1957 Defence White Paper

[QUOTE=’568 crew;1684653]This is a question i’ve always wanted to ask, so here goes:

What if the 1957 Defence White Paper hadn’t been written?

Would the aircraft projects that were going to be cancelled have made it into operational service?[/QUOTE]

Great point, 568. Just think of it. SR.177s climbing out rocket-style over the North Sea to intercept snooping ‘Bears.’ A pair of Hawker P.1121s roaring off Marham’s runway (utilising the ventral intake long before the F.16 even heared of)…
I think the late great Barnes Wallis put it best: “We should have become Mistress of the skies, as we were once Mistress of the Seas. What a fearful opportunity this country has lost, and all because a politician would not believe a technician.”
Who was right and who was wrong? Just look around you.

568: No. Chox is right.

Each Air project chopped 4/57, had been initiated before UK’s gravy train of MSP $ dried in 1954, when it became evident that Korea had not been rehearsal for a lunge on Antwerp. US had paid part of the cost of Javelins, Hunters, Canberras…When we had to buy kit ourselves, we re-looked at the lot: you might call the process a Strategic Defence and Security Review.

If Eden had remained PM, such that Macmillan had remained Chancellor and Brig.Head had remained at Defence, then UK’s 1957/58 Budget would still have needed to address Defence affordability. Such steps as disbandment of RAuxAF, of Army AA guns, and more importantly, of manpower conscription, had already been decided upon by 1955. Before the next General Election, by 1959, a reduction in taxation was needed so that Tories could assert that “most of our people have never had it so good”.

“It is defence (spend) that has broken our backs. We also know that we get no defence from (it)” Chancellor Macmillan, to Eden, March,56. Horne, Macmillan/1,P.390.
“We had spent so much time chasing the better instead of putting the good into production that (RAF) was not equipped to as good a standard as it could have been.” §666,Cmd.9388,1955:The Supply of Military Aircraft.
Chancellor Mac/Sec.of Def.Monckton, 20/3/56, to PM: Defence spend is “little more than a façade”.
PM Mac 1/57 to new SecDef Sandys: your task is to “formulate in the light of present strategic needs (a) defence policy (to) secure a substantial reduction in expenditure and manpower” RAFHS P’dings/4, 9/88, Pp.11/16.

Avro 730 was initiated in 1954: >50,000 ft. Dished by SAMs.
Fairey F.155T (long range) and Saro/DH SR.177 (last ditch) jet+rocket interceptors lapsed for long range Bloodhound variants, some with nuke warheads (all later cancelled), and for (to be) Red Top AAM, head on from Lightning.
Hawker P.1121 was never cancelled because it had never been Required. RAF intended to replace overseas Army Co-operation Venoms with something, ah, expendable, which became retread Hunter F.6s as FGA.9.

Far too much emphasis is placed on the White paper because (as is often the case with lazy journalism) it is easy to adopt the most simple account of events. Naturally, it’s far easier to simply claim that Britain’s defences were written-off at a stroke, instead of attempting to wrestle with the realities of the situation at that time.

In reality, it’s likely that many of the planned projects would have eventually been abandoned in any case and of course quite a few were not directly abandoned because of the White paper in any case. Aircraft such as the TSR2, Aldershot, P.1154 and so on, were separate issues which are often linked with the White Paper, even though they had no direct connection.

In reality, it was probably only the Lightning that was directly affected by the White Paper in that it stifled any further development of the aircraft. It was only a snapshot in time, and defence planning (and industry) soon re-organised itself.

Also worth bearing in mind that the Paper had some beneficial outcomes too. For example, it persuaded Hawker to stay out of the fighter business for a long time and encouraged Camm to pursue a rather unlikely STOL army liaison aircraft project… and we all know what became of that!

Even without the paper my guess is that fighter/interceptor projects would have been cancelled because of the offensive switch to missiles.

That happened in the USA and Canada (though in that case it had as much to do with cost).

Probably not.

Regards