On this day, 17 December 1939, the Menzies Government signs up to the Empire Air Training Scheme which would see thousands of Australian pilots fight in the Battle of Britain and other operations around Europe and the Mediterranean. The aim of the scheme was simultaneously to assist the mother country, while also building up Australia’s network of air facilities and experienced fighter pilots for any Pacific conflict.

The scheme hoped to solve a simple dilemma, which was that British manufacturers could produce aircraft at a rate that outstripped the nation’s ability to produce trained fighter pilots, and therefore early in the war a decision was made to lean on the resources of the Commonwealth – a decision for which Australian High Commissioner Stanley Bruce is often given the credit. This was something that was very easy for Canada and New Zealand to do as they were arguably far away from any potential conflict, but for Australia – which viewed Japan as a threat long before she officially joined the Axis powers, this was more controversial. Menzies suggested that the scheme would ‘afford a remarkable example of the unity and strength of Great Britain and the Dominions’, while simultaneously he insisted that the bulk of the training should be done in Australia to maximise local benefits. Labor initially expressed some hesitation, but then came out in full support of the scheme in the lead up to the 1940 election.

Under the scheme Australia would establish twelve Elementary Flying Training Schools, eight Service Flying Training Schools, two Air Navigation Schools, three Air Observer Schools and a Central Flying School which trained the instructors, with every State hosting at least one such base. Trainees were taught such techniques as instrument flying, night flying, advanced aerobatics, formation flying, dive bombing, and aerial gunnery, with the very last stages of training to be conducted in Canada and later Southern Rhodesia. 27,899 Australian aircrew graduated from the scheme, whereas before the war RAAF training had only produced about 50 pilots per year.

The scheme promised that once they were trained, pilots would serve in their own distinct RAAF squadrons, rather than being absorbed into the regular British Royal Air Force. 17 such squadrons were formed and took their places as part of fighter command, bomber command and even coastal command, though many Australians did end up serving in the regular RAF. Such absorption did not necessarily exclude them from contributing to the defence of Australia, as many Australian pilots would serve as part of the British forces in the South West Pacific in places like Burma.

The effects of the EAT scheme have been criticised by people like J.M. McCarthy, who argues that with its grand scale it wasted precious resources that could have been better used in focusing solely on building up Australia’s own air defence. Menzies had two answers for such critics. One was that the statistics for things like aircraft production do not paint the full picture of what the Menzies Government achieved in getting Australia defensively prepared during the early stages of the Second World War, as numerous factories which were planned and built under Menzies had an inherent and unavoidable time-lag which meant that they only reached full production under his successor John Curtin, who therefore tends to receive undue credit for their output. His second answer was that the war was a world war, and it was only by engaging and defeating the full resources of the Axis, rather than retreating into their individual shells, that the Allied nations could hope to achieve victory. As Menzies pointed out in one of his ‘Forgotten People’ Broadcasts:

‘If Australia had refused to send her forces outside of her own territories; if, in other words, Australia had assumed the role of a benevolent neutral, keeping her forces here but exporting her goods at a profit, would the cry of this country for help in the early months of 1942 have been listened to with such sympathy and with such generous response? In a total war you cannot be just a beneficiary; you must be a contributor.’

Any educated observer would have to admit that despite tremendously brave and important victories won by Australian troops in places like Milne Bay and Kokoda in 1942, it was ultimately American victories at Coral Sea and Midway which secured Australia’s safety from any potential Japanese invasion – so keeping up our position as a reliable ally was vital. Meanwhile, had Britain not been reinforced when she stood virtually alone against Nazi Germany in 1940, not only would this have been a moral abrogation of Australia’s duty, but Britain might well have fallen to Hitler and in such a situation the Axis would have been able to easily pick off the smaller Allied nations like Australia. As Menzies repeatedly stressed throughout the war and afterwards, nations are not ‘watertight compartments’, they are intimately interconnected and what their individual governments can and can’t do is inherently shaped and constrained by international events.

Further Reading:

‘Empire Air Training Scheme’, Australian War Memorial,  Empire Air Training Scheme | Australian War Memorial (awm.gov.au)

Steve Larkins, ‘Empire Air Training Scheme’, Virtual War Memorial

John McCarthy, A last call of empire: Australian aircrew, Britain and the Empire Air Training Scheme, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1988.