Area commands were the major operational and administrative formations of theRoyal Australian Air Force (RAAF) between 1940 and 1954. Established in response to the outbreak of World War II, they underpinned the Air Force's geographically based command-and-control system for the duration of the conflict and into the early years of theCold War, until being superseded by a functional control system made up ofHome,Training, andMaintenance Commands.
The area commands and their responsibilities evolved over time according to changing circumstances. The RAAF established four commands to begin with in 1940–41:Southern Area,Central Area,Western Area, andNorthern Area. They oversaw most of the operations, training and maintenance within their boundaries. A concession to functional control occurred in mid-1941, when the Air Force formed twogroups that assumed the training role of the southern and eastern states; Central Area was disbanded and most of its units taken over by Northern and Southern Areas, and the newly formedNo. 2 (Training) Group. The area structure was further revised in 1942, following the outbreak of thePacific War; Northern Area was split intoNorth-Eastern Area andNorth-Western Area, and a new command,Eastern Area, was created, making a total of five commands. The same year, the RAAF formed two functional groups that assumed the maintenance role of the area commands; the latter focussed on operations until the end of hostilities. A new area command covering RAAF units in New Guinea,Northern Command, was formed in 1944 and dissolved soon after the war.
By the early 1950s, most operational units were based within Eastern Area Command, most Air Force training was controlled by Southern Area Command, and maintenance was the responsibility ofMaintenance Group. The area command structure was no longer considered appropriate for delivering the concentration of force necessary for combat, and the Federal government decided to replace it with a functional command-and-control system. In 1953, Eastern Area Command was re-formed as Home Command (controlling operations), Southern Area Command was re-formed as Training Command, and Maintenance Group was re-designated Maintenance Command. The three remaining area commands ceded their authority to the functional commands in 1954, and were disbanded by the end of 1956.
On the eve of World War II, theRoyal Australian Air Force (RAAF) comprised twelve flyingsquadrons, two aircraft depots and a flying school, situated at five air bases:Point Cook andLaverton inVictoria;Richmond andRathmines inNew South Wales; andPearce inWestern Australia.[1][2] An air force of this size did not require large-scale operational formations such aswings,groups, orcommands, as all units could be directly administered and controlled by RAAF Headquarters inMelbourne. With theonset of war in September 1939, theAustralian Air Board decided to implement a decentralised form of command and control, commensurate with an envisioned increase in manpower and units.[1][3] The RAAF's initial move in this direction was to create Nos. 1 and 2 Groups in November 1939, the former based in Melbourne to control units in Victoria, and the latter inSydney to control units in New South Wales.[2]
In January 1940, theChief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-MarshalJimmy Goble, proposed organising the RAAF along functional lines with Home Defence, Training, and Maintenance Commands, but the Federal government did not take up this plan.[4][5] Goble was replaced in February by aRoyal Air Force (RAF) officer, Air Chief MarshalSir Charles Burnett, who focussed on rapid expansion of the RAAF to meet the needs of theEmpire Air Training Scheme and believed that Australia's huge land mass would make a functional command system unwieldy. He proceeded to reorganise the Air Force into a geographically based "area" system.[6] The roles of each area command were the same:air defence, protection of adjacentsea lanes, andaerial reconnaissance. Each area was led by anAir Officer Commanding (AOC) who was responsible for the administration and operations of all bases and units within his boundary.[3][7] Exceptions to this policy included aircraft depots and theCentral Flying School that trained flying instructors, as their range of responsibilities crossed area boundaries and therefore came under the direct control of RAAF Headquarters.[8] The static area system was primarily defensive in nature, but considered well-suited to training new pilots, who could be instructed at flying schools and mentored through their initial squadron postings, all within the same geographical region.[7][9]
The RAAF planned four area commands initially:Southern Area, covering all units in Victoria,Tasmania,South Australia and the southernRiverina district of New South Wales;Central Area, covering units in New South Wales except southern Riverina and the north of the state;Western Area, covering units in Western Australia; andNorthern Area, covering units in northern New South Wales,Queensland,Northern Territory andPapua. The first two commands established, in March 1940, were Southern Area, which essentially took over the role and headquarters of No. 1 Group in Melbourne, and Central Area, which evolved from No. 2 Group in Sydney. Western and Northern Areas eventually followed in January and May 1941, respectively; pending their formation, units in Queensland were temporarily controlled by Central Area Command, and those in Western Australia, Northern Territory and Papua came under the direct control of RAAF Headquarters.[7][10]
By mid-1941, RAAF Headquarters had determined to form training units in the southern and eastern states into semi-geographical, semi-functional groups separate to the area commands. This led to the establishment in August ofNo. 1 (Training) Group in Melbourne, covering Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, andNo. 2 (Training) Group in Sydney, covering New South Wales and Queensland.[11][12] Central Area was then disbanded and its responsibilities "divided as convenient", according to theofficial history of the war, between Southern Area, Northern Area, and No. 2 (Training) Group.[11] Western Area retained responsibility for training, as well as operations and maintenance, within its boundaries.[12]
With the outbreak of thePacific War in December 1941, Northern Area was split the following month intoNorth-Western andNorth-Eastern Areas, to counter distinct Japanese threats to Northern Australia and New Guinea, respectively.[1][13] Southern Area was also considered appropriate for subdivision owing to its size, soEastern Area was established in May 1942 to take over control of operational units in New South Wales and southern Queensland. These arrangements stabilised the number of area commands at five.[14][15] Of necessity, the two northerly commands were primarily responsible for bombing and air defence, while the other commands focussed on maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare.[16] Further convergence of command-and-control responsibilities along semi-geographical, semi-functional lines took place between June and September 1942, when authority over maintenance units was transferred from the area commands to the newly formedNo. 4 (Maintenance) Group in Melbourne andNo. 5 (Maintenance) Group in Sydney.[14] Some fine-tuning of the area boundaries occurred in August: as well as the Northern Territory, North-Western Area was given responsibility for the portion of Western Australia north of a line drawn south-east fromYampi Sound to the Northern Territory border, and part of Queensland adjacent to theBarkly Tableland.[17]
Until 1942, RAAF Headquarters exercised complete operational and administrative control over the area commands. In April that year, Allied Air Forces (AAF) Headquarters was established under GeneralDouglas MacArthur'sSouth West Pacific Area (SWPA), with operational authority over all RAAF combat infrastructure, including the area commands.[18][19] In September the new AAF commander, Major GeneralGeorge Kenney, formed the majority of his US flying units intoFifth Air Force, and most of their Australian counterparts intoRAAF Command, led by Air Vice-MarshalBill Bostock.[20][21] Bostock exercised control of Australian air operations through the area commands, although RAAF Headquarters continued to hold overarching administrative authority, meaning that Bostock and his area commanders were ultimately dependent for supplies and equipment on the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-MarshalGeorge Jones, who had taken over from Burnett in May 1942.[16][22]
To help overcome the static nature of the area command system, in September 1942 the RAAF created a large mobile formation known asNo. 9 (Operational) Group, a self-contained tactical air force that could keep pace with Allied advances north through New Guinea and towards Japan. By April 1944, No. 9 Group had become a garrison force in New Guinea and lost its mobile function to No. 10 (Operational) Group (later theAustralian First Tactical Air Force). No. 9 Group was therefore re-formed as a dedicated area command covering air units in New Guinea; Bostock had recommended calling it Northern Area, before RAAF Headquarters settled onNorthern Command.[23][24] In August that year, RAAF Headquarters proposed disbanding the training and maintenance groups formed in 1941–42 and return their functions to the control of the area commands, but no action was taken.[25] The same month, the Air Board recommended carving a new Central Area Command out of Eastern Area, which it considered too large to be controlled by one headquarters. This proposed Central Area would have been responsible for units in southern Queensland but theWar Cabinet deferred its decision, as it had when a similar concept was raised in October 1943.[26]
Near the end of the war,No. 11 Group was formed onMorotai in theDutch East Indies, using elements of Northern Command and the First Tactical Air Force; this freed the latter from garrison duties following theliberation of Borneo.[27] In recommending the Morotai garrison's establishment, Bostock explained that while it shared the static characteristic of an area command, it differed in that the area commands were part of the permanent structure of the Air Force and situated within the borders of Australia's mainland and overseas territories, whereas the new formation was a temporary wartime measure, headquartered on foreign territory.[28]
Following the end of the Pacific War in August 1945, SWPA was dissolved and the Air Board again assumed full control of all its operational formations.[29] Nos. 1 and 2 (Training) Groups, and No. 5 (Maintenance) Group, were disbanded between January and March 1946.[30] Northern Command, having been re-designated Northern Area in December 1945, was disbanded in February 1947. The other area commands continued to function with essentially the same boundaries as during the war, except that North-Western Area no longer covered the Dutch East Indies.[1][30]
In the aftermath of the war, a geographically based command-and-control system was considered outmoded, and calls came to replace it with a system based on function.[31] Bostock, who found the area boundaries "arbitrary", proposed a functional structure consisting of operational, maintenance, and training commands.[32] With hindsight, the area commands were judged adequate for the organisation of the Air Force in the early years of World War II, but not for the rapid response times and concentration of force necessary to properly prepare for attacks on Australia following the start of the Pacific War, nor for conducting offensive operations from 1943 onwards.[33] Air Marshal Jones, who had retained his position as Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) following the war, resisted pressure to replace the area structure. He was persuaded by his staff to set up a conference to discuss the possibility of change, but participation by the CAS, who had been satisfied with the wartime system, and the area commanders themselves, whose positions were on the line, was half-hearted at best.[31] Jones did suggest reducing the number of area commands to three (Northern Area to cover Queensland and the Northern Territory, Eastern Area to cover New South Wales, and Southern Area to encompass Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania) as part of a much larger proposal to restructure the post-war RAAF, but this never eventuated.[34]
The Federal government retired Jones in February 1952 and replaced him with an RAF officer, Air MarshalDonald Hardman, who was well versed in the functional command system employed in Britain.[35][36] Hardman believed that restructuring the Air Force would remove inefficiencies and duplication, and permit commanders greater autonomy, allowing more effective concentration of strength in a potential combat situation.[37] He declared that the RAAF was "the one force that could quickly strike for Australia's and the Commonwealth's defence in South East Asia".[36] To this end he proposed reorganising command and control of the Air Force according to three major functions: operations, covering home defence and mobile task forces; training, including all permanent, reserve andnational service recruitment and instruction; and maintenance, responsible for supply, equipment and other logistical services. The three functions were duly constituted in October 1953 asHome,Training, andMaintenance Commands, respectively.[36][37]
Home Command was formed from the existing Eastern Area Command, which was considered ade facto operational organisation owing to the preponderance of such forces within its boundaries. Training Command was formed from Southern Area Command, as it was already the hub of training services, controlling those in New South Wales and Queensland as well as Victoria and South Australia.[38] Maintenance Command was formed from the extant Maintenance Group—as No. 4 (Maintenance) Group had been known since July 1947—headquartered in Melbourne.[37][39] The transition to a functional system was completed in February 1954, when the three new commands assumed control of all operations, training and maintenance from Western, North-Western, and North-Eastern Area Commands.[37] The headquarters of these three area commands remained in existence but only, according to the MelbourneArgus, as "remote control points" for Home Command.[40] North-Western Area Command was disbanded in June 1955, Western Area Command in November 1956, and North-Eastern Area Command in December 1956.[30]
The functional commands established in 1953–54 were revised in 1959. Home Command was renamed Operational Command, and Training and Maintenance Commands merged to becomeSupport Command.[41] Operational Command was renamedAir Command in 1987, and three years later Support Command split intoLogistics Command and Training Command.[42] In 1997, logistics management became the responsibility of Support Command (Air Force), the RAAF component of the Defence-wide Support Command Australia (later subsumed by theDefence Materiel Organisation).[43][44][45] Training Command was re-formed asAir Force Training Group, aforce element group under Air Command, in 2006.[46] Air Command became the sole command-level organisation in the RAAF.[47]
The RAAF raised eight area commands over the course of World War II, and five of them continued to operate into the 1950s:
| Command | Formation | Supersession/disbandment | Re-formed as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Area Command | 1940 | 1953 | Training Command |
| Central Area Command | 1940 | 1941 | |
| Western Area Command | 1941 | 1954/1956 | |
| Northern Area Command | 1941 | 1942 | North-Eastern Area Command North-Western Area Command |
| North-Eastern Area Command | 1942 | 1954/1956 | |
| North-Western Area Command | 1942 | 1954/1955 | |
| Eastern Area Command | 1942 | 1953 | Home Command |
| Northern Command | 1944 | 1947 | Northern Area (in 1945) |
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)