Aerial Symbiosis : the interrelationship between Military and Civil Aviation in the Union of South Africa 1912-1940

Abstract

The historiography of aviation has tended to view the realms of civil and military aviation as disparate endeavours whose development has by and large followed separate paths. In considering the earliest years of flying in the Union of South Africa, this study shows that from the first years in which both branches of aviation existed, there was a clear interdependence between the two. From the first military aviators being trained by a civilian flying school prior to World War One, to the beginnings of the Air Force and the first attempts at commercial aviation in the 1920s, that relationship was demonstrated. The limited number of pilots and aircraft that were active in the country for most of the inter-War period, meant that the South African Air Force provided the bulk of the expertise, in terms of administration, technical support and even some of the aviation functions generally associated with commercial enterprises. The need to build a reservist force and extract maximum value from South African Airways in the wake of the Great Depression and in the face of new potential threats after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia led to new government policies. To achieve these aims in the late 1930s, a state-subsidized Thousand Pilots Scheme was started and a dual role for SAA (as an airline and a bomber wing) was defined, mainly thanks to the initiatives of the government minister, Oswald Pirow. The immediate beneficiaries were the flying schools and the national air carrier. Outside of the government sphere, women pilots and aviation enthusiasts set up their own Women's Aviation Association. All of these measures would soon be tested in the context of another major conflict from 1939. The ability of the SAAF to make some kind of contribution in the first year of the war, can be interpreted as being the culmination of developments in the previous decades arising from a military aviation tradition that was closely linked to civil aviation enterprises in the country.