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History teaches perserverence, continued excellence

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Robert Grazulis
  • 325th Air Control Squadron
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Seventy years ago this fall, one of the greatest air campaigns in history was coming to an end and the brave Airmen who participated in it had waged the first major campaign to be fought entirely by Air Forces. The complete collapse of the Allied armies in France and the evacuation of most of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk had shocked the world and led to an aura of Nazi invincibility.

Many leaders in Britain including Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary and presumptive leader of a new British coalition, were desperate to strike a compromise peace if the opportunity were offered. The Battle of France came to a final inglorious end on June 22, 1940 and the Battle of Britain began a few weeks later. Even our own ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy, thought the British were done. Initially, the Luftwaffe confined their attacks to convoys passing through the English Channel, but by mid August the battle had shifted to the island itself. For the next two months, the fate of mankind hung in the balance as an overmatched Royal Air Force stood alone against the might of the German Luftwaffe. Prime Minister Winston Churchill put it best, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

So how did the Germans lose the Battle of Britain? The answer lies within the art of Air Dominance, an art which consists of blending technology and ingenuity with experience, training, doctrine and national resolve. The Luftwaffe pilots were highly trained, experienced and confident coming off victories in Spain, Poland, Norway and France. Their fighters were modern and comparable to the British. Their numbers were certainly superior. The Germans even possessed some of the most advanced radars. What they failed to do, however, was use these radars as an early warning and fighter command and control device. The genius of Sir Robert Watson-Watt was in taking the inferior technology of the Chain Home radar and melding it with the RAF Bentley Priory operations and filter rooms. Thus was born the merger of tactical and operational level command and control, or C2, with fighter employment.

Twenty years ago this merger reached maturity in the skies over Iraq where E-3 AWACS air battle managers assisted in 38 of the 40 air-to-air kills recorded during OPERATION DESERT STORM. Furthermore, operating under the umbrella of Air Dominance, Air Battle Managers on board the E-8 JSTARS identified and targeted Iraqi armored convoys approaching Khafji and then again, a few weeks later, they identified and targeted the Iraqi columns retreating from Kuwait City. Through conflicts over the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan; operations around the globe and even over our own skies, the C2 warriors who have been training at Tyndall Air Force Base since 1948, stand guard.

In full partnership with the fighter pilots of the 325th Operations Group, the men and women of the 325th Air Control Squadron train together every day to ensure Air Dominance for our nation at home and abroad. As the single source of air battle manager training for the United States Air Force, the 325th ACS has a fundamental responsibility to train warriors who will maintain the world's finest command and control network. In turn, these professionals will continue our nation's monopoly on Air Dominance.

However, this training only goes so far. Without a continued investment in the technology, infrastructure and national resolve required to maintain Air Dominance we shall certainly lose it. In the aftermath of World War I and in possession of the most powerful Air Force in the world, Great Britain embarked on the "Ten Year Rule" in August 1919. This rule led to enormous cuts in the defense budget and gave a resurgent Germany an opportunity to quickly close the gap in the 1930s.

By November 1936, Winston Churchill spoke of the last four or five years growing "gravely darker....we have steadily disarmed, partly with a sincere desire to give a lead to other countries, and partly through the severe financial pressure of the time". He went on to describe the Chamberlain government "....they go on in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years -precious, perhaps vital to the greatness of Britain- for the locusts to eat."

...and here we sit today as an Air Force unopposed to the point where our adversaries fear to take to the skies. Where they bury their aircraft like ostriches in the sand, but for how long? After all, it has already been nearly eight years. We will do our part in Undergraduate Air Battle Manager Training and not let these become the years of the locusts.