This volume has been about Trenchard’s air force and his insistence upon the primacy of the bomber in offensive defence. It is as well, therefore, to reflect upon the outcome of the Second World War, the first major conflict in which his air force went to war. The complete destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by one atomic bomb dropped on each city by just one aeroplane must surely prove beyond all doubt that the offensive use of the bomber aircraft can bring a country to its knees and force its government to sue for peace, or, in this case, unconditional surrender. But then, these weapons were used, not to wage war, but to end a war in which all three services had taken part. Strategic bombing had been only part of the overall employment of military forces, including the use of submarines, which it may be claimed could have bought Britain to its knees. Secondly, only one power had the atomic weapon at the time, but now several countries have them. To attempt to end a war with nuclear weapons alone may not defeat an enemy nation nor finish a war, but results in the mutually assured destruction of both aggressor and the country or alliance of countries seeking to counter the aggression. After the start of the Cold War, NATO had very soon to adopt a policy of flexible response in the hope of avoiding nuclear confrontation, in which there would be no winners. Finally, and this is probably the salt that is rubbed in Trenchard’s wounds, it is the Royal Navy and not the RAF that is today tasked with delivering the strategic nuclear weapon, using the Trident missile.
It is clear that the extravagant claims made for the offensive use of bombers in a war were made by a man who had to exaggerate his case or risk seeing his force dismembered and shared out to the Army and the Royal Navy. For this he can be forgiven, not only because he was the proud father of the new service, but because he was right to have insisted upon a professional airmen’s service. One can only speculate what would have happened if Lord Gort had taken the BEF to France in 1939 with its own air corps. This would doubtless have been fed with flying squadrons in a vain attempt to win the ground war. Where else would the War Office have used its aeroplanes, and would not the defence of the home base have been a primary consideration only after Dunkirk? By this time there might not have been anything left with which to fight an air war. As it was, Air Marshal Dowding refused to fulfil Churchill’s promise to the French Premier to send more fighter squadrons to France. Lastly one may speculate as to what sort of an air force it would have been in 1939, schooled in the arts of supporting a ground war and not in air combat.
It may be concluded that Trenchard was wrong in insisting upon the air doctrine adopted by the RAF in the 1920s, but that with hindsight he was absolutely right in his insistence that military pilots should be more than the Army’s taxi drivers.