The British Carrier Strike Fleet. David Hobbs
personnel had begun shortly after the decision by Sir Thomas Inskip, the Minister for Defence Co-ordination, in July 1937 that both the administration and operation of naval aviation should be under Admiralty and not joint control. By 1945 one man in four of those serving in the RN and its reserves was directly concerned with naval aviation. The Fleet Air Arm was not, therefore, in a position to allow as many early releases as the larger, longer-established branches such as seamen and stokers. The result was that the release of some rating categories had to be held back behind the average level4 and by 1947 the disparity between the most advanced release group and the most retarded was eleven. Equality was not achieved before 1948 when the last of the ‘hostilities only’ ratings were released. The manpower crisis between 1945 and 1948 was one of the reasons why the WRNS was retained as a permanent element within the Naval Service.
A number of regular RN officers had qualified as pilots prior to 1939 and others were recruited as short-service RN pilots and observers after 1937. Many of these subsequently gained permanent commissions and several rose to high rank but after September 1939 the great majority of pilots and observers were commissioned into the RNR and especially the RNVR. While some of these were interested in transferring to the regular Navy, many were not. Faced with a serious shortage of aircrew in 1946, the Admiralty decided to cease the training of observers and train officers as pilot/observers to fill the gap.5 Officers undergoing observer training at the time, or ear-marked for it, were to be re-trained as pilot/observers. Surprisingly, it was decided not to repeat the pre-war practice of entering officers on short-service commissions as pilots. At the same time it was decided that two-thirds of all naval pilots should, in future be ratings,6 the majority to be recruited direct from civil life into a re-constituted rating pilots’ branch but some to be taken from RN branches particularly, it was hoped, aircraft artificers although it was not made clear how this would help the existing shortage of artificers. The first rating pilot intake took place in November 1946 and comprised volunteers from the residue of deferred wartime ‘Y’ Scheme candidates together with a few transfers from other branches. Another new rating branch was created to replace the wartime telegraphist air gunners (TAGs); known as aircrewmen, the new rear-seat crews were to specialise as ‘maintainer-users’ of airborne electronic equipment and were to be recruited, it was hoped, mainly from the electrical branch. Aircrewmen in the higher rating grades were to be trained to navigate aircraft and suitable TAGs were to be offered conversion courses to allow them to join the branch which was expected to fill about 80 per cent of the rear seats in future squadrons.
Changes were also made in the maintenance and servicing branches and those connected with other duties concerning aircraft. The naval airman branch was reconstituted and ratings employed in both aircraft handling and safety equipment duties were transferred into it from the seaman branch. The branch also included photographers, meteorological ratings and mechanics used for aircraft servicing and general duties connected with air ordnance. More highly-qualified mechanics, now known as skilled air mechanics (SAMs), were to be introduced to replace the air fitter branch for employment on aircraft maintenance that required a lower degree of skill than that of artificers.7 Artificers themselves were the most highly-skilled rating maintenance personnel and they were qualified in either airframe/engine or electrical/ordnance categories. In accordance with the recommendations of the Naval Aircraft Maintenance Committee, centralised maintenance was introduced for both front-line and training units within which personnel and aircraft were to be formed into cohesive air groups.
Within a year it had to be accepted the changes introduced for aircrew categories and their training had been a failure that had, arguably, made the situation worse rather than better. Few volunteers for the rating pilot scheme had come forward and the Admiralty had to accept that only officers would have the full range of qualities and access to briefing material and intelligence that it required its pilots to have.8 This accorded with wartime experience, making the decision to rely heavily on rating pilots difficult to understand. Also, the RAF, which was responsible for all UK military pilot training, had decided that its own pilots should all, in future, be officers and training ratings for the RN alone would have been difficult. The termination of the rating pilot scheme was announced in December 19489 and it was announced at the same time that in future pilot entry was to comprise approximately one-third from volunteer executive officers on the permanent list and two-thirds direct entry officers on short-service commissions. A small number of Royal Marines and engineer specialist officers were also to be recruited to provide a broad base of knowledge in front-line units.
The first conversion course to train pilot/observers started in July 1948 but it immediately became apparent that the concept of appointing dual-trained officers as either pilots or observers was impractical and very uneconomical since the training was excessively long and the maintenance of currency in both skills difficult to achieve. The few dual-trained officers were designated as (F) for ‘flying’ rather than the more usual (p) for a pilot or (o) for an observer in the Navy List. The last pure observer courses in 1946 were composed of RCN and Dutch officers but by 1948 it was accepted that a new scheme for the direct entry of short-service officers for training as observers must be restored. The aircrewman branch took a long time to get started but eventually attracted a number of TAGs; all TAGs rated petty officer or above were offered the choice of conversion to the aircrewman branch or of re-training as naval airmen or air electrical specialists. About 150 opted to continue flying and completed their training in November 1949. The original concept that the branch should draw its recruits from the air electrical branch was abandoned after it proved impractical and a direct-entry scheme was approved. This, likewise, never materialised and by 1949 the branch was composed entirely of former TAGs. A new entry of some form of rating aircrew was anticipated, however, for the three-seat anti-submarine aircraft project that materialised as the Fairey Gannet. Broadly, the changes in the structure of the maintenance branches proved more workable and these stayed in place. One other change was introduced in 1949; since May 1939 officers involved with aviation duties had formed what was known as the Air Branch, although the term Fleet Air Arm used since 1924 had remained in common use. Short-service officers and those mobilised from the RNR and RNVR into the Air Branch, who had not qualified as executive officers able to keep watches or command HM ships had the fact denoted by a letter ‘A’ inside the executive curl of the their rank lace. In 1949 the Branch was disestablished and officers were transferred into the executive or engineering Branches10 as appropriate and the use of the ‘A’ in rank lace lapsed.
The last course of pilots cross-trained as observers completed its training in September 1949 and there were no plans to train more although, in the normal course of events, it remained possible for some suitable observers to re-train as pilots. At the same time specialisation as observers was re-opened to officers in the executive branch and direct-entry into observer training continued. By 1949 the training of aircrew had, therefore, stabilised although numbers were still significantly below those required. Two very practical schemes were introduced to expand the number of aircrew available at short notice in emergencies, however. The first of these was the establishment of four RNVR naval air squadrons, three fighter and one anti-submarine, in July 1947. These were based at RN air stations and had a core of regular pilots and maintainers. Initially sixty-five pilots and six observers, all officers, were enrolled,11 thus ensuring that their extensive wartime experience continued to be available. The Admiralty also sought to recruit experienced RNVR air engineer officers, supply officers and air traffic control specialists together with an initial ninety ratings with aircraft servicing and maintenance experience to make the RNVR air squadrons fully capable of embarkation at need. They had to commit to carrying out fourteen days’ continuous training per year in addition to 100 hours non-continuous training spread over at least twelve weekends per year. In practice it was found that commitment was needed to two or three weekends per month for the pilots to maintain reasonable currency on their aircraft. RNVR aircrew with a wartime background were obviously a wasting asset as they grew older, however, and the second scheme involved the training of new reserve aircrew. In 1949 it was decided to introduce pilot training, and in due course observer training, for National Servicemen deemed to be suitable for a commission.12 They were entered as Midshipmen RNVR and followed the normal RN flying training syllabus to ‘wings’ standard during their National Service time. They were then to be fed into the RNVR air squadrons for conversion onto operational