RAAF/Army Relations - History
Another thread touched on RAAF/Army relations so I thought I'd put this up by way of enlightening, and perhaps generating civil discussion, among the audience. I think overall it's an even handed view. The Mods may wish to kick it into the History/Nostalgia forum.
The following is a paper written by Wing Commander Martin Sharp who was commissioned at RAF College Cranwell in 1980, and, following navigator training was posted to F4 Phantoms in 23 Squadron at RAF Wattisham.
He subsequently transferred to helicopters and was posted to 18 Squadron flying Chinooks at RAF Gutersloh in Germany, where he served on a number of detachments, including two tours in the Falkland Islands.
His next posting was to the Tactics and Trials Flight at RAF Odiham where he flew both Chinook and Puma helicopters. On promotion to Squadron Leader, he was posted back to 18 Squadron in Germany. During the 1991 Gulf War, he served with the Special Forces, flying a number of operational missions into Iraq, for which he received a Mentioned In Dispatches.
Following his tour as a Flight Commander on 18 Squadron, he was posted to the Ministry of Defence where he served as the desk officer responsible for the reintroduction of the Chinook HC Mk2 into operational service following its midlife upgrade programme.
In 1996 he was a student at the Royal Australian Air Force Command and Staff College in Canberra, and was subsequently awarded a fellowship at the Royal Australian Air Force Air Power Studies Centre, studying command and control arrangements for battlefield helicopters.
He was posted to command the UK support helicopter force supporting NATO operations in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia before assuming command of No. 7 Squadron operating Chinooks from RAF Odiham.
INTRODUCTION
The structure of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has much in common with that of the UK armed forces, albeit on a smaller scale. Moreover, Australia shares many aspects of its military heritage with Britain, having fought as an ally in both World Wars and during a number of regional campaigns. Close links have been maintained between the armed forces of both countries through mechanisms such as the American, British, Canadian, Australian (ABCA) Standardisation Programme, and officer exchange programmes. It is not surprising, therefore, that the development of helicopter forces in Australia is similar to that in the UK. However, a significant departure was made in 1986 when the Australian Government decided to transfer control of battlefield helicopters from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) to the Army. The process of transfer could be seen as a precedent for the UK’s battlefield helicopters and there may be much to learn from the experience.
Accordingly, this chapter traces the development of the helicopter forces in the ADF, highlighting factors leading to the decision to transfer ownership. To set the scene, early developments of aviation in Australia are first outlined, followed by an overview of the introduction of helicopters to service. Developments in the helicopter forces of both Army Aviation and the RAAF are then explored, before highlighting some of the key issues that emerged with their operational employment in the Vietnam War. Factors leading to the decision to transfer the helicopters from the RAAF and the process of transfer are then analysed, before looking at some recent developments. Finally, the current structure of Army Aviation is described, along with proposals for its future development.
EARLY DEVELOPMENTS
Inter-Service Relations
Military aviation in Australia can trace its roots to the establishment of the Central Flying School and Aviation Corps at Point Cook in Victoria before World War I. Both units formed part of the Army. During the War, units of the Australian Flying Corps operated with the Imperial Forces of the British Empire in the role of army cooperation. Many Australians also served with notable distinction in the (British) Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). After the War, the Minister for Defence appointed a committee under the chairmanship the Hon G. Swinburne to report on the needs of military aviation in Australia, no doubt mindful of the formation of the RAF as an independent air force in the UK in 1918. The Swinburne Committee recommended the establishment of a single Australian Air Corps, to be administered by an Air Board (comprised of members of the Naval and Military Boards), but with the wings of the Corps allotted to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the Army. Significantly, one of the key committee members, Major General Legge, who was also the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) at the time, dissented from the committee’s recommendation, contending that ‘unified control of naval and military aviation was unsuitable for Australia’. He argued that a joint Service arrangement would be unworkable and that Australia should have two separate air branches, one each under the control of the Army and RAN. However, Legge’s views did not prevail and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was established in 1921. However, during the early years of its existence, the RAAF was explicitly subservient to the Navy and the Army.
From 1921 until 1948, the RAAF remained the major supplier of Australian air power, albeit as a junior partner to the other two Services. During World War II, joint operations between the RAAF and both the Army and the RAN proved to be highly effective, especially in the South-West Pacific Theatre. Nonetheless, there were tensions between the Services, especially over the control of air power. However, as air power entered the nuclear and jet age in the post-war era, the RAAF enjoyed new status and was no longer subservient to the other two Services. Perhaps inevitably, its focus tended towards developing capabilities to conduct independent air operations, almost to the exclusion of roles in support of the Army and the RAN. The RAAF’s lack of attention to the battlefield support role was a considerable frustration to the Army, and led to tensions in Army/Air Force relations over command and control of battlefield aircraft. Later, these tensions came to the fore in arguments over the command and control of battlefield helicopters.
Introduction of Helicopters
The Australian defence department first considered using helicopters for military applications in 1943. The Army stated a requirement for 25 helicopters to be used in the South-West Pacific Theatre in situations where ordinary aircraft could not operate. The tasks for helicopters envisaged by the Army included delivering urgent supplies, transporting personnel to forward positions and evacuating wounded. It was agreed that the Air Board would develop helicopter requirements based on Army and Navy needs, and then manage helicopter production and introduction to service. In due course, the Air Board arranged to acquire six Sikorsky R-5 helicopters from the US under lend-lease arrangements, but the war ended before the helicopters were delivered and so the order was cancelled. Nonetheless, the RAAF recognised that there might still be a place for helicopters, and in 1946 an order was placed for an American built Sikorsky S-51, principally to investigate the use of helicopters in civil emergencies. However, the Air Board also wished to evaluate the suitability of helicopters in support of mobile land warfare and maritime operations. The first S-51 arrived in Australia in 1947 and entered Service with the RAAF, soon proving its value in activities such as medical evacuation, bushfire fighting, forestry patrols and search and rescue. Two more S-51s were purchased in 1951, but plans to form a larger helicopter force and develop other roles for the helicopter became moribund for many years, perhaps reflecting the low priority afforded to these roles by the RAAF.
Meanwhile, the Army continued to feel frustrated by the lack of air support provided by the RAAF, and sought to gain control of its own air arm. In doing so, it was no doubt encouraged by developments in the RAN, which formed its own Fleet Air Arm in 1948 to operate the fixed-wing aircraft aboard its recently acquired aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney. To provide the personnel for its air arm, the RAN employed ex-Royal Naval aircrews and began training its own navy pilots, rejecting an offer from the RAAF to provide the aircrew. Meanwhile, RAAF arguments concerning the benefits of centralisation of air assets, maintenance facilities and training were rejected in favour of naval aviation being wholly staffed and controlled by ‘navy men’. By the time the RAN took delivery of a second carrier (HMAS Melbourne), Australia was operating two air forces. The establishment of Australia’s third air force was a more incremental process.
The first step came in 1951 when the Air Force agreed that Army pilots should fly light aircraft on Air Observation Post (Air OP) duties. At the time, the RAAF considered that the skills of its highly trained and specialised pilots would be ‘wasted’ on light aircraft. It was also agreed that it would be more effective to teach Army pilots to fly light aircraft than to train RAAF pilots in the intricacies of land warfare. The policy statement on Army aircraft stipulated that the RAAF would continue to be responsible for acquiring and maintaining the aircraft, and that the Army would not establish its own aviation organisation. Accordingly, the RAAF formed an Air OP Flight equipped with six Austers to support Army tasks and to train Army pilots. However, the unit, which had only very limited resources, was hard pressed to meet its commitments and the Army considered the level of support it provided to be totally inadequate.
The Air Board acknowledged that the Army had a legitimate requirement for 18 Air OP aircraft and that the Austers were obsolete, but refused to fund more than eight Cessna 180 aircraft as replacements, despite their relatively insignificant cost. Subsequent requests from the Army to supplement the new aircraft with helicopters were simply ignored. The RAAF’s apparent indifference to the Army’s needs no doubt added to the Army’s determination to wrest full responsibility for these aircraft from the Air Force. In the meantime, to supplement the support provided by the Air OP Flight, the Army established the 1st Aviation Company in 1957, operating chartered civil aircraft to be flown by its own pilots.
In 1957, the Army presented a case for assuming full responsibility for its own light aircraft support. It was argued that light aircraft were essential to the functioning of the Army, and that, consequently, the Army should be responsible for the ‘procurement, operation and maintenance of such fixed wing and rotary-wing aircraft as required’. The Army cited precedents in the US, where the army had operated organic light aircraft for many years, and the UK, where responsibility for Air OP and light liaison aircraft had recently been transferred from the RAAF to the Army. Clearly, the Army felt that it could do a better job of meeting the requirement than the Air Force; given the failure of the Air Force to respond to the Army’s needs at the time, this conclusion was perhaps justifiable. In some respects, it may have suited the RAAF to be relieved of the responsibility of providing this type of support, but as the Minister for Air, Athol Townley, pointed out, the real issue should have been whether the duplication of air effort was appropriate for Australia. Moreover, the creation of yet another air arm ran contrary to the Air Force doctrinal principles of ‘unity’ and ‘centralisation’. However, it would appear that the Air Force leadership did not pursue these arguments.
Army Aviation Formed
Following the precedents set in the US and UK, approval was given for the Army to own and operate light aircraft up to 4,000 pounds all-up-weight and in limited roles. These criteria were intended to prevent the Army expanding into other air power roles such as troop transport, resupply and armed close air support.
In December 1960 the Army established No. 16 Army Light Aircraft Squadron to fulfil its new roles. The unit was formed at RAAF Amberley in Queensland from the nucleus of the Air OP Flight, and was equipped with Cessna 180 aircraft and Bell 47 Sioux helicopters. At the time, the Army lacked experience in flying supervision and technical expertise in aircraft maintenance, and therefore remained dependent on RAAF support in these areas. The RAAF also retained responsibility for a number of other specialised activities such as procuring aircraft, maintenance standards, technical publications, flying safety, accident investigation, meteorological services and air traffic control. Although this arrangement was brought on by necessity, it was also highly efficient since it avoided the need for the Army to duplicate these functions, thus saving the attendant overhead costs. However, the RAAF was not willing to support this arrangement indefinitely and sought to ‘get [its] technical people back onto RAAF tasks’. Lacking confidence in the Air Force’s willingness to meet its needs, the Army was also keen to assume full responsibility for its air arm. Consequently, it was agreed that the RAAF would train sufficient Army technicians to enable them to take over RAAF functions, and from 1964, the RAAF began to extricate its personnel from Army Aviation. Nevertheless, the RAAF retained responsibility for airworthiness, engineering standards, aviation supplies and flight safety management.
Army aviation continued to grow, and in 1966, the Army established the 1 st Aviation Regiment, which comprised three aviation squadrons. Two years later the Army Aviation Corps was formed, and in 1969 a new Army Aviation Centre was established at Oakey, a former RAAF station about 100 kilometres from RAAF Amberley. The Centre was intended to be the hub of Army aviation, where soldier pilots could be trained to ‘think and appreciate situations in an Army manner’. The move marked a symbolic split of Army Aviation from RAAF influence, but inevitably involved considerable overhead costs. The fact that the Army found it necessary to indulge in this additional expenditure is perhaps an indication of the divergence of doctrine between the RAAF and the Army at the time. It certainly seems clear that the Army considered the ethos of the Air Force to be incompatible with its own needs.
Another distinction between the Army and the Air Force at the time was in their approach to the selection of pilots. Central to the RAAF’s ethos is that professional mastery of the air environment demands that pilots be employed as full-time professionals. This is considered necessary to enable aviators to acquire the depth of expertise needed for planning, directing and executing the application of air power. Conversely, the Army considered that a background in traditional Army disciplines was essential for aircrew involved in air/land warfare and that aviation skills could be acquired as a secondary skill. Consequently, the Army selected most of its pilots from other corps to serve for a limited time in flying duties before resuming their mainstream careers.
Later though, the high cost of training pilots made this policy unsustainable, and the Army began recruiting pilots directly into the Aviation Corps on short service commissions. This change of policy also tacitly acknowledged the advantages of employing pilots as full-time professional aviators; moreover, since helicopters pilots were now recruited directly into flying appointments, it undermined claims that helicopter pilots required a professional army background.
RAAF Helicopters
In 1959, the RAAF raised a requirement for helicopters in the search and rescue role with casualty evacuation and light liaison considered secondary tasks; evidently, Army support was not paramount in the RAAF’s considerations for these aircraft. However, when the Government approved the purchase of eight Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters for the RAAF, their role was changed to search and rescue and Army support. Nonetheless, when No. 9 Squadron was reformed in 1962 to operate the Iroquois, it was designated as a search and rescue squadron by the RAAF, but it soon became apparent that Army support would be the main role of the Iroquois. A second Iroquois squadron was established in 1964, deploying to RAAF Butterworth in Malaysia later that year.
In addition to the Iroquois, the Army sought larger helicopters to improve its tactical mobility. In 1962, the Cabinet approved the purchase of eight heavy lift helicopters; however, following several delays in the procurement process, it was many years before these aircraft were actually delivered. Initially, the Army’s requirement for heavy lift helicopters was based on the need to support dispersed units in its new Pentropic structure. The Pentropic structure, which had been designed for jungle war fighting in the tropical regions to Australia’s north, was introduced to the Australian Army following the development of the Pentomic structure in the US Army in the early 1960s. One of the requirements of the Pentropic structure was to increase the mobility of ground troops, and it was thought that this requirement could best be met by large helicopters. Consequently, helicopters came to be seen by the Army as fundamental to its conduct of land operations. However, the RAAF, which was responsible for introducing these aircraft into service, had other priorities. At the time, the RAAF faced the significant challenge of introducing several new fixed-wing aircraft into service, including the F-111, Mirage, P-3 Orion and C-130 Hercules. Consequently, it probably did not relish the added complication of introducing large and potentially complex helicopters to its fleet. As procurement of the heavy lift helicopters was repeatedly set back, the Army accused the Air Force of dragging its feet over the procurement and no doubt felt that the RAAF was again failing to meet its legitimate needs. However, the difference of opinion over the priority for helicopter procurement was probably indicative of a more fundamental failure to establish a joint approach to requirements.
Nevertheless, as the RAAF Historian has noted, the RAAF should have strived to support the Army in the way the Army wanted, not the way the RAAF found least troublesome. It was against this background of poor inter-Service relations that the first RAAF helicopters deployed to Vietnam War in 1966.
Vietnam
In 1966, eight Iroquois from No. 9 Squadron were deployed to Vung Tau in South Vietnam to support the 1st Australian Task Force (ATF) operating throughout Phuoc Tuy Province. The RAAF appear to have been reluctant to deploy the helicopters, which were ill prepared for the task facing them, lacking armoured seats, door gun mounts and body armour for the crews. Moreover, it appears that the RAAF hierarchy did not fully appreciate the seriousness of the task faced by ground forces in Vietnam, a view given credence by the terms under which the RAAF helicopters deployed. When the RAAF helicopters were deployed, senior Air Staff in Canberra were keen to see that they were not put to undue risk and issued a directive placing strict limitations on their employment. For example, RAAF helicopters were authorised to lift troops only ‘from a secure staging area to a landing zone that is relatively secure and where enemy resistance is not expected’, and ‘from an area of operation to a secure staging area when enemy resistance is anticipated only on the last lift from the landing zone’.
When Australian Army troops found themselves in difficulty requiring helicopter support, the RAAF helicopter squadron commander was placed in the invidious position of trying to meet the legitimate demands of local Army commanders without compromising his orders from the Air Staff. In a wider sense, instances of blurred lines of command and micro-management by remote authorities came to typify the Vietnam War, and may have been a factor in the ultimate failure of American intervention.
The Army also operated its own aircraft in Vietnam, including six Bell 47 Sioux helicopters and Cessna 180 fixed-wing aircraft from 161 Reconnaissance Flight. Army aircraft were fully integrated into the operations of 1ATF and based at Nui Dat alongside 1ATF headquarters. The Flight had a number of RAAF personnel on its strength, but some of them seemed less than happy to be serving with an Army unit; an RAAF officer who visited the airmen noted: ‘the reaction of the airmen to field conditions has at the outset been disappointing.’ It seems that the airmen were ill prepared for their task and their reaction to the conditions probably did little to engender the RAAF to the Army.
Relations between 9 Squadron and the task force during the first three months of operations in Vietnam have been described as bitter, with the task force commander claiming that the RAAF seemed to lack urgency in their conduct of operations and failed to act appropriately to orders. Some went further, describing the relationship between the RAAF and Army as one of ‘conflict, friction, antagonism, ill will and lack of cooperation’ and as ‘very, very bad’. One issue typifying the difference of outlook was the location of 9 Squadron. The task force commander wanted the Squadron based forward at Nui Dat alongside the task force headquarters, but the RAAF refused to move from Vung Tau. The RAAF’s reluctance to move may have been partially motivated by the difficulty of servicing the helicopters at night at Nui Dat, where it was forbidden to use lights because of the threat of enemy fire. However, the fact that RAAF personnel enjoyed relatively comfortable accommodation at Vung Tau probably fuelled perceptions in the Army that the RAAF was reluctant to become fully engaged in the ground war.