Aircraft First
The history of the British air forces since the war has been dominated by the decision to sacrifice quantity to quality. The old war-time forces were run down, on the theory that the new force would be deliberately built on the basis of the newest and best designs, not the mere repetition of old ones. The present situation is that the designs for two new fighters, the Swift and the Hunter, are being developed and the prototypes are flying; the Venom, a not entirely new jet night-fighter, is to be intro- duced into squadrons all of which already have jet aircraft of rather older types; the Valiant, a new bomber, is on the way, but in the meantime Bomber Command will have to manage with last-war type medium bombers, improved weapons and instru- ments, and as many Canberras as it can get—which is not enough. We are evidently near the worst point in the post-war programme, with the old force run down and the new one not built up. Hence Mr. Churchill's earlier announcement in the recent defence debate that aircraft must come first (or, as he chose to put it, have super-priority) in the rearmament pro- gramme. It is not entirely just to blame the post-war Labour Governments for the present weakness of the British air defences. The fact that international danger has increased before the first fruits of new research are fully gathered is not something for which any British Government can be blamed. But the Labour Governments cannot escape without' criticism. The results obtained for the £1,145,000,000 spent on air defence in the past five years are not impressive. In that period the lead in fighter design has been lost to the Russians, and the history of our own Spitfires and Hurricanes showed us in the past that the country which seizes the lead is hard to beat. Undoubtedly the Swift of today is better than the MIG.15, but the MIG.15 is in squadrons in large numbers and the Swift is not. In fact we are in a position where design, development and quantity production have all to be speeded up at one and the same time.
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