guise of Air Commodore (ret’d) Peter Gray. Peter is a Senior Air Power Research Fellow at the university and an expert in Air Power History and Leadership Theory, which is important, as you will see.

In terms of the subject matter, I have decided to move away from purely operational military history and have a look at leadership in the RAF. In particular, I am going to be researching the career of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Leigh-Mallory has often been given short shrift by most historians as being a career driven egotist who was at worst incompetent. This is, I believe, not strictly the case and I am going to attempt to examine Leigh-Mallory’s leadership effectiveness through the use of contemporary leadership theory, hence the importance of Peter as one of my supervisors. I am hoping to evaluate his decision-making through he use of contemporary sources and place his choices in their operational context. Here is the summary of the proposal that I have submitted:

The Leadership Effectiveness of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory

On 14 November 1944, an Avro York took of from RAF Northolt carrying Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, his Wife and Personal Staff Officer on the first leg of a journey that was to take Leigh-Mallory to his new command in South East Asia. Just after midday, the aircraft hit a mountain ridge some fifteen miles east of Grenoble killing all on board the aircraft. The impact of this avoidable accident was that unlike other contemporaries Leigh-Mallory has left no viable papers, memoirs or an autobiography. This has led to Leigh-Mallory place in the historiography of the Second World War being overlooked by most historians. Interpretations of Leigh-Mallory’s career had tended to examined through the prism of his role in the Battle of Britain and operation OVERLORD. Therefore, this thesis will seek to make a clear and objective analysis of Leigh-Mallory contribution using contemporary leadership theory. This methodology will allow the use of various sources in order to ascertain the effectiveness of Leigh-Mallory’s leadership capability. It will seek to examine how people viewed Leigh-Mallory and how self-aware he was of his own competence. Thus, the thesis will take a truly inter-disciplinary approach to examine one of the Second World War’s most misunderstood commanders.

It is an exciting prospect to start this. If there is one area that concerns me, it is the leadership aspect. I am going to have to get to grip with the theory and exploring different ideas on measure command competencies. Therefore, if anyone has any good ideas I am all ears. I am not sure how far I will take these aspects. I can see it going two ways. One is to go all out and synthesise a theory/model for the purpose. This will push the thesis away from a historical one but may offer some interesting insights. The other is to find a methodology and use it a conceptual model for examining Leigh-Mallory. This arguably, will allow the thesis to remain grounded in history much more. One thing that I want to avoid is a purely biographical essay of Leigh-Mallory.

Now I plan examine Leigh-Mallory’s leadership at the operational and strategic level of war i.e. from Group command up to his time as AOC-in-C of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force. I do want to have a look at the tactical level but this may be problematic in terms of the theory. However, I will be researching his command of No. 8 Squadron and his inter-war service in order to contextualise his career.

More soon…

P.S. Any thoughts on sources?

Publishing my Thesis

I mentioned in my post yesterday that at some point I would like to publish what I have written. To do this I would need to expand the scope of the work but this is not some that is problematic as there were several areas that due to time and space just had to be left. From my introduction I made these observations as to the limitations of my thesis:

Despite the scope of research undertaken there are several areas that, because of limitations of time and the span of the work, have been avoided due to the focus on operational and tactical issues. First, strategic level discussions surrounding the RAF’s role, in particular the argument that the RAF were not interested due to its desire to prosecute the strategic bomber offensive, though by default this thesis does show that this is not a clear as some historians have argued. Second, it does not explore the importance of radar to JUBILEE as John Campbell in Dieppe Revisited has dealt with this effectively. Research also opened several areas that could not be explored but to the word limit; this included the use of balloons in Combined Operations and the RAF’s participation in providing meteorological advice for Combined Operations. If this work were expanded, it would be envisaged that the scope of archival sources would be increased to include various personal papers at assorted institutions and to expand the German perspective using the Bundesarchiv at Freiburg.

Thus, there are several distinct areas where I could bulk out a work such as this and because of the nature of my thesis I have not really described the air action of Dieppe, this having been done very well by Norman Franks in his work The Greatest Air Battle. However, it would be useful to include more of this to give a feel of the nature of operations during the raid.

However, I feel this is a few years off doing as I intend to start my PhD and so time will be precious. However, for financial reasons I intend to start my PhD in 2010 so in the mean time I have been giving some thought as to what can be effectively ‘cut out’ of my thesis and published as articles. This is a discussion I have already had with my supervisor, Professor Gary Sheffield. We have discussed distilling the key points from the thesis into one article and I feel this is a good idea but the thought of cutting 40,000 words into 10-15,000 sounds a bit daunting but a challenge I will enjoy. I do think that if done right this will add to the scholarship of Dieppe.

Another shorter article I have been thinking of playing with is statistical analysis of the losses suffered at Dieppe. This is one element of my final chapter but I feel that it could be taken further and is useful in explaining the nature of air power during Combined Operations and also disproving the normal arguments about the RAF at Dieppe i.e. they suffer more losses than the Luftwaffe, therefore, they must be bad. This to me is rubbish as offensive forces always suffers more proportionally. It is the nature of offensive warfare. It may well be use to link this to Lanchester’s Laws.

Another article, this time moving away from Dieppe, would be on the RAF and Combined Operations Doctrine. My research has highlighted that the orthodox argument of the RAF being fixated on strategic bombing have little basis in records. Actually recent scholarship, in particular David Ian Hall’s work on tactical air power, has started to show that the RAF views were much more nuanced and complex than hitherto assumed. This is certainly true of Combined Operations and an exploration of the RAF’s view and contribution may well be useful.

Most of these seem doable to me and is one of the reasons for me not starting my PhD as soon as I had planned, though I will be spending my time reading up on Leadership theory. I think, considering that eventually I would like to work in academia, that writing these papers and trying to get them published would be advantageous. I suppose a question for all you academics out there is which is more important; published works or qualifications? It always astounds me when I look at a job and they ask for a PhD but what if you have been published. Does this not count for anything?

Podcasts

Brett Holman’s post about Chris Williams’ lecture on Police Command and Control system reminded me of a great resource on the Defence Academy’s webpage. Regular lectures are held at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham and these are being provided as podcasts. The range of themes go from contemporary defence issues to historical debates. It is constantly being added to as it seems each lectures is being recorded. Go have a look and listen to some interesting discussions.

The RAF Museum has also started adding regular podcasts on a variety of themes on their webpage. Aimed at a wider audience than the Staff College lectures they offer and interesting introduction to air power subjects.

The Falklands War – 25 Years On

The Falklands War in Perspective: 25 Years On

Centre for First World War Studies

Saturday 23rd June saw another day school at the Centre for First World War Studies, University of Birmingham. The theme for this year’s school centred on the Falklands War in respect of that conflicts 25th anniversary, which was commemorated this year. Being the first day school I have attended I was pleasantly surprised with a good turn out at the event even though Dr John Bourne, the Centre’s director, did note it was not as high as usual and that this was probably because the content was not about the First World War though after listening to Dr Bob Bushaway’s lecture you could have been forgiven for thinking that you were but more on that later.

The event was opened by Dr Bourne explaining the reasons for the subject, quite self – explanatory given the anniversary, and his reasons for not giving a lecture. Traditionally the day schools are a Bourne – Bushaway event. I think Dr Bourne is giving his voice a rest after twenty years of public speaking. Throughout the day Dr Bourne did an excellent job of introducing each of the distinguished speakers. The speakers for the day were Dr Stephen Badsey, Dr Bob Bushaway, Air Commodore Peter Grey and Lieutenant General Sir Hew Pike, the latter two having served during the war.

The first lecture was given by Dr Stephen Badsey who gave the audience an overview of the political and strategic aspects of the war and some of the problems that the British faced in this sphere. The first point Dr Badsey made was that in the years since the war its definition has changed significantly. To contemporaries the war referred to as a crisis and in the intervening year it became known as a conflict but now we are quite safe in defining it as a war. This shows how opinions change over time. It makes one wonder what we shall call the current crisis in Iraq in twenty five years time. His next point linked to this was how the war was viewed at the time. It was at the time believed to be an aberration, something out the norm. It was not east – west and was conventional in nature. It was possible a colonial campaign, the Falklands being a British dependency, but was being fought against an invader. Now, as Dr Badsey noted, the war is seen as the first war of the coming cold war era. The lecture then covered some of the key political issue that affected the nature of the campaign and provided its context and conduct. Britain in the late 70’s and early 80’s was undoubtedly in a dire situation with unemployment running high and with the new Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher unable to deal with this issue. The war was also fought on the backdrop of Sir John Nott’s defence review held in 1981, which sought to re – align Britain’s priority towards NATO and the central front. For Britain’s armed forces this was to mean the eventual loss of an out of area and expeditionary capability and as noted by Dr Badsey if Argentina held waited just another year the situation could have been very different. We were then presented with the argentine situation and their actions leading up to the war. The situation then presented surrounding some of legal issues that caused problems for Britain’s prosecution of the war. Notable amongst these was the attempts by the UN to bring an end to the conflict. This provides an interesting context to the operations conducted by the military and the strains placed upon them. The audience was then presented with an interesting talk as to were research in the future should take historians as Dr Badsey asserted that despite the fact that the official records are still closed for a further five years there is probably not much more to add to the British account of the war. This, therefore, points the historian to argentine accounts of the war and exploring the role the certain countries played in the conflict most notable America, France and Chile. Chile was a country that continued to crop up throughout the day as answers were sought about there role in the war. It will probably be an answer that may never be found as the question of sources is most pressing. Chilean records are either closed or may not even exist considering that countries problems in the past twenty five year and British records may be placed under further restrictions and may well not come to light for many years to come. The final and one of the most interesting of the day was Dr Badsey’s opinion of the recently published Official History as written by Sir Lawrence Freedman. He noted that this was probably the last top down history that will be written. This implies that in the future any official histories that will be written may well be from the perspective of the soldiers and not from that of Whitehall and the Generals. This probably a reflection of where the study of military history is going at present and the impact and influence the media has had on our perception of war as presented via the various forms of mass media.

The day then moved on to look at the operational aspects of the campaign and to start with we were treated with a most unorthodox, and interesting analysis of the amphibious aspects of the war. This was presented by Dr Bob Bushaway and as mentioned earlier you could be forgiven for thinking that the lecture was about First World War amphibious operations as much of the lecture was dedicated to a discussion of the lesson learnt from the Gallipoli operation of 1915. As Dr Bushaway noted all British amphibious, and latterly combined, operations have been conducted under the spectre of the Gallipoli disaster. Dr Bushaway then argued, quite convincingly, that until the success of OVERLORD in 1944 British operations were designed to ensure that similar failure did not occur. Therefore, CORPORATE can be both seen as a British operations being conducted under the ghost of Gallipoli but analysis of its success is seen through the prism of Normandy. Also for Dr Bushaway CORPORATE is an expression of the British way of warfare and this is best represented in the next major theme of his discussion. This was an excellent overview of the importance of one of the seminal pieces military theory, Sir Julian Corbett’s Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. Corbett in his work argued that Britain, as the world’s pre – eminent maritime power had the ability to project power ashore using her navy and was then able to guarantee her sea lines of communications. It was, as noted by Dr Badsey, this ability that was to be lost to the Royal Navy in the wake of Nott’s defence review in 1981. Dr Bushaway’s lecture pushed this idea of the British way in war as the doctrine for amphibious operations and that it is this context that the effectiveness of Commodore Clapp’s task group should and must be analysed. Given all of the problems facing the amphibious task group Dr Bushaway concluded that the force performed beyond all expectation and maintained the great British tradition of well executed amphibious operations. That was the first half of the day. The second half will appear soon.

Military History in the United Kingdom

Mark Grimsley over on Blog them out of the Stone Age has bemoaned the death of Military History in American universities with some interesting posts on the ongoing debate on the place of the subject in academia. In particular Mark has posted links to some very interesting articles on the subject and he has them filled on his blog under The Future of Academic Military History. However, in this post I intend to give you my impression of the growth of the subject here in the United Kingdom. As I think that in the past six years the subject has grown greatly within UK universities.Firstly, I think I must qualify my comments by admitting that I do not believe that Military History can be studied in isolation as a historical subject and must be framed within a subject of its own. Here in the UK that subject is War Studies and it is this aspect that I will be discussing. War Studies by its very nature combines many disciplines that all relate to the effective study of war. This includes Military History, Strategic Studies, International Relations, Politics, Philosophy and the list could go on.

When I began my undergraduate studies back in 2001 there were few institution that offered courses that covered Military History to any degree. In actual fact there were only two universities offering War Studies, King’s College and the University of Wolverhampton, the latter being where I studied. The University of Salford also offered degree in Military History. The only of its kind at undergraduate level at this time.

However, in the intervening years there has been a growth in courses offered in War Studies at UK institutions. There are arguably many reasons for this ranging from the effect of 9/11 and subsequent actions to the growing acceptance and success of the various War Studies courses already in existence. The department at King’s has always been a centre of excellence since its foundation in the early 1960’s under Sir Michael Howard. Thus now the following institutions will be offering courses in War Studies/Military History from the 2008 academic year:

1. University of Birmingham

2. University of Kent

3. King’s College

4. Liverpool Hope University College

5. University of Reading

6. University of Salford

7. University of Wales, Swansea

8. University of Westminster

9. University of Wolverhampton

10. University of Wales, Aberystwyth We can add to this several institutions, which are known to offer content on military history at undergraduate level:

1. University College London

2. University of Leeds

3. University of Newcastle

4. University of Glasgow

5. University of Exeter

6. University of Edinburgh

To this we can add related subjects such as Defence Studies, Peace Studies and Conflict Studies, which are offered by the following institutions:

1. University of Bradford

2. London Metropolitan University

3. Leeds Metropolitan University

4. Lancaster University

Thus, at undergraduate level the study of war in all its facets seems quite healthy here in the UK. The same is true at postgraduate level with the following institutions offering taught postgraduate qualification and research supervision:

1. King’s College

2. University of Wolverhampton

3. University of Birmingham

4. University of Exeter

5. University of Leeds

6. University of Wales, Aberystwyth

7. University of Wales, Swansea

8. University of Chester

9. Brunel University

10. University of Glasgow

11. University of Essex

12. University of Edinburgh

13. University of Salford

14. University of Northampton

Again it can be seen that here in the UK the study of war can be seen alive and well. Also the last few years have seen an increase in research centres in universities relating to the study of war, such as Centre for Second World War Studies and the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham. The University of Exeter also recently launched as research centre for the study of war, Centre for the Study of War, State and Society. Scotland also has two research centre dedicated to war, one at the University of Glasgow, The Scottish Centre for War Studies, and the other at the University of Edinburgh, The Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars. As such the study of war here in the UK is going through something of a renaissance and I think this has been because lecturers here have been willing to diversify there subject matter and cooperate with other subject areas in order offer something, which is both unique and also looks at the subject as a whole rather than in isolation. Therefore, in my opinion, American Military Historians should try and broaden their horizons and look to expand rather than working in isolation in a History department. Think of the wider implication of war and seek to build on this. It appears to have worked here in the UK and may work in the US.