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13to keep it in being, by providing the first year%u2019s training of the short service officers going to the UK. It also benefited when the successful candidates returned to Australia on completion of their UK service and entered the RAAF reserve, or were available for permanent commissions. The RAF clearly benefited from the provision of high quality short service officers, who would potentially be available to fight alongside it in time of war, and from inculcating its views in the imperial services. Apart from these symbiotic training links, the greatest support provided by the RAF in the inter8war period came from its position as an alternative locus of informed advice both for the RAAF itself, and perhaps more importantly for the Australian government. When in 1926 the naval board attempted to renege on a previously agreed policy regarding naval air agreements Williams again drew on imperial policy to bolster the RAAF%u2019s position. He also wrote to Trenchard enclosing his own paper to the Minister on the subject and asked the RAF to back the RAAF%u2019s case in the forthcoming imperial conference.18 In 1932 when a new incoming Australian government raised the spectre of abolition once more, Williams again used back channels to enlist the RAF in defending the RAAF. When the Minister for External Affairs visited London the UK Secretary of State stressed its detrimental effect on imperial defence. The proposal was duly rejected by the government and the RAAF lived on. The Avro 504K was the RAAF%u2019s trainer until it was replaced by the Gipsy Moth in the late 1920s. (RAAF Official)