How Strategic Airpower has Changed the World Order: From the 100th Bomb Group in 1943 to the Falklands and Beyond

Preface

The two authors of this book are acknowledged as having possibly unmatched, in-depth expertise and hands-on experience in their specialist maritime warfare areas of interest: Dr Anthony Wells in naval intelligence at the highest level on both sides of the Atlantic, and Commander ‘Sharkey’ Ward in naval air warfare. Short biographies are provided at the end.

The book reaches across time and briefly describes eight decades of significant strategic airpower-related events, whether land-based or naval, that:

•underwrite the continuing benefit of the special military relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, and that,

•in many cases, reveal a lack of investment wisdom in the UK and a less than fruitful allocation of operational control of and/or airpower deployment in the field.

It is an untold story of the uneasy progress of naval air warfare development within the UK and its synthesis with land-based airpower.

These two strands of airpower are mutually supportive in the context of US and UK global security interests. But the book shows clearly that the full benefit of such mutual support has often been hampered by the disregard of those in power concerning the strategically important air warfare and maritime warfare lessons learned during the last eighty years. That disregard has resulted in a steady decline in the strength and global capability of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. This does not fit well with the astute warning delivered by elder statesman Winston Churchill:

Whereas any European power has to support a vast army first of all, we in this fortunate, happy island, relieved by our insular position of a double burden, may turn our undivided efforts and attention to the Fleet. Why should we sacrifice a game in which we are sure to win to play a game in which we are bound to lose?

The winning game he referred to was the proven and traditional island nation commitment to strategic naval power, through which Britain had long secured its homeland and global national interests. He could see that land-based air power in any form could not provide visible deterrence and security throughout the global commons, e.g., it was the UK’s formidable naval strength and visible presence (not the Battle of Britain) that deterred Hitler from attempting to invade Britain across the Channel with his ill-conceived Operation Sea Lion.

Churchill’s warning was not heeded on two key occasions in the UK’s recent military history.

The first was the fateful Dennis Healey decision in 1966–67 to remove aircraft carriers from the Royal Navy fleet and cancel the build of the new strike carrier CVA-01. This was at the behest of the RAF, which misled the minister, ignoring all recent naval history and persuading him through misinformation that they could carry out the strategic roles of aircraft carriers throughout the global commons. The result of this decision was the inevitable erosion of the UK’s strategic military and political power projection capability and it signalled to the Argentinians an opportunity for them to invade the Falkland Islands in 1982, the last UK strike carrier, HMS Ark Royal, being withdrawn from service in 1977.

The second, which contributed to the same result, was the ludicrous statement by UK Defence Minister John Nott prior to the Falklands conflict, who posed this question to his successor, Michael Heseltine:

… are we to have a Navy which is appropriately designed to fight low-level wars against the Hottentots and a Navy which is to be appropriate if need be for invading the uninhabited islands like Anguilla, or are we to have a Navy which is actually designed to be [meet] the main threat of the British people … Which is principally 35–40 miles off the coast of Britain and the nation’s flank from Soviet threat.

Taken from Churchill College Archives

The multi-role air defence fighter, the Phantom F-4K, launching from the waist catapult of HMS Ark Royal during its final commission.

This ignorance, displayed by Nott, of the then major, long-range, Cold War threat from the Soviets and of the global utility of robust naval air power, led to the announcement by the UK government just prior to the Falklands War that it was to sell HMS Invincible, UK’s new Sea Harrier carrier to Australia. This was seen as a ‘welcome mat’ by the Argentina dictator, Leopoldo Galtieri, who proceeded with his invasion of the islands.

That invasion is a story that has been well told in detail by many different authors. This book intentionally briefly summarises such key events and presents the reader with a broad historical understanding of why the UK government has now publicly returned to a strategic maritime policy for its armed forces; as indicated with the statement by the then Secretary of State for Defence, Philip Hammond, that ‘our new Strike Carriers are at the heart of our Strategic Defence Policy’.

The actual events of recent military history cannot be changed but have often been misinterpreted to suit the opinion of third-party researchers and observers, rather than taking the events at face value and recommending lessons to be learned from them. It is the book’s intent to follow the latter course, and in doing so, it suggests firmly that the UK government should channel a higher proportion of the available defence budget into global maritime utility, mobility and presence. Such a change would save the UK taxpayer money while increasing the fighting efficiency of the UK’s armed forces, particularly the Royal Navy and its embarked airpower.

With tensions rising significantly in the Indo-Pacific region, it emphasises that allied strategic airpower is deployed regularly to Britain, especially during times of international tension, courtesy of the USAF B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft. The UK’s new Carrier Battle Groups also represent strategic maritime airpower. This book suggests that investment in large fleets of short-range, land-based tactical fighter aircraft is misguided, unjustified and should be discontinued.

A B-52H Stratofortress arrives in Guam, July 2023. (Photo by Airman First Class Nia Jacobs)

The B-1B supersonic strategic bomber.

This decades-long story is split into three parts.

Part I: The Second World War and the 100th Bomb Group. Dr Wells provides the main body of this section. It is an intimate insight into the USAF’s participation and its major contribution to Allied victory with the daytime precision strategic bombing of Nazi Germany, targeting military installations.

This was achieved at great cost in blood and treasure, turning the tide against the Nazi war machine. In parallel, the UK’s Lancaster bombers conducted night-time carpet-bombing raids against population centres that did little to limit the military resources of the German war effort. Part I also highlights the unfortunate reluctance of the UK’s air force to allocate much-needed resources to counter the German U-boat offensive, which nearly brought Britain to its knees.

The 100th Bomb Group B-17s in action. (© David Julian)

Part II: The Falklands Air War. The history of the conflict is intentionally related in the first person by Commander ‘Sharkey’ Ward, who had been given full authority and control over preparing the Sea Harrier for combat operations.

It provides a detailed summary of the CVA-01 cancellation decision, engineered by RAF dishonesty, and of the subsequent difficulties faced and overcome by the Royal Navy’s new air defence fighter, the Sea Harrier. With very limited numbers against great odds (including high command ignorance of its combat capabilities), the little jump jet provided enough protection to the UK Carrier Battle Group and the Amphibious Warfare Group to successfully facilitate the recovery of the Islands by our Royal Marine-led ground forces – a convincing demonstration of maritime strategic power.

Sabre rattling by the Argentinians concerning their unjustified claims to the sovereignty of the British Overseas Territory, the Falklands, is an ongoing affair and now they receive strong support for their case from Russia, Germany and among others, China, and even the European Union. In the light of recent world events, including the Ukraine War and the Taiwan stand-off, the South Atlantic has assumed strategic significance. Chinese leader Xi’s blatant desire for territorial aggrandisement and influence has included overtures to the Argentinian government with an eye to gaining a military foothold there and on the islands, and we in the West must thwart this desire through the execution of the UK’s declared strategic maritime policy – and in coordination with United States Navy. The unilateral cancellation of the Foradori–Duncan pact by Argentina in early 2023 should be ringing alarm bells in Whitehall. Britain ignored the warning signs prior to Galtieri’s invasion in 1982 and we must not be caught with our pants down once more.

Part III: Beyond the Falklands War. This section, authored by Dr Wells, provides valuable insight into the major strategic significance of the USAF presence within the UK throughout recent decades. This presence, filling critical roles with extensive capabilities, provides the global military reach that is not otherwise available from UK land-based air due to budget constraints. It suggests that there are many other roles that can be conducted effectively and cost-efficiently by the Royal Air Force, without arguably unjustified major investment in large fleets of land-based, short-range, tactical fighter aircraft. It suggests that the latter have little, if any, strategic utility for global expeditionary military operations and that funding for the same should be diverted to more threat-related investment in support of the UK’s ‘alliance-based’ maritime strategy, the principal component here being the Royal Navy Fleet and its embarked airpower. This would enable a critical and robust power projection capability to be realised in support of our major ally, the USA, and would be an order more cost and operationally effective. That would be beneficial to the taxpayer in this time of extreme fiscal constraint and would be welcomed by all our allies as our world faces increasing international tension and challenges.

Introduction

The role of air power has gone through many changes since the Second World War. Driving factors have been the international security environment since the end of the Nazi era, advances in technology, the various key alliance structures that have been created in response to perceived threats, and the individual national security needs of the major powers. Air and space warfare join underwater warfare, characterised by the development of nuclear-powered attack and strategic submarines, as most likely the pre-eminent domains in which the lead post-Second World War nations have made the most strides. These have impacted the global security environment and continue to do so.

Air warfare developed into quite separate and very different land and maritime domains. They grew in parallel, with unique characteristics that covered both the tactical and strategic environments. The latter has been the driving force for national and alliance-based technical and operational developments and the huge investments associated with complex acquisitions.

This book concentrates on the special and unique relationship of the United Kingdom and the United States. It addresses how together they focused and combined their national security interests at the high point of the Second World War and then transitioned over successive decades their individual and joint security needs into aviation programmes in the land and maritime applications of air power in the service of their joint and national interests.

It is important at the onset to understand the fundamental differences in the application of air power from land and from the sea. There are self-evident differences. These are quintessential in understanding why and how over the period being considered, from early 1942 (when the US Eighth Air Force arrived in the United Kingdom to initiate daylight strategic air warfare against Nazi Germany) through the United Kingdom’s successful Falklands’ campaign in 1982, to today’s very much changed and demanding international security environment.

Maritime air warfare is at the simplest level conducted from ships carrying aircraft and helicopters and, in addition increasingly today, a range of unmanned aerial systems. The aircraft carrier has been and still is the principal platform for launching and retrieving manned and unmanned aircraft at sea. It provides capabilities that include flexibility in location, ability to move expeditiously from one sea area to another, and can be forward deployed into any area of the world’s oceans in accordance with the established laws of the sea.

Aircraft carriers can conduct strikes from the sea against land and sea targets and they can conduct deterrence, blockade, and containment missions by the very nature of their presence, and forward deployment, as was witnessed for example during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. And more recently, when Iran threatened to close the Hormuz Strait to merchant shipping, it rapidly changed its tune when a US Navy Carrier Battle Group entered that arena.

The United States nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs) are quintessential platforms because they have no refuelling needs and can operate indefinitely and at high speeds over lengthy periods by being resupplied at sea with full logistical support, including weapons resupply. The British aircraft carriers, being non-nuclear powered, require refuelling at sea from support tankers. The deployment flexibility of these aircraft carriers, plus other ship types carrying, for example, US Marine Corps vertical and short take-off and landing (VSTOL) aircraft, and assault helicopters, provides both country’s leaderships with a wide range of options at the strategic and tactical