Sir Frank Clarke World Air Control Board - Presentation Copy to Lord Portal

CLARKE, Sir Frank. World Air Control Board: A Plan.

Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens, 1944.

First edition, first impression, presentation copy from Sir Frank Clarke, from the collection of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Portal.

Octavo. Original printed grey paper-covered boards with pale blue ruled border, tan cloth spine, 97 pp. With the author’s compliments slip loosely inserted, inscribed in Clarke’s hand: “With my compliments. Should not such a plan be given a hearing? Frank Clarke.” Cover subtitle: “If nations may build commercial planes they can convert to warplanes.”

A remarkable wartime hardback proposal for the international control of aviation, preserved in the collection of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford, Chief of the Air Staff during the Second World War. Clarke’s book is not simply about air traffic or civil aviation. It is an urgent political and military plan for preventing the next great war by controlling the means by which it might be fought. Written in 1944, before the atomic bomb had entered public consciousness, it belongs to the anxious moment when air power itself seemed the decisive threat to future civilisation. Its central fear is printed plainly on the cover: if nations are allowed to build commercial aircraft without international supervision, those same aircraft, factories, aerodromes and fuel systems may become the framework of a new bomber force.

The contents show the breadth of Clarke’s scheme. He imagines an Air Control Board created after the peace treaty, with authority over aircraft factories, aerodromes, civil aviation, fuel, inspection, sanctions, policing, recruiting and training. Chapter headings include “Looking back from 1955,” “Difficulties at the Peace Conference and their solutions,” “First beginnings of A.C.B.,” “A.C.B. first challenged,” “Petrol and lubricating oil,” and “Retrospect - Versailles, 1919; the air clauses; the nine reflection of armed forces, Washington, 1922.” The work stands squarely in the tradition of inter-war disarmament, but sharpened by the experience of total air war.

The Portal provenance gives this copy exceptional force. Lord Portal was the supreme professional head of the RAF during the war, and few British readers could have been more directly connected to the questions Clarke raises: strategic bombing, civil aircraft conversion, inspection of airfields, the control of aircraft production, fuel supply, and the policing of peace from the air. Clarke’s inserted note - “Should not such a plan be given a hearing?” - reads almost as an appeal to exactly the kind of figure who could understand both the promise and the danger of air power.

Condition: very good for a fragile wartime Australian hardback. Printed boards lightly toned and handled, cloth spine browned, minor rubbing and small marks, but the printed cover remains strong, the binding sound, and the contents clean and well preserved. A rare and unusually apposite Portal provenance copy.