Page 291 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

Svezia

*
Lars ericson WoLke

Douhet or not Douhet.
Swedish Air Power Doctrine in the 1930´s and 1940´s

n 1911, the year of the first Italian use of Air strikes in Libya, the Swedish army got
it´s first planes and a year later the army followed. However, it was not until 1926,
1
Ithat a unified Swedish Air Force was created by the army and navy air branches.
The new arm, although weak in number, in the following years around 1930 devel-
oped an operational doctrine that could be described as douhetism , although Douhet
2
himself wasn´t translated to Swedish. However, when the German Luftherrschaft ar-
rived in 1935 , his thoughts were opened also for Swedish readers. Most Swedish of-
3
ficers, as well as civilians, knew German as their first foreign language.
The decade between 1934 and 1945 was probably one of the most important
decades in the history of the Swedish Air Force. Now it developed it´s doctrine , it
4
operational and tactical skills as well as went through an unprecedented enlarge-
ment. In 1934 the Air Force got a new Commander-in-Chief, Torsten Friis, who
already during World War One had studiedthe Air units used by the Austro-Hun-
garian Army at the Russian and Serbian fronts. The new Commander-in-Chief
5
already from his first year in officer was keen on a close co-operation between the

* Professor in military history at the National Defence College, Stockholm and member of the Board
of the Commission Internationale d´Histoire Militaire.
1 For the Swedish reaction upon the Italian use of Air planes in 1911 see Lars Ericson Wolke, “Bomba
och bränn dom.” Taktik och terror under 100 år av flygkrig (In Swedish: ”Bomb and Burn them.”
Tactic and Terror during 100 years of Air Warfare) , Lund 2009 pp. 20-24.
2
For the early development of Air Doctrines for the Army and Navy see Klaus-Richard Böhme,
Svensk luftförsvarsdoktrin 1919 till 1938 (In Swedish: Swedish Air defence doctrine 1919 to 1938),
in Aktuellt och Historiskt. Meddelanden från Militärhistoriska avdelningen vid Kungl Militärhög-
skolan 1973, Stockholm 1973 pp. 129-172. The first Air doctrines are seen in a broader Swedish
and international perspective in Lars Ericson Wolke, Krigets idéer. Svenska tankar om krigföring
1320-1920 (In Swedish: The Ideas of War. Swedish thought about Warfare, 1320-1920), Stockholm
2007 pp. 310-316.
3
Giulio Douhet, Luftherrschaft, Berlin 1935.
4
Another study of the development of Swedish Air doctrine during the 1930´s and 1940´s is, with
extensive archival references, published in English in Lars Ericson (Wolke), The Swedish Air
Force and the Question of Doctrine, 1934-1945, in Klaus-R Böhme/Carl Linton, eds., Air Power.
Doctrine and Technology. Linköping 14-16 August 1996. Proceedings, Stockholm/Linköping 1996
pp. 35-47.
5
Torsten Friis and the Air Force is studied in Lars Ericson (Wolke), Torsten Friis, in Gunnar Artéus,
th
ed., Svenska officersprofiler under 1900-talet (In Swedish: Swedish Officer profiles during the 20
Century) , Stockholm 1996 pp. 154-176.