Page 116 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

116 airpower in 20 Century doCtrines and employment - national experienCes
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informed of Italian developments in the aerial sphere, especially those consequent
upon the March on Rome - including the creation of the “Regia Aeronautica” (Royal
Air Force) in March 1923. Because of the pace and scope of Italian developments
in the air, by the autumn of that year the British Embassy was urgently calling for
the reappointment of an Air Attaché. And in 1924 Wing-Commander John Fletcher
was sent out to Rome, where he remained until 1928. During his time in Rome
Fletcher wrote many detailed, accurate and frankly alarming reports on the growth
and overhaul of the Italian Airforce. Fletcher was a perceptive and shrewd observer,
recognising both the great strides forward the Italian Airforce was making as well as
its (less obvious) shortcomings. After his return to Britain, Fletcher lectured about
the Italian Airforce.
Given the British interest in Italian aviation in the 20s, would Douhet have really
been unknown to the Air Ministry? For Douhet was a man who had been appointed
to high office by Mussolini; a man who was proclaimed by Fascist propaganda to
be one of the world’s greatest military theorists; and a man whose prolific and pro-
vocative writings were published with official or semi-official backing from 1921
onwards. In particular, would his “The Command of the Air”, a book that was pub-
lished by the Ministry of War and distributed to all army and naval officers (and
which was later reissued by the Ministry of Culture), be likely to escape the notice
of the British Embassy in Rome, and therefore not be transmitted to London? I con-
sider it to be inherently improbable.(The US Military Attaché sent two copies of the
book to Washington in March 1922). Nor can I believe that the two leading Italian
aviation magazines “L’Ala d’Italia” and “Rivista Aeronautica”, both of which gave
Douhet’s ideas extensive coverage, would have escaped the British Air Attaché’s
attention. I cannot accept the implication of Higham and Liddell Hart that every Brit-
ish Air Attaché in Rome between the wars was incompetent and kept his superiors
in ignorance of Douhet.
The General Staff Monthly Intelligence Summaries testify to the great British in-
terest in, and knowledge of, Italian aviation at this time. As of course do the Air Staff
Air Intelligence Reports; report no. 13 (1926) being devoted entirely to Italian avia-
tion. This report, which is extremely, long and detailed, shows a clear understanding
of Italy’s Douhetian air strategy. To quote two passages from the report: “Italy firmly
believes in the use of the “Armata Aerea” [the Independent Air Force, comprising
the strategic bombers] for reducing the morale and “will to fight” of the enemy civil
population”; “The first function of the Independent Air Force is to paralyse the en-
emy’s air force by direct air fighting and by attacking his ground organisations”. The
report also highlights crowded northern Italy’s vulnerability to air attack and the
greatly shaken civilian morale that resulted from such attacks in WWI - two of the
key elements in Douhet’s thinking. The report is I believe strong, albeit circumstan-
tial, evidence of a knowledge and understanding of Douhet’s ideas.
In my judgement, it would seem that the RAF moved from a preoccupation with
the French Airforce in the early 20s to a preoccupation with the Italian Airforce in