- ID
- cx158
- Title
- "On Equipment"
- Genre
- Essay
- Page Count
- 2
- Word Count
- 1100
- Publisher
- Royal Air Force Journal
- News Chronicle
- Publication Year
- 1942
- Document Types
- Full-text Online
- Eads, Additions to
- Flying Officer X Byline
- Topics
- Pilots, War
Asking "by what...is the R.A.F. kept in the air?" Bates puts aside pilots, navigators, radio operators, engineers, electricians, commanders, and intelligence and says that "all these departments would fail, or fail to function, if it were not for a department with the most humdrum name of all...Its official name is Equipment; its everyday name is Stores."
Bates pays tribute to the work of the department in supplying parts, food, petrol, and clothes, as well as in providing heat, light, furnishings, and housing for the entire air force.
First published in The News Chronicle without a byline but subsequently attributed to "Flying Officer X" in the Royal Air Force Journal; one of only three known non-fiction pieces with that byline, (the others being 'The First Squadron' and 'Flying Beyond the Reach of Fear').
In The News Chronicle with the title 'What Keeps the R.A.F. in the Air' (May 20, 1942 p. 2). Reprinted in the Royal Air Force Journal with the title 'On Equipment' (May 30, 1942, pp. 30-31, attached)
