"Unconscious of any distinction"? Social and vocational quality in the Australian Flying Corps, 1914-1918 [1].

In the first volume of The story of ANZAC, official war historian Charles Bean claimed:

 
   [T]here were in the Australian force no special corps in which 
   University or "public school" men enlisted apart from others.... 
   for the most part the wealthy, the educated, the rough and the 
   case hardened, poor Australians, rich Australians, went into the 
   ranks together, unconscious of any distinction. [2] 

This view has been a significant feature of the ANZAC myth, namely in popular assumptions that the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during the First World War was characterised by egalitarianism and democracy. A study of the Australian Flying Corps (AFC), however, reveals a very different picture. Its officers and men typically possessed a level of professional training and education that was disproportionate to both the AIF as a whole and Australia's working male population. [3] The aviators of the AFC were heavily urbanised, of a select age group, overtly Anglicised, and had private, tertiary education. These factors suggest, contrary to Australian mythology, the AFC was a socially elite force whose men certainly did not rub shoulders with "case hardened, poor Australians".

This article continues a scholarly tradition of examining the social structures of Australia's military forces. The beginnings of this approach extend back to Ernest Scott's statistical data on the enlistment patterns and occupational composition of the AIF [4]. Lloyd Robson, writing in 1973, examined the attestation papers of around 2,850 servicemen from across the AIF. Robson noted particular trends in the constitution of the force, upon which future researchers based their findings: [5] Susan Wellborn focused on three Western Australian units, in The lords of death; Dale Blair used statistical data from the 1st Battalion to contest dominant digger myths, in Dinkum diggers; and John McQuilton re-interpreted Robson, in Enlistment for the First World War in rural Australia: the case of north-eastern Victoria, 1914-1918. [6] These later works provide the contrasting picture of the AIF through close, "regional" scrutiny. This article adopts a similar approach, using the AFC to suggest "specialist units" of the AIF socially and culturally challenged the concept of the democratic ANZAC, particularly regarding class and regional structure. I also use Robson's broad study of the AIF and the 1911 census as principal points of comparison.

As well as contesting assumptions about the AIF's social composition, this study raises the question of why the flying corps was socially elite. Was it, as historians Michael Paris and George Mosse suggest, due to pervasive beliefs about the moral and social requirements of aviators? [7] Such notions originated in "ideas which surfaced in British popular culture well before the first aeroplane ever flew", largely through the popular science fiction of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and others. [8] Or was it simply logical to recruit men from a particular niche in society to work with aircraft? After all, it makes sense that technically skilled men should work in highly technological aerial warfare. This article examines the recruitment of AFC aviators and ground crew based on cultural preconceptions and vocational practicalities.

Sources and Methodology

A flying corps squadron possessed a unique operational makeup. A minimal proportion of members were engaged in combat (all officers), while the majority (enlisted and non-commissioned ranks) undertook highly specialised support roles. [9] Lieutenant Stanley Nunan's training notes disclose the ideal reconnaissance squadron: 18 pilots, 12 aerial observers, and 218 support staff. [10] Aviators, including both pilots and aerial observers, will henceforth be referred to as "flying ranks". All non-commissioned ground staff, such as mechanics, riggers, and armourers will be called "other ranks".