Air Power in South Africa, 1914–1939

Abstract

This article discusses three aspects of air power in South Africa during the period between the two world wars, each one intermeshing with debates about what kind of political and social space the Union could claim for itself beyond its borders on the continent. First, during the First World War and in its immediate aftermath the advance of air power raised the question of how the tense relations between Afrikaners and English speakers would be influenced by this new technology. Second, aviation offered new methods of control of the African majority and other recalcitrant groups. Third, the progress in aviation technology, compounded by the international tensions in the 1930s and European armed intervention in East Africa, alerted white South Africans to the perils of their diminished geographical isolation at the southern tip of the continent.

Left Button Picture, Right Button Bomb: Nature, Warfare and Technology in a Southern African Border Region

“…14 Drone technology therefore has to be understood as part of a productive and historically embedded power regime of aerial reconnaissance with links between the South African National Defence Force (SADF) and nature conservation. Like the Mirage IIIR2Z, drones sit at the intersection of violence, institutions, mapping practices, knowledge regimes and historicizing their development in Southern Africa reveals a legacy of technological imperialism and colonial airpower embedded within an apparatus of surveillance, reconnaissance, documentation and nature conservation (Dedering 2015). Something is gained in this analysis by "shifting down" to explore the many technical delegates that made possible a shared infrastructure that is firmed up out of historical links between industry and territorial interests.…”

All just grandiose plans and talk: The destruction of Oswald Pirow’s reputation as Minister of Defence, 1940

“…27 After the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, Pirow set out to create a modern air force to counter any possible Italian aggression. 28 After World War I, the main aim of the South African Air Force (SAAF) was internal security and white hegemony, for example, the bombing and machine gunning of rebellious African groups, such as the Bondelswart Nama in South West Africa (Namibia), and the crushing of the revolt by white miners in Johannesburg. For this, the obsolete aeroplanes of the SAAF were adequate, but not for dealing with a modern air force such as that of the Italians.…”