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IX THE R.A.F. IN THE BATTLE THE AIR PLAN 'In every operation of war it is essential to decide upon and clearly to define the object which the use of force is intended to attain." THE system whereby the arrangements for air co-operation in battle during the last War were so often made by means of personal discussion between the Staffs, unconfirmed in writing, has already been referred to in the introduction to this book. And a study of the air plan for the battle of Amiens seems to emphasize the dangers of that system. The Commander and Staff of the Fourth Army were fully alive to the value and importance of air action; the Air Officer Commanding the 5th Brigade, R.A.F., was constantly called to Army Head-quarters, and took part in long and detailed discussions on the employment of his squadrons in the forthcoming operations. But, apart from the instructions summarized on a previous page, the army battle orders contained no reference to the action ofthe air force. And in particular the object of the air operationsthe effect they were intended to produce, the part they were to play in the Plan as a whole-was not clearly defined on paper. This may have been explained to General Charlton verbally by the Staff, but the fact remains that he evidently did not understand it-or understood only part of it. It seems not impossible that the development of the plan, described in the last chapter, from a limited operation to secure the old outer Amiens defences, was not made clear to him. For in his instructions which were read out to every pilot and observer throughout the 5th Brigade on the afternoon ofAugust 7th he described the task of the infantry as being only the capture of the blue line-and that of the other arms, artillery, cavalry, and tanks, to support the infantry on to the blue line. And with this in view he defined the task ofthe air force as being ofwider scope, namely, not only the direct support of the infantry on to the blue line, but also to help the other arms to help the infantry. From these instructions-slightly reminiscent of the House that I F.S.R. ii, sect. 7. 2. 166 THE BATTLE OF AMIENS, AUGUST 8TH-11TH, 1918 Jack built-the object laid down for the air force emerges as, directly or indirectly, to help the irifantry on to the blue line. It is, perhaps, permissible to reflect that this was not a very wide scope for an arm of which the rate of tactical movement was even then at least twenty times that ofthe other arms on the ground. It is, of course, important to try to place oneself in the position of the commanders at the time; and to realize that in their view-and probably in fact-success in this attack, or in other words the capture of that blue line, meant the difference between winning the War and-at best-a stalemate and a negotiated peace. This being so, the orders issued from Army Head-quarters and the instructions by the Commander of the 5th Brigade did in fact effectively secure the attainment of this rather limited object. All units thoroughly understood the situation and the part they were to play in it, and carried out their orders with complete success, and ·with the utmost selfsacrifice and gallantry. The mistake lay in the selection of too limited an object, and in a failure to look sufficiently far ahead. The minds ofmen attuned to years ofstatic warfare, accustomed to the desperately contested trench-to-trench offensives of the Somme, the Ypres Salient, and Arras, and fresh from the months ofdefensive fighting ofthe spring and summer of 19I 8, perhaps found it difficult thoroughly to grasp the scope of this operation as a definite break-through-the first act in a drama of open warfare once again. For in the strategical plan outlined by the Supreme Command-the advance with all possible speed on Roye and Chaulnes and subsequently on Ham-the capture of the blue line, though an essential and by far the most important and difficult stage, was nevertheless only the first stage. No longer-as in the original instructions-was the blue line when captured to be elaborately organized as a main battle position, but it was to be the first bound in a far deeper penetration. In the difference...

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