Reading Eagle (August 4, 1941)
DOROTHY THOMPSON SAYS –
The few to whom many owe so much
London, Aug. 4 – (via press wireless)
The Royal Air Force is not an army. It is an order, a knightly order representing something new not only as a fighting force but as a social phenomenon. It is impossible to come into contact with groups of its men without believing that the RAF will play a great role in the Britain that emerges from the war.
These young men saved England a year ago. How few they were who saved England is not yet realized by the many. Their names as individuals are hardly known. This air war is without aces. Individual exploits have been as sensational as any performed by the Bishops, the Guynemers or the Richthofens of the last war. But it is a breach of form in the RAF to publicize any single personality. Congratulate a pilot on his personal exploits and he will stiffen immediately.
The RAF is a voluntary force. He who presents himself and is accepted finds a code imposed upon him by his comrades. There are RAF manners. Reticence, poise and easiness mark them. “Shooting a line” makes one an outcast.
In fighting stations, military forms and rigidities are kept at a minimum. The salute is casual, the sir is spoken as a well-brought-up youth might address an older man. Nicknames are as universal as at a boys’ school. The intelligence officer at one station is always called “spy.” The atmosphere of the fighting station is rather that of a young man’s club. The spirit of the squadron is not the spirit of a company or a brigade but of a team. The men are rated among their comrades not only for their exploits in bringing down Germans but for their sobriety in protecting their aircraft, for leadership and for teamwork.
The playing fields of Eton are in the sky and this peculiar new nobility of Britain ride to hounds in the heavens. Whose particular gun brought down a particular plane is of less consequence than how each member of the squadron behaved in relation to the whole operation. This self-selected service of the few comes, interestingly enough, almost entirely from the middle classes. Their families are rarely titled, rarely rich, very seldom very poor. They have had advantages, but few luxuries. The probability is that at home they live in a small detached villa with one or two servants. Nine out of ten come from such homes.
Although enormous emphasis is placed upon the discipline of tactics and the integrated teamwork of the whole operation, very little emphasis is placed upon bodily training in the rigid physical sense.
For instance, one of the greatest airmen in England told me:
A good airman must be constitutionally sound, completely healthy; but he must never be too fit. The sort of training that an infantryman gets, or the spirit given to a boxer or football player, would spoil an airman.
The fighter of the air is employed in short, swift engagements, requiring terrific concentration of nervous energy, rather than prolonged endurance. Ever so slight an edge on the nerves seems to produce tension. Nerves are necessary to perfect his performance. The fighter of the air has the nerves of an acrobat, not a soldier or mariner. It is all done with nerves, not muscle, and among airmen there are highly artistic types.
There are three commands in the RAF. Each produces a different type of airman. The fighters for the most part are a slender wiry breed of finely-spun nerves. The bombers are physically thicker set, slower, more deliberate perhaps, a more responsible type. They are handling more power, more costly craft. Their skippers are responsible for more people’s lives. The men of the coastal command are the fat boys of the RAF. In trying to find the reason, I concluded it was because they follow the usages of the navy and eat more, oftener. These are the men who conduct reconnaissance over the oceans, bomb enemy surface craft and submarines and act as cover for the convoys, helping to bring in food and the sinews of war for Britain’s people.
Their wives are, I must add, a special kind of new young woman. They too have a code. That code demands that they be happy and keep their husbands happy all the time. The girls are great cocktail drinkers. They are always casual. It is against the code ever to show the slightest apprehension, ever to telephone the airdrome to see whether their husbands have come back from some dangerous operation. They must wait for this call. When possible, they live near the squadron stations to be with their husbands at the earliest moment of their free time.
In the last war, there was considerable freemasonry among the airmen of all nationalities. A mutual admiration that transcended the enmities of war. There is much less of that in this war in which the air force plays an infinitely greater role.
Most airmen with whom I talked despise the Nazis as an inferior enemy. They admire the strategy and tactics of the Luftwaffe but no very unboastful lot themselves but they say a quite simple statement of fact that the Nazis haven’t got guts. They say they are too rigid. They are enormously effective whenever no chance or accident crosses their prescribed tactics but relatively helpless in an unforeseen emergency. Some thoughtful ones advance reasons for this but that is another story.