A Proliferation of Royal Air Forces

Abstract

Australia's interest in nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 60s is usually explained in terms of high politics and grand strategy. This proliferation case study explores, in greater detail than hitherto, the important part played by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in pressing for a nuclear capability. It seeks to understand the reasons behind the RAAF's lobbying, in particular its previous experience with air power, its visceral desire for advanced manned bomber aircraft, and its strong institutional link to the British Royal Air Force. The decision in 1963 to acquire the supersonic US F-111 strike aircraft, instead of rivals including the British TSR.2, is also considered. Once the RAAF's bomber ambitions were satisfied, interest in nuclear weapons was greatly reduced. Finally, some comments are included on the nuclear interests of other air forces in the British Commonwealth.

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• United Kingdom
• United States
• bombers
• nuclear weapons

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An early version of this article was presented to the King's College London/University of Southampton Nuclear History Conference at Charterhouse school in July 2012, and I am grateful to participants, and to an anonymous Nonproliferation Review reviewer, for their help and comments.

Notes

1. Alan Stephens, Power Plus Attitude: Ideas, Strategy and Doctrine in the Royal Australian Air Force 1921–91 (Canberra: AGPS 1992), pp. 37, 45.

2. Jim Walsh, “Surprise Down Under: the Secret History of Australia's Nuclear Ambitions,” Nonproliferation Review 5 (Fall 1997), pp. 1–20; Wayne Reynolds, Australia's Bid for the Atomic Bomb (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000); Jacques Hymans, “Isotopes and Identity: Australia and the Nuclear Weapons Option 1949–99,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (Spring 2000), pp. 1–23.

3. The so-called Confrontation was an episode of low-intensity border conflict, mostly confined to jungle areas of the island of Borneo, between Indonesia on the one hand and the newly independent Federation of Malaysia, supported by the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, on the other.

4. Hanno Weisbrod, “Australia's Decision to Buy the F-111,” Australian Quarterly 41 (June 1969), pp. 7–27; Mark Lax, From Controversy to Cutting Edge: A History of the F-111 in Australian Service (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2010), pp. 1–4.

5. On the RAAF in World War II, see Alan Stephens, The Royal Australian Air Force (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001); Air Power Studies Centre, The RAAF in the South West Pacific Area 1942–45: Proceedings of the 1993 RAAF History Conference, October 14, 1993, and The RAAF in Europe and North Africa 1939–45: Proceedings of the 1994 RAAF History Conference, October 20, 1994; also the papers of the Australian War Memorial Conference “Air War Europe,” November 15, 2003, <www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2003/>.

6. Stephens, Power Plus Attitude, p. 81.

7. Quoted in Stephens, Power Plus Attitude, p. 95.

8. Peter Morton, Fire Across the Desert: Woomera and the Anglo-Australian Joint Project, 1946–80 (Canberra: AGPS 1989).

9. David Lee, “Australia and Allied Strategy in the Far East, 1952–1957,” Journal of Strategic Studies 16 (December 1993), pp. 511–38; David McLean, “Australia in the Cold War: A Historiographical Review,” International History Review 23 (June 2001), pp. 299–321; Matthew Jones, “The Radford Bombshell: Anglo-Australian-US Relations, Nuclear Weapons and the Defence of South-East Asia 1954–57,” Journal of Strategic Studies 27 (December 2004), pp. 636–62; David McLean, “From British Colony to American Satellite? Australia and the USA During the Cold War,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 52 (2006), pp. 64–79.

10. Reynolds, Australia's Bid, pp. 76–78, 125.

11. Stephan Frühling, A History of Australian Strategic Policy Since 1945 (Canberra: Defence Publishing Service 2009), p. 15.

12. Quoted in Jones, “The Radford Bombshell,” pp. 649–50.

13. Matthew Jones, After Hiroshima: the United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945–65 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), ch. 8.

14. Reynolds, Australia's Bid, p. 169. The British Joint Planning Staff had concluded in February that nuclear weapons would have to be used in a limited war in the Far East: Jones, “The Radford Bombshell,” p. 653.

15. Karl Hack, Defence and Decolonisation in South-east Asia: Britain, Malaya and Singapore 1941–68 (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001), pp. 228–29; Jones, “The Radford Bombshell,” p. 655; Richard Moore, Nuclear Illusion, Nuclear Reality: Britain, the United States and Nuclear Weapons 1958–64 (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2010), pp. 214–15.

16. Quoted in Jones, “The Radford Bombshell,” p. 653.

17. Quoted in Alan Stephens, Going Solo: the RAAF 1946–71 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995), p. 362.

18. John McCarthy, “An Obscure War? The RAAF and the SWPA Experience 1942–54,” in Air Power Studies Centre, The RAAF in the South West Pacific Area, pp. 138–52, 146. For a contrary view, that Hardman preferred the RAAF to concentrate on fighter defense whilst awaiting bomber reinforcements from the United Kingdom, see Stephens, Going Solo, pp. 38–39.

19. Denis O'Brien, The Vulcan Option for the RAAF (Canberra: Air Power Studies Centre, March 1994), pp. 5–6.

20. Denis O'Brien, The Vulcan Option for the RAAF (Canberra: Air Power Studies Centre, March 1994), pp. 7–8.

21. Denis O'Brien, The Vulcan Option for the RAAF (Canberra: Air Power Studies Centre, March 1994), p. 10.

22. Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives (hereafter HoR debs.), April 4, 1957, p. 573.

23. UK National Archives (hereafter Public Record Office) (PRO), AIR 10/5589, AP1300 4th edition, pp. viii, 23, 41.

24. PRO, AIR 8/2188, Scherger to Boyle, April 8, 1958.

25. PRO, AIR 8/2188, COS(57)70th meeting, Confidential Annex, September 10, 1957.

26. Richard Moore, “Bad Strategy and Bomber Dreams: A New View of the Blue Streak Cancellation,” Contemporary British History 27 (2013), pp. 145–66.

27. National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA), A1209/80 1958/5155, report of February 6, 1958.

28. NAA, A7942/1 N78 PART 1, Scherger to McBride, September 27, 1957.

29. NAA, A1945/13 186/5/3, extracts from notes of meeting in cabinet room at Parliament House, March 15, 1957. At this stage, there were probably less than fifty British nuclear weapons in total.

30. PRO, AIR 8/2188, Scherger to Boyle, April 4, 1958.

31. PRO, AIR 8/2188, Boyle to Scherger, April 25, 1958.

32. Stephens, Power Plus Attitude, p. 151; PRO, AIR 8/2188, Scherger to Boyle, February 5, 1959, and other papers.

33. NAA, A1945/13 186/5/3, Townley to McBride, September 12, 1956. See also the other correspondence on this file, and the summary in Walsh, “Surprise Down Under,” p. 3.

34. HoR debs., September 19, 1957, pp. 797–98.

35. PRO, DO 35/8287, GEN 622/1/60 of December 18, 1957.

36. NAA, A7942/1 N78 PART 1, record of meeting Menzies/Macmillan at Parliament House, January 29, 1958.

37. NAA, A1209/80 1958/5155, minutes of Defence Committee meeting, February 6, 1958.

38. NAA, A7942 N78 PART 1, McBride's note of the February 11 meeting, dated April 1, 1958. See also Walsh, “Surprise Down Under,” pp. 4–5.

39. PRO, AIR 8/2188, Scherger to Boyle, April 4, 1958.

40. NAA, A1945 186/5/3, record of discussions August 13, 1958.

41. NAA, A1209 1957/4067, note by Hicks September 5, 1958; PRO, AIR 8/2188, Jones to Macmillan, September 10, 1958.

42. NAA, A1945 186/5/3, Macmillan to Menzies by telegram, August 30, 1958; A1209 1957/4067, Menzies to Macmillan, September 4, 1958.

43. NAA, A1209 1957/4067, Allen's file note of September 2, 1958.

44. NAA, A1945 186/5/3, Osborne to McBride, August 26, 1958.

45. Tuttle's remembered account of the conversation is in PRO, DO 35/8287 dated November 6, 1958, and Scherger's is in NAA, A1209 1957/4067 dated November 13, 1958. Red Beard weighed 2,000 lb., and not 3,500 lb., as apparently stated by Tuttle.

46. Walsh, “Surprise Down Under,” pp. 7–8.

47. PRO, DEFE 7/1356, note of April 7, 1960.

48. PRO, DEFE 7/1356, Thorneycroft to Watkinson, October 17, 1960.

49. Charles Gardner, British Aircraft Corporation: A History (London: Batsford, 1981), pp. 106–07; Harry Rayner, Scherger (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1984), p. 156. Pritchard also later recalled his own involvement “when we started the TSR.2 exercise in Canberra in 1959” (PRO, DO 164/28, file note of November 19, 1963).

50. PRO, DEFE 19/256, Pritchard note of May 11, 1961.

51. PRO, DO 164/17, file note of July 11, 1961.

52. PRO, DO 164/17, Makins to Playfair, July 19, 1961.

53. Walsh, “Surprise Down Under,” pp. 8–9.

54. HoR debs., May 22, 1963, p. 1,671.

55. NAA, A4940 C3852 ATTACHMENT, Report of the evaluation team on a strike/reconnaissance aircraft for the RAAF, August 1963.

56. Mountbatten was Chief of Defence Staff; his part in the TSR.2 controversy is considered further below.

57. Robert J. Art, The TFX Decision: McNamara and the Military (Boston: Little Brown, 1968).

58. Australian War Memorial, S01657, oral history interview with Air Marshal Sir Valston Hancock, June 30, 1993 (AWM, Hancock interview), <www.awm.gov.au/transcripts/s01657_tran.pdf>, p. 66.

59. PRO, AIR 8/2396, note of lunch, April 1, 63; AIR 19/1074, VCAS to DCAS, April 2, 1963.

60. PRO, AIR 19/1074, Oliver, BHC, to Sir Saville Garner, CRO, April 24, 1963; and DO 164/27, covering note to same.

61. PRO, AIR 19/1074, Pike to Fraser, May 3, 1963.

62. Rayner, Scherger, p. 160. On the Buccaneer and TSR.2, see Humphrey Wynn, RAF Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Forces: Their Origins, Roles and Deployment 1946–69 (London, HMSO 1994), esp. pp. 526–29.

63. PRO, DO 164/27, COS.188/63 of 28 May 63, COS.196/63 of June 6, 1963 and Ministry of Aviation report on the Hancock mission, August 1, 1963.

64. AWM, Hancock interview, p. 63.

65. PRO, AIR 19/1074, Air Ministry to Treasury September 2 and reply of September 3, 1963; NAA, A4940 C3852, Fraser's speaking note of September 13, 1963.

66. NAA, A4940 C3852, Griffith note of September 13 and Bunting of September 16, 1963; PRO, AIR 19/1074, BDLS to Air Ministry by signal September 12, 1963; DO 164/27, Martin to DHC of September 13, 1963.

67. PRO, DO 164/27, BHC to CRO telno. 954 of September 20, 1963.

68. PRO, PREM 11/4125, Macmillan to Menzies via High Commission Canberra, October 3, 1963 (arriving October 4; also in NAA, A4940 C3852 and A6706 2).

69. Stephens, Going Solo, p. 374. Hancock, although teetotal, was also unconvinced of the Indonesian threat: AWM, Hancock interview, p. 63.

70. NAA, A1946 1967/3498, Scherger to Hicks, October 17, 1963.

71. NAA, A4940 C3852, Cabinet decision 1057 of October 7, 1963.

72. NAA, A6706 2, Menzies to Butler via High Commission London, October 14, 1963.

73. NAA, A6706 2, Butler to Menzies via High Commission Canberra, October 17, 1963 (arriving October 18).

74. NAA, A4940 C3852, Washington telno. 2813 to Canberra sent 2040 local, October 20, 1963 (arriving 1105 local, October 21).

75. NAA, A4940 C3852, Washington telno. 2860 to Canberra sent 1920 local, October 23, 1963 (arriving 1030 local, October 24); also Bunting note of November 13, 1963, putting TSR.2 at A£81–91M against TFX A£56M. Hancock had previously assessed the quoted price for TFX to be wholly unrealistic: AWM, Hancock interview, pp. 65–66.

76. Howard Beale, This Inch of Time: Memoirs of Politics and Diplomacy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1977), p. 172.

77. NAA, A4940 C3852, Cabinet decision 1117(FAD), October 23, 1963; A1946 1967/3498, Canberra telno. 2631 to Washington, sent 0111 local, October 24, 1963.

78. HoR debs., October 24, 1963, p. 2,251.

79. Rayner, Scherger, p. 159 (Rayner was an eyewitness to Townley's arrival back in Australia).

80. Editorial, “TSR2 puzzle,” Daily Telegraph, October 29, 1963.

81. Economist, “TSR2 tantrums,” November 2, 1963, p. 447.

82. PRO, DO 164/28, Oliver's note on wrap-up and lessons, November 11, 1963.

83. Weisbrod, “Australia's Decision,” p. 25.

84. Stephen Hastings, The Murder of TSR2 (London: Macdonald 1966), esp. ch. 5; see also the derivative accounts in Gardner, British Aircraft Corporation, pp. 106–07; Derek Wood, Project Cancelled: A Searching Criticism of the Abandonment of Britain's Advanced Aircraft Projects (London: Macdonald and Jane's, 1975), pp. 174–77; Frank Barnett-Jones, TSR.2: Phoenix or Folly? (Peterborough: GMS Enterprises, 1994), pp. 163–65; Damien Burke, TSR2: Britain's Lost Bomber (Marlborough: Crowood Press, 2010), pp. 264–66.

85. Rayner, Scherger, e.g. pp. x-xi, 97, 103, 123, 156–60.

86. Stephens, Going Solo, p. 187.

87. Hastings, The Murder of TSR2, p. 90.

88. Stephens, Power Plus Attitude, pp. 147–49, including quote from Air Board paper of April 1959.

89. Walsh, “Surprise Down Under,” pp. 9–10.

90. John Crawford, “‘A Political H-Bomb’: New Zealand and the British Thermonuclear Weapon Tests of 1957–58,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 26 (January 1998), pp. 127–50; Malcolm Templeton, Standing Upright Here: New Zealand in the Nuclear Age 1945–90 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006); Rebecca Priestley, Mad on Radium: New Zealand in the Atomic Age (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2012).

91. Michael Wynd, “From Participation to Protest: the Royal New Zealand Navy and Nuclear Testing,” paper from the 2009 King-Hall Naval History Conference, Canberra, July 30–31, 2009, <http://117.55.225.121/w/images/Wynd_-_From_Participation_to_Protest_Paper.pdf>.

92. PRO, DEFE 13/23, record of the New Zealand Cabinet Defence Committee, September 4, 1957.

93. Quoted in Priestley, Mad on Radium, p. 90, and Templeton, Standing Upright Here, p. 82. A copy of the white paper is among Sandys's papers from the visit in PRO, DEFE 13/23.

94. PRO, AIR 2/13738, notes of May 19 and September 29, 1958, and August 22, 1960.

95. PRO, AIR 20/9300, various correspondence 1957–62 on advanced Canberras for the RNZAF.

96. PRO, AIR 20/9300, PS/VCAS notes of June 19 and July 3, 1961,

97. The Lancaster and Manchester Bomber Archive, “Post-War Lancaster's Canada,” updated July 2008, <www.lancaster-archive.com/lanc_postwar-canada.htm>.

98. Sean Maloney, Learning to Love the Bomb: Canada's Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War (Washington: Potomac, 2007).