CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
With the increase in demands for men to flesh out the rapidly expanding British Empire’s military, the War Office was required to increase its outlay of funds for the sole purpose of recruitment. By the spring of 1939, a study by the War Office concluded that even with the merging of the former Dominions armed forces, the Empire would reach the limit of available manpower and no further expansion would be available. War Minister Cooper, seeing the Empire facing the same dilemma that it had faced in the later half of the Great War, made a change to the recruitment policy that had been set down since the end of the Great War and authorized the re-organization of the women’s auxiliary forces.
In a nod to tradition, the War Office authorized the Admiralty to reform the Women’s Royal Naval Service (
WRNs), and the First Lord contacted the Great War WRN Director, Dame Katherine Furse. Dame Katherine agreed to involve herself in the planning for the next generation of Wrens, as they were affectionately known in the Fleet, but felt that a younger woman was needed to lead the reformed service and convinced the First Sea Lord to appoint Mrs. Vera Laughton Mathews as the new Director.
As in the Great War, the late 1930’s found many of the Fleet’s sailors were based on shore and with the reforming of the Wrens most of them would be able to be released to the ships, hence the WRNS’ promotion line,
"Free a man for sea service.” The new generation of Wrens would be assigned some of the same duties as their mothers, namely cooks and domestic help, but more importantly they would also be given the tasks of driving, being engineers, wireless operators, radar operators, weather forecasters, operating harbour launches, code experts and assisting in planning of naval operations.
Great War version of recruitment posterNew version of Wren's recruitment poster
The British Army followed suit with the formation of Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service, the successor to the Great War’s Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps which had been disbanded in 1921. The
ATS was lead by Her Royal Highness, Princess Mary, and under her leadership the women of the ATS not only assumed roles as cooks and clerks, but also orderlies, drivers, ammunition inspectors, and wireless operators. These positions, once filled by ATS members, provided a massive boost in the available men to be assigned to combat commands, for which the Army was in need.
ATS recruitment posterArt Deco ATS recruitment poster
Also in need of supplemental personal, the RAF organized the
WAAF, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Being the most progressive the Empire’s armed services, the RAF pushed the limits of propriety by having the women billeted alongside the men and allowing them to serve any of the positions available except for combat. Thus, in a few short months, RAF stations across the British Isles and soon the rest of the Empire were staffed with women wireless operators, radar operators, fitters, air traffic controllers, mechanics, operations and intelligence planners, and even pilots.
The most popular WAAF recruitment poster
With the added emphasis of recruiting women into the Empire’s military, it should be understood that by no means had active recruitment of the Empire’s male population had lessened in any way, and a new recruitment drive was undertaken with a favorable response.
An appeal to the "playboys" of the EmpireThe first Empire wide recruitment posters
Partially due to the addition of the first WAAFs, the RAF was able to have 211 and 207 Wings of Air Commodore McEwen’s Fighter Command Three be joined on March 16 by Wing 74 and Wing 11. The arrival of two new Wings of Supermarine Spitfires at RAF Thornaby brought Command Three to full strength as well as strained the capacity of the aerodrome. Pressed by a sense of urgency from Fighter Command, Air Commodore McEwen allowed the newly arriving Wings, both pilots and ground support staffs, two hours to become accustomed to the layout of Thornaby, and then scrambled all four Wings and began a regime of rigorous training exercises.
McEwen was very innovative with ideas for the use of fighters in any future wars, but was a firm believer that before becoming innovative, one must understand the basics of aerial combat. In very short order the newly arrived Spitfire squadrons learned, as the pilots of the squadrons that formed the basis of Command Three, that the Air Commodore was a firm believer of
The Dicta Boelcke, the written list of fundamental air combat tactics.
The Dicta was formulated by Germany’s first great “knight of the air” Oswald Boelcke, and was accepted as the most precise distillation of the essentials of air combat. In the first weeks of Command Three’s pilots would find the Air Commodore roaming the squadron ready shacks and hangers quizzing the pilots on the Dicta:
1) Try to secure the upper hand before attacking. If possible, keep the sun behind you.
2) Always continue with an attack you have begun.
3) Only fire at close range, and then only when the opponent is properly in your sights.
4) You should always try to keep your eye on your opponent, and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.
5) In any type of attack, it is essential to go for your opponent from behind.
6) If your opponent dives on you, do not try to get around his attack, but fly to meet it.
7) When over the enemy's lines, never forget your own line of retreat.
8) Tip for Squadrons: In principle, it is better to attack in groups of four or six. If fights break up into a series of single combats, try to avoid a situation where several go after one opponent.
Soon after the arrival of the remaining squadrons of his command, McEwen had a large plaque with
The Dicta hung on the aerodrome control large enough to be seen from aircraft taxing on the runway. While his pilots were being drilled, McEwen also gave the ground support staff training tasks, enforcing the adage that a squadron could only fight in the air if its ground crews could put the aircraft in the air. While it was a very tiring time for the Command, they very quickly became proficient at tackling and solving the operational problems thrown to them by their Air Commodore.
Miles away across the English countryside and four days later, Fighter Command’s newest sub-command, Escort Command became operational in Leicestershire’s RAF Bruntingthorpe Under the Command of Air Commodore Arthur Harris, Escort Command was organized around 6 Wing and 9 Wing which were outfitted with the new Gloster Whirlwind twin-engined heavy fighter. The Air Commodore had recently been transferred over from Bomber Command where he had led a distinguished career that included the command of the first post-Great War heavy bomber squadron, Squadron No. 58. While officially the rationale for the transfer was that who better to command the aircraft that would be escorting the RAF’s bombers to their targets, unofficially the rumor mill dictated that Harris’ transfer was due to his views on the acceptability and preference for strategic area bombing versus precision and pinpoint bombing.
Air Commodore Harris with some of his aircrews
Due to his overall effectiveness as a commanding officer, he was a firm advocate of the advancement of technology and mastery of tactics to perform the RAF’s allotted tasks as effectively as possible with the least amount of loss in air crews, Harris was saved from being cashiered by his superiors in the RAF chain of command and given the honor of commanding Fighter Command’s Escort Command. Although the new Air Commodore had been learning and perfecting the use of bombers by the RAF, he cut his teeth on fighters during the Great War, so it was no great leap for him to return to fighters and he returned with many ideas to increase the effectiveness of Fighter Command. He stressed the need for improvements to the already outstanding aircraft already in Fighter Command’s hangers, and more importantly better tactics, of which night flying was his personal favorite and one that he trained his squadrons in almost religiously.
Arriving at RAF Bruntingthorpe, Harris began training his Whirlwind pilots on their primary air mission of escorting the RAF’s limited heavy bombers, arranging for joint training exercises with Bomber Command squadrons from nearby aerodromes and then later arranging for Hurricane squadrons to be added in as “aggressor” units to further test his pilots. Throughout Escort Command’s initially working up period before becoming fully operational, the Air Commodore continued to stress vehemently to his pilots that a Whirlwind pilot’s duty was not to destroy enemy fighters that were in the area of the bombers, the pilot’s duty was to protect the bombers, which meant that his pilots were never to chase after an enemy. It soon came to become a mantra that spread through the ranks of Escort Command and was often quoted, both mockingly and seriously,
“…stay with the bombers!”
Up next: reaction to not so thinly veiled threats.