Chapter 10

Air Doctrine,The Air Ministry and Command of the Air

Development of air doctrine, 1919 to 1929 – The organization of the Air Ministry – Air Ministry developments and business –
Air commanders and the quality of command

 

This chapter explores both the development of air doctrine and the quality of command during the 1920s. This necessarily involves a close look at the senior commanders of the RAF, both in the Air Ministry and in operational commands. The problem for Trenchard and his subordinates in developing air doctrine from 1919 onwards was that in creating an independent service they were breaking free from their own past experience and stepping into the unknown.

In developing strategic air doctrine alone, the Air Staff had precious little to go on. Trenchard himself had commanded the Independent Bomber Force for only a few months in 1918, to be converted from a tactical air commander to an exponent of strategic bombing. Even General Smuts, in making the case in his 1917 Report, which resulted in the formation of the RAF the following April, looked at the capacity of the Germans to bomb London and not the RAF’s bombing of industrial and military targets in Germany. What followed in the early 1920s was a doctrine based more on speculation than experience. For all Trenchard insisted on a policy of offensive defence, not one squadron of four-engined HP V/1500 bombers survived the First World War. And when the time came to introduce the first postwar bomber into RAF service, it was the single-engined Aldershot. The four-engined successors to the HP V/1500 were the Sterling and Lancaster of the Second World War, and so an air force committed to carrying a future war to an enemy’s homeland to destroy his industrial and military targets was obliged to conduct air exercises in the late 1920s with single-engined biplane bombers carrying a crew of two and bombs slung beneath the wings.

Operational experience during the inter-war years was of little help in developing doctrine for an air force which could find itself pitted against the forces of a developed nation using the latest designs of military aircraft. Instead, the commanders of the RAF in the Second World War were reared on punitive operations against primitive tribesmen in Iraq and India, the Sudan and Palestine. Since there was no threat from enemy fighters, the RAF’s fighter squadrons remained at home. Since no strategic bombing operations were carried out nothing was learned here. All the RAF needed was a general-purpose aircraft, and the left-overs of the First World War, the DH9A and 10 and the Bristol Fighter, were adequate for the task of air control.

By 1919 the RAF was just one year old, it was fighting for survival and it had only four years’ experience of military aviation to draw upon in the field of tactical battlefield support and cooperation, air defence of the home base and maritime reconnaissance and strike, but less than one year of strategic bombing operations. The earlier chapters of this book have forgiven Trenchard for overstating the case for the strategic employment of airpower. In Appendix Q appears correspondence between the Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence and the CAS, in which Hankey attempts gently to tone down some of the more extravagant claims that Trenchard was making for the efficacy of the strategic bombing offensive. But then, he was bound to make a case for a force that alone could conduct military air operations if the RAF was to survive as an independent service. Be that as it may, it was hardly fertile soil in which to plant the seeds of a reasoned and carefully thought-out air doctrine.

 

The Beginnings of Air Doctrine

Even before the commencement of hostilities in 1914, Frederick Sykes, the future Chief of the Air Staff, came to the conclusion that the classical principles of war did not apply to airpower. Could, he asked, aircraft win command of the air by a defeat of the enemy forces in being? Aircraft would never be able to obtain and maintain control of the air space as naval forces could obtain command of the sea, or land forces capture and hold ground. Since the air was a three-dimensional battle arena, finding aircraft, let alone bringing them to battle, meant that the ‘big battle’ could not be fought unless both sides sought to meet. In the days before radar it would be extremely difficult to be sure of intercepting an aircraft before it reached its target. This did not mean that pilots should not engage in combat if they met enemy aircraft, but when the First World War started aircraft were not equipped with guns save the side-arms of pilots or observers, and the military men saw them as auxiliaries helping Army commanders in the field or fleet commanders in the Navy, but there were some who saw a wider role for aircraft, given their speed and range. It was argued that aircraft should not be risked in a fight if they could proceed to some other, perhaps more important, objective. In 1916 Zeppelin airships, then Gotha bombers in 1917, could carry the war to the enemy, so aircraft would be needed for defence, which in turn would mean deciding on the proportion of aircraft and airships that should be committed to defence and offence.

The builder of the first British petrol car, F.W. Lanchester, joined the ranks of those with a view on the role of the military aircraft. He believed that while some components of the air force should fight the tactical war in direct support of the land forces, other aircraft should be free of the indecisive fighting on the Western Front and have the sole task of destroying all the enemy’s aircraft and so be invulnerable to challenge. While accepting that some aircraft might be detached to attack targets remote from the battlefield, the maintenance of an air umbrella over the battlefield was the primary task, and in that sense aircraft might be the Army’s fourth arm, co-equal with the artillery, cavalry and infantry. Domination of the sky could only be local and temporary. Only the troops on the ground could hold ground or ships hold a sea area. Supporters of the tactical employment of airpower said that aircraft could not achieve command of the air nor hold ground, therefore the application of airpower could never be decisive in war. The defeat of the enemy’s armed forces remained the leading principle of war, to which airpower could only contribute. Ground battles and campaigns could be decisive, but Sykes disagreed. Because aircraft could detach themselves from the deadlock of the Western Front and fight independently they could prove decisive. When Germans used Zeppelins, and then Gothas, on bombing raids against Britain, Field Marshal Haig was bound to detach aircraft from the Allied war effort on the Western Front to defend London.

Where did this leave Sykes and Trenchard, the two leading players? Sykes believed that an independent bombing force should not suffer the fate of the land armies that had been locked in an indecisive struggle across ‘no man’s land’, where thousands of lives had been sacrificed for little gain in territory. A large air space could be exploited to avoid an attritional campaign, and strategic air units would avoid enemy contact to attack economic and industrial targets remote from the battlefield, and in so doing, break down the enemy’s morale. Sykes’s aim was to follow a policy of strategic interception, that is to say maintaining a tactical presence while reserving units to prosecute the war independently of the land war. But the commander of the Independent Bombing Force, Hugh Trenchard, had found that it was essential to come to grips with the enemy air force. Of the 543 tons of bombs dropped by his force, 220 tons had been aimed at enemy aerodromes. Air fighting was essential if local air superiority was to be obtained, and then it would only be temporary unless contact with the enemy was maintained. Trenchard, having had the day-to-day responsibility to prosecute the air war in Western Europe, saw his force as contributing to the success of Haig’s armies. Sykes, on the other hand, could perhaps afford to take a more detached view. He did not believe that, should the Allied armies be successful in ending the stalemate of the trenches to break out into open country, the whole of the British air effort should immediately be thrown into the land battle.

At what point did the pursuit of a policy of strategic interception become the pursuit of strategic independence that would produce an independent air force with its own strategy? The dilemma would not go away by simply creating the RAF. The CAS and his staff at the Air Ministry would still have to decide what proportion of the air effort should be devoted to tactical air operations and what proportion to strategic bombing operations. There again it is ironic that the Smuts Report of 1917, which brought the RAF into being the following April, was directed at the disjointed attempts by the two services to defend London against bombing attacks by German Gotha aircraft, and it was again the air defence of the United Kingdom in 1940 that was the first major air battle of the Second World War. The Smuts Report was saying that the air war can be most successfully prosecuted, and waste through duplication of effort avoided, by a unified air service. However, when Trenchard assumed command of the RAF in 1919 he was to become the outspoken advocate of offensive defence, of carrying the war to the enemy, and for that there must be an independent air force. It was now left to him and his subordinates at the Air Ministry to formulate post-war air doctrine. The following paragraph itemises the factors that had to be taken into consideration, and these may be found useful in exploring the development of air doctrine.

 

Factors Affecting the Formulation of Air Doctrine during the early 1920s

The anticipated enemy or benchmark State Previous chapters have shown that France was the anticipated enemy. Or was the French Air Force simply being used as a benchmark, i.e. was France simply the country with the largest air force within striking distance of the shores of Great Britain? If so, the strength of the French Air Force and the qualities of its military aircraft had to be the benchmark.

 

The ‘Ten-Year Rule’ and disarmament For military planning purposes the government promptly declared the ‘Ten-Year Rule’, in that no major war affecting Great Britain could conceivably be fought for at least ten years. That figure was to be reviewed each year and carried forward or altered if circumstances changed. This was to be coupled with the creation of the League of Nations, when members of the League would pursue a policy of peace and disarmament.

 

Experience of the strategic employment of airpower during the First World War The German Air Force had used Zeppelins and Gotha bombers against the United Kingdom, and the RAF’s Independent Bombing Force had made forays against enemy targets behind the lines and against communications and economic and industrial targets The largest bombers used by the RAF were the twin-engined HP 0/100 and 0/400 aircraft. No experience was gained using the HP V/1500 against targets in Germany from bases in the United Kingdom. In other words there was not a wealth of experience in this field.

 

The indivisibility of the air This meant that airpower was exercised in one element, i.e. the air, whether the forces were being employed in strategic or tactical attack, air defence, reconnaissance or on maritime operations. The exercise of airpower was therefore a matter for an air force.

 

The concept of offensive defence While thought must be given to the proper air defence of the home base, the best way of ensuring the safety of the British Isles was to carry the war directly to the enemy and so incapacitate him, break his morale and get him to sue for peace.

 

RAF support to the Army and the Navy The appropriate air units should be made available to give direct support to the land forces and to naval forces afloat. Land-based maritime forces would also assist the Navy within shore range. Agreement was to be reached between the RAF and the Army and Navy as to what were the appropriate force levels and the type of aircraft to be used and the manning of such aircraft. This matter was to give rise to considerable dispute between the RAF and its sister services.

 

The aims of strategic bombing This was another area where there was a great deal of argument, particularly between the three service heads, always involving the government of the day. Would it be the aim for the RAF to win the war without the help of the other two services, and if not what degree of collaboration, joint planning and joint decision-making was thought to be necessary? Was the aim to break enemy morale to win and if a knockout blow was not to be inflicted on the enemy was the nation prepared and equipped to fight a long war of attrition? In any case what constituted winning a war?

 

Acceptable attrition rates If the RAF was to be forced into a future war of attrition it would need to calculate what aircraft losses it could sustain and what would be the capacity of the aircraft industry to replace those losses. The only way of answering that question was through air exercises, imprecise as the answers might be. Coupled with this would be the capacity of the RAF to replace losses in personnel, which is why a well-trained Reserve was so important. These points will be considered further in exploring the development of RAF air doctrine, but the reader may already be finding that the debate can get bogged down in jargon, something the author has been anxious to avoid, and so to make it easier to follow the ongoing debate a few terms are defined as follows:

 

Counter-Force Operations These refer to air operations against an enemy’s aircraft in the air and his airfields, aircraft-carriers or warships.

 

Strategic Air Operations These are air operations completely divorced from the battlefield area, being aimed at the enemy’s communications and economic and industrial targets.

 

Tactical Air Operations These are air operations confined to the immediate battlefield and rear areas, i.e. enemy supply and reserves behind the front line.

 

Strategic Interception These are air operations that comprise both counter-force and purely strategic air operations.

 

Air Superiority This occurs when an air force has a clear superiority in air fighting capability that enables that air force to undertake operational sorties with little prospect of enemy interference. Air superiority in this sense is probably local and may be temporary.

 

Air Supremacy This occurs when all enemy air opposition has been eliminated, so that there is no prospect of enemy air interference. As a matter of interest, this is exactly what the RAF and US air and naval air forces were seeking to achieve in the elimination of all Taliban air forces in Afghanistan.

 

Command of the Air This is General Douhet’s air theory about winning the air war, but there is some doubt as to whether this simply means achieving air supremacy or includes the complete destruction of an enemy’s capacity to produce any more aircraft or air weapons.

 

Air Doctrine in the Immediate Post-war Years

In his book British Air Strategy between the Wars, Malcolm Smith joins most other commentators on Trenchard’s ability to define in writing what he meant. He had been described as a being like a ‘Pole star’ in his knowledge, but was so inarticulate as to need younger, able staff officers to assist him to put his thoughts into words, people, that is, like Arthur Harris and John Slessor. The thoughts of the great man in 1919 seemed to have hardened and, some may think, narrowed, to an adoption of a doctrine based upon offensive defence. The question is – did Trenchard insist upon the strategic offensive as the most important role for the RAF simply because it was the one role that could only be carried out by an independent air force?

Having spoken of the indivisibility of the air, Trenchard was not prepared to divorce the tactical use from the strategic use of airpower. Slessor spoke in much more flexible terms. The whole point about the employment of airpower was its flexibility and mobility. Aircraft should be used wherever and whenever circumstances dictated they could be used to the greatest effect in furtherance of war aims. If he did try to separate the tactical from the strategic, Trenchard risked the Army and the Navy reclaiming their own air components. The problem with the ‘indivisibility’ approach, however, was that it left a great deal of leeway to planners and commanders in the field to interpret the situation in whatever way they pleased.

 

The morale effect of strategic bombing Returning to the strategic use of airpower, we find Trenchard saying that it was far better to bomb the enemy in his homeland than to intercept his bombers coming in. On the other hand he seems, at times, to put the morale effects of bombing before the material effects, and he was much criticized for overstating the case for the former (see Appendix Q). Malcolm Smith argues that Trenchard was fond of using the unfounded statistic by placing the morale effect against the material effect of bombing at a ratio of 10:1. Were civilians so prone to panic as the Jews of the East End were reputed to be during the 1917 Gotha attacks on London, or would the French ‘crack’ before we British did? Some military writers went so far as to suggest that paramilitary discipline should be instilled into the civilian population to ensure that there was not a breakdown of the national will to resist. Experience in war is a far better guide than speculation. When Gotha bombs rained down on Folkestone in 1917, there was public alarm and questions were asked in the House of Commons, but it was not the end of civilization as we know it. The East Enders in London during the 1940 German air blitz endured the bombing with remarkable fortitude and sometimes humour, many taking to the London Underground stations during air raids, but in the heady days of 1919/20 who could tell? It was always a useful, if spurious, claim to make in justifying an air force. But one could go too far and be accused of terror bombing, an idea which Trenchard was anxious to dispel. But if the RAF was to bomb an enemy to the point where he would sue for peace it must be assumed that either he could not any longer sustain the material damage to his country, which seemed to have caused Slobodan Molosevic to call a halt to British and American bombing during the recent Kosovo conflict, or the civilian population was frightened to death. And so we see Trenchard trying to escape the accusation of advocating brutality by likening bombing to naval gunfire at a shoreline, when there might well be civilian casualties.

Douhet’s air theory The Italian General Giulio Douhet was a major air theorist of the period. His notable contribution to the development of airpower theory was his ideas about the ‘command of the air’. Douhet believed that an independent air force had two separate functions: firstly, to win command of the air, and then, having won it, to exploit it. And such an air force must be trained and equipped to achieve it. What is not clear is whether command of the air was to be achieved by air fighting or by destroying the aircraft production and allied factories. Douhet was adapting the classical Clausewitzian theory, that the object in war is to defeat the armed forces of the enemy, to the war aims of an air force. The air commanders on the Western front had aimed at air superiority, whereas Douhet’s air force would aim to secure ‘the ability to fly against the enemy while the latter had been deprived of the ability to do so’. Douhet rejected what Trenchard had felt to be necessary in the First World War, that a counter-force policy was essential. Douhet could therefore take issue with Trenchard in not making his counter-force operations decisive, i.e. to obtain command of the air; but Sykes could criticize him for devoting too much effort to those operations, preferring that he should devote more effort to strategic interception.

 

Air Staff Theory, 1923 In the early 1920s the Air Staff still held to a counter-force policy. Air ascendancy was imperative and meant attacking the enemy air forces both in the air and on the ground. Winning command of the air was explicitly rejected. Instead there would be a struggle for air supremacy, but there was concern that the strength of the strike force could be frittered away fighting an indecisive campaign. The enemy could replace aircraft lost during such a campaign and air space cannot be physically occupied, so it was necessary for aircraft to keep returning to attack enemy reinforcements. To prevent the enemy from reinforcing its own air units it would be necessary to attack vital centres, and this was no less risky than attacking the enemy air force. The unstated implication of the Air Staff policy in 1923 was that a counter-force policy alone would be a wasteful diversion from the main offensive. The evidence from the First World War was that a considerable amount of effort was directed against German air assets with inconclusive results. The RAF wanted to avoid an attritional war like that in the trenches, and this meant avoiding contact with the enemy. There would need to be close defence of the most vital targets, and the bombers would need some defence, but the priority for the British air effort should be to paralyse the enemy’s centres of production and lines of communication. Whereas both Trenchard and Douhet had held that command of the air was separate from the main offensive against strategic targets, the view of the Air Staff in 1923 was that the gaining of air superiority was indistinguishable from the main offensive, i.e. only by attacking the enemy’s productive capacity could the continued reinforcement of the enemy’s air forces be prevented.

What this debate amounted to was that the air theorists of the day were trying to fit the new form of warfare into pre-existing classic theories that had already been adapted to encompass a navy’s part in winning a war, and then an air force. Only an army could actually occupy an enemy’s territory, but a navy and an air force could assist in achieving final victory. On the other hand, it could be argued that a navy alone could achieve final victory through blockading an enemy’s ports, and an air force, single handed, by bombing an enemy into submission. At this juncture the ability of the RAF to achieve its war aims may be considered with the forces at its disposal.

 

RAF Inventory of Aircraft, 1924

The air doctrine prevailing in 1923 has been explained. The inventory of RAF fighter and bomber aircraft in the following year will show how well equipped the RAF was to carry out the roles and tasks decreed by the doctrine.

 

THE FIGHTERS

Snipe
Max. speed: 121 mph at 10,000 ft
Service ceiling: 19,500 ft

 

Snipe Mk IAs had been used as
bomber escorts with the IBF in
France and had been used as
ground attack aircraft.

Snipe (eight squadrons).

Siskin

Max. speed: 134 mph at 6,500 ft 128 mph at 15,000 ft

Service ceiling: 20,500 ft

 

In 1924 the Siskin was just coming into service to replace the Nighthawks and Snipes.

Siskin (one squadron).

Nighthawk (one squadron)
Max. speed: 140 mph at 6,500 ft
138 mph at 10,000 ft
Service ceiling: 24,500 ft

 

Problem with the engine and
vibration problems
causing mechanical failure.

Nighthawk (one squadron).

The above ten squadrons comprised the RAF’s fighter strength in mid-1924. The Snipe was of First World War vintage, and it and the Nighthawk were about to be replaced by the Siskin and Grebe. All these squadrons were based in the United Kingdom, since there was no prospect of air opposition during operations in the Middle East and India. If the fighters were employed purely in the defence of the United Kingdom the bases such as Northolt, Duxford, Hawkinge and Henlow would be adequate to cover the Home Counties and East Midlands, for they had a service ceiling that exceeded the bombers of the day and possessed the necessary endurance to permit them to intercept incoming aircraft, though not to provide close fighter support to the bomber streams leaving UK bases to bomb continental targets. The standard armament of all 1920s aircraft was the Vickers 0.303 in. forward-firing machine-gun. All of these fighters were faster than the British bombers of the day, and successful interception of potential enemy bombers could be expected. The ten squadrons of the front-line force would total some 120 aircraft.

In the foregoing discussion of doctrine, counter-force operations were considered. If enemy fighters were to be suppressed by bomber operations, that might be achieved by bombers operating from UK bases attempting to destroy enemy fighter aircraft on the ground. But airborne enemy fighters, fighting to defend continental targets, would need to be brought down by RAF fighters, which would have a very limited arc of operations from bases in South-East England or East Anglia. Counter-force operations involving the suppression of continental fighter forces would therefore mean RAF fighters operating from forward bases. If strategic RAF bombing aimed to avoid contact with the enemy, they would be unlikely to do so by having a service ceiling less than enemy fighters or the speed to outrun them, aircraft like the Fairey Fox being the exception. RAF bombers that were avoiding contact with the enemy would, none the less, expect to be intercepted as they approached their targets. In this case, without close fighter support, the RAF bombers would have to rely on trainable guns for the bombing aircraft, which would have to fly straight and level over the target area. In other words the bombers could not use fixed forward-firing guns unless, by sheer chance, an enemy fighter came into a bomber’s sights. The RAF fighters and bombers of operational squadrons in 1924 are shown, together with their ‘potential’ French enemies.

 

THE LIGHT BOMBERS

Fawn (three squadrons)
Range: 650 miles
Max. speed: 114 mph at sea level
Bomb load: 460 lb
Service ceiling: 13,850 ft

Fawn (three squadrons).

Conceived as an Army Cooperation aircraft, it replaced the DH9A in squadron service.

DH9A (two squadrons)
Range: 322 miles
Max. speed: 123 mph
Bomb load: 660 lb
Service ceiling: 16,750 ft

DH9A (two squadrons).

The DH9A was of First World War vintage and was being replaced by the Fawn, which had a smaller bomb load and lower service ceiling.

 

The home-based light-bomber force of mid-1924 comprised five squadrons. On the assumption that there would be twelve aircraft per squadron, one Fawn light-bomber squadron could deliver a maximum of 5,520 lb of bombs on a target, provided there was no fighter opposition, excellent weather, 100 per cent serviceability and detonation of all bombs. A DH9A squadron could deliver 7,920 lb of bombs at a greater speed than a Fawn squadron, with a greater service ceiling. The probability, given the inclement weather over northern Europe, the chances of being intercepted and the serviceability record of the DH9A, was that the tonnage of bombs dropped would be significantly less.

From the home stations of Spittlegate, Netheravon and Andover the Fawn’s maximum range would take them to Berlin in the east and Milan to the south, but this would be the extreme of range and would not be accomplished under severe weather conditions or the necessity to take evasive action. The two DH9A squadrons at Spittlegate and Eastchuch could just reach Paris and the low countries. To penetrate deep into Europe both squadrons would require forward bases on the continent. The speed and service ceilings of both aircraft meant that they would be unlikely to outrun enemy fighters, and could not outclimb them. If intercepted the Fawn had two trainable guns, the DH9A just one. Would these five squadrons be used against strategic or tactical targets? If the British Army was not engaged on the continent, then all sixty aircraft of the light-bomber force would have to operate from UK bases, and could be used on counter-force operations or attacks on lines of communications. Over industrial targets they would almost certainly meet defensive fighters and anti-aircraft fire.

The Fawns that replaced the DH9As on light-bomber squadrons were themselves replaced by Horsleys and Foxes after only two years’ service, and the latter would enhance the force considerably. The DH9As were more at home in India and the Middle East, where they were employed as general-purpose aircraft.

THE HEAVY-BOMBER FORCE

Range: 300 miles
Max. speed: 110 mph at sea level
Bomb load: 2,200 lb
Service ceiling: 14,500 ft

Aldershot (one squadron).

Range: 900 miles
Max. speed: 100 mph at 6,500 ft
Bomb load: 2,476 lb
Service ceiling: 14,000 ft but
with a full bomb load only
7,000 ft

Vimy (two squadrons).

Range: 985 miles
Max. speed: 98 mph at sea level
Bomb load: 3,000 lb
Service ceiling: 9,400 ft

Virginia (one squadron).

French Fighters
Max. speed: 146 mph
Service ceiling: 27,885 ft

Nieuport-Delage NI-D29.

Max. speed: 143 mph
Service ceiling: 29,530 ft
This particular aircraft is one of
a batch exported to Turkey.

Bleriot SPAD S.51-4.

French Bomber
Range: 248 miles
Max. speed: 99 mph
Bomb load: Not given
Service ceiling:13,125 ft
This civilian passenger aircraft
was produced in a bomber
version, F.60, delivered in 1922.

Farman Goliath.

According to the Air Staff doctrine of 1923, the RAF should avoid an attritional counter-force war and attempt to paralyse the enemy’s centres of production and lines of communication as a matter of priority. Only by destroying the enemy’s war-production capability could aircraft reinforcement be prevented. To achieve this in 1924 the RAF had four squadrons of heavy bombers. The planned Home Defence Force was going to comprise fifty-two squadrons, of which thirty-five would be bomber squadrons. Clearly this force of four squadrons was inadequate for the task outlined in the Air Staff Memorandum of 19 July 1923 sent by Trenchard to the Air Officers Commanding Central and Inland Areas, namely to paralyse an enemy’s production centres and lines of communication and to break an enemy’s morale. Any discussion about the RAF’s planned ability to accomplish these aims must proceed on the basis of thirty-five, and not four, squadrons. Clearly the inability to meet the war aims of the RAF in 1924 does not invalidate the doctrine, but if, given the appropriate numerical strength plus adequate reserves of the latest design, the war aims still cannot be realized, then it does call into question the doctrine itself if, in all circumstances, it would be unachievable.

The Aldershot entered service in 1924, only served on one squadron and was withdrawn after only eighteen months. It was single-engined, and if force-landed would almost certainly have had to be dismantled to effect recovery. The Virginia and Vimy were two-engined bombers. The Aldershot had two trainable guns and a range of approximately 300 miles, and the other two each had three trainable guns and a range of close on 1,000 miles. Assuming a total of twelve aircraft per squadron, the combined bomb load of an Aldershot bomber squadron would be approximately 26,400 lb, a Vimy squadron 29,000 lb and a Virginia squadron 36,000 lb. These figures are absolute maxima, and ignore adverse weather conditions, fighter and anti-aircraft defence over the target, aircraft unserviceability and aircraft not reaching the target. All three aircraft had top speeds between 92 and 110 mph. The service ceilings of the Aldershot and Vimy bombers were below 15,000 ft, and that of the Virginia, even in the most advanced Mark, was below 10,000 ft. So none of these three bombers could outrun or outclimb any French fighters of the day:indeed, the latter had a service ceiling and speed superior to the British fighters of the day.

 

The development of bombs and bomb aiming And so there are a number of factors that affect a bomber squadron’s ability to accomplish its tactical or strategic objective. The above figures tell us nothing about the destructive force of a given bomb load, the quality of navigation, the tactics to be employed over the target, the effects of flying in formation, the hitting power and positioning of defensive armament and the armouring of aircraft, not to mention the target area defences, such as barrage balloons and anti-aircraft guns, as well as the fighter threat. Did the Air Staff in the early 1920s address these problems or did they proceed from the premise that the bomber will always get through? Little, if anything, appears to have been done in the inter-war years either to test the destructive power of bombs or to develop them in any way. The bomb loads of various aircraft are given, both in this chapter and in Appendix A, but it tells the reader nothing about the charge to weight ratio of bombs held in RAF bomb dumps in the early 1920s, which were mostly left-overs from the First World War. This situation prevailed right up to the outbreak of the Second World War, when, as John Terraine points out, British bombs were, generally speaking, awful. Often they failed to explode, and when they did they produced negligible results. This view is confirmed by H.R. Allen, who put the figure at 20 per cent of those bombs dropped. With a charge to bomb weight ratio of 1:4, actual bomb loads begin to look less impressive, but Trenchard had stressed the morale effect of bombing, and it seems therefore not to have mattered how destructive British bombs were as long as they made a loud noise and frightened the civilians. With regard to bomb-release and bomb-aiming equipment, it is clear that again little, if anything, was done to learn from the lessons of the First World War. In the 1920s there was no dedicated member of the crew who would release the bombs, as was the case during the Second World War; indeed, one of the reasons why the Air Specifications called for bombers with minimal manning was that it reduced the problems of communication between crew members in flight. Bombs could either be dropped from high level, low level or using dive-bombing techniques. Bombing at low altitude meant that the bombers ran the gauntlet of fighters, barrage balloons and light anti-aircraft fire. Bombing from high altitude might have reduced these risks, but great accuracy could, because of wind and weather, be extremely difficult to achieve. Lack of advanced navigational equipment meant that the bombers would be likely to fly only in good weather where the target could be seen from the air and where navigation could be by reference to landmarks. There was no bombing development unit during the inter-war years, so that by the time Edgar Ludlow Hewitt took over Bomber Command in the period 1937 – 40, his Readiness Reports disclosed the Command’s inability to reach even the general vicinity of a target, let alone hit it with any degree of accuracy. One explanation for this sorry state of affairs was that the adequacy of bombs and bomb-aiming equipment was sufficient for air-control operations, but not a European war.

 

Aircraft design Chapter 5 deals, in considerable detail, with the wood versus metal debate that continued unabated during the 1920s. With the very limited funds available for aircraft research and development and the availability of a huge war surplus of wooden-built aircraft of First World War design, the situation facing the Air Staff militated against ordering or buying aircraft of a more advanced design. It has been told how the Air Staff kept the aircraft manufacturing firms alive with orders for prototypes, so it would be a brave firm that would ignore the Air Ministry Specifications for the different aircraft types. De Havilland and Short Brothers were less prone to design and build aircraft that slavishly followed RAF requirements, since they produced aircraft ordered by the airlines, who wanted speed with economy. The Silver Streak all-metal aircraft from Short is an example. On the other hand de Havilland produced aircraft of wooden construction that were in advance of aircraft being ordered by the Air Ministry. All-metal construction meant added expense and delay, but in 1925 the Air Staff was working on three all-metal bombers, four fighters and one Army Cooperation aircraft, though in the event the future of all-metal aircraft was sacrificed in the name of expediency. The definition of all-metal underwent a subtle change, to mean a metal airframe covered by fabric. Moreover, the bombers and fighters remained biplanes with open cockpits. Metal armour might be fitted to protect crew positions, but every pound of metal added meant a sacrifice of speed or bomb load unless there was a compensating increase in engine power.

 

Defensive armament In the context of offensive bomber operations, the bomber that was going to get through in spite of all things would be the one that had the speed and manoeuvrability to avoid interception and destruction. If the capabilities of French fighters of 1924 are a guide, evading interception would be problematical, which made the alternative, to sacrifice speed and bomb load by fitting more defensive armament, a better proposition. To meet the fighter threat, what was needed was not simply fixed forward-firing machine-guns and one or two trainable Lewis guns, but guns in some or all of the other positions, which included the ventral, dorsal, nose, tail and beam gun positions. The HP V/1500 went a long way towards providing the RAF with a well-defended, long-range heavy bomber, but it was not retained in the peacetime RAF. The Air Staff’s answer was the Aldershot, the first peacetime long-range bomber built to Air Ministry Specification 2/20 . This had one fixed forward-firing machine-gun and one Lewis gun in the mid-upper position, with the possibility of fitting another gun in the ventral position. A bomber is not like a fighter where the aircraft is manoeuvred into a position where the fixed forward-firing gun can be fired at an enemy aircraft, as the bomber must be kept straight and level over the target for the bombs to be aimed. And so the Aldershot crew would be hard put to fight off a fighter attack from a beam position or a head-on attack from above or below, and for the Aldershot to shake off fighters it had a maximum speed of only 110 mph at sea level and a cruising speed of 92 mph, with a service ceiling of 14,500 ft. In defence of the Air Staff’s position, these were the days before radar. When RFC and RNAS fighters sought to defend London against Gotha attacks in 1917, there was no early warning from radar stations, and the chances of intercepting the German bombers were not good. Only if continuous air patrols were maintained could the chances of interception be improved, and that would require a large number of fighter squadrons, possibly round the clock, to give adequate protection to the capital. Flights of fighter squadrons were dispersed to a number of airfields around London, but the density of cover required could only be achieved by withdrawing units from the Western Front.

The hitting power of the gun itself was also a matter that could have received Air Staff attention, but the 0.303 in. Vickers and 0.303 in. Lewis gun remained the standard armament of RAF aircraft throughout the 1920s. The 0.50 in. machine-gun had the hitting power but suffered from developmental problems. It could not sustain the rate of fire consistent with Air Staff requirements and was markedly heavier than the Vickers and Lewis guns, which meant that the maintenance of status quo was favoured. In particular the 0.50 in. machine-gun could not achieve the lethal density required, though this might have been achieved with a lower volume of fire. Experiments with cannon went little beyond the conceptual stage, and the COW gun also did not meet with Air Staff favour (see Chapter 5).

 

Bomber tactics on the approach to and over the target To ensure that the bomber would stand the best chance of reaching and successfully bombing the target, three possibilities could be considered and tested:

1. For the bomber to have the speed and manoeuvrability to evade detection and interception.
2. For the bomber formation to be provided with a long-range fighter escort.
3. For bombers to fly in formation so that the guns of each aircraft would provide an interlocking network of fire.

The Air Staff could adopt the attitude that the bomber would always get through and simply rely on speed and manoeuvrability to evade detection and interception, but even without radar that was decidedly risky, and Trenchard had ruled out long-range fighters with their high development costs. The vulnerability of bombing aircraft to fire from fighter aircraft was discussed in the preceding paragraph, and so a possible answer lay in formation flying, but how big a formation and what about the problems associated with control of the bomber formation and the direction of the fire of air gunners? A smaller formation would be better if effective control by the formation leader was to be maintained at night and in bad weather with poor visibility or where manoeuvrability was important in the face of fighter opposition. A larger formation could put up a greater volume of defensive fire but would lose the advantages of the smaller formation. What methods were to be employed to ensure that the formation leader could alert aircraft captains of the approach of enemy aircraft and vice versa, and how would the latter direct the fire of individual gunners onto attacking enemy fighters both by day and by night? These questions were not being asked or put to the test in the 1920s, and it was not until 1938 that Bomber Command’s Senior Air Staff Officer, Air Vice-Marshal D.S. Evill, put such questions to the Air Fighting Development Establishment. It is therefore of interest to reflect that the US Army Air Force was developing its ‘Flying Fortress’ in the late 1930s, and the defence of the bomber formation was meant to lie in the volume of interlocking fire of aircraft in close formation. But in the event unsustainable losses to the German Fw190s could only be prevented by the provision of close fighter escort from the Lightnings, Thunderbolts and Mustangs.

 

1927 Air Exercises

Since no attempt had been made to provide detailed answers to the above questions, the Air Staff in 1924 could not know whether the prevailing doctrine was valid. It was not until 1927 and 1928 that national air exercises were carried out, and these were then followed in 1929 by a restatement of the doctrine. The air exercises were described in Chapter 3, and in those of 1927 a formula was used that gave fighters only a 1 in 2 chance of making a successful interception, while the bombers were arbitrarily given twice the hitting power of a fighter. The accuracy of the bombing was assessed by using a camera to record the aircraft position at the moment of bomb release, but since no live bombs were used the umpires could only guess at the amount of damage sustained in the target areas. The forces pitted against each other were those of Eastland, comprising eight day- and night-bomber squadrons of the Wessex Bombing Area and eleven squadrons of the Fighting Area defending London known as Westland. The aim of the exercise was to see if the fighters could defend all the targets being attacked, some of which were outside London. Four years had elapsed since the declaration of the Air Staff theory in 1923, and it may be seen how far aircraft design and development had come since then. These were the opposing forces:

Remarks

There is little to choose between the light bombers and the fighters in appearance. The bombers are all a little slower than the fighters with the exception of the Fairey Fox which was marginally faster than the Gamecock and over 10mph faster than the Siskin. There is no improvement in the defensive armament of the bombers since 1923 except for the Hyderabad which had nose, midship and ventral gun positions but then the top speed of the Hyderabad was less than the Aldershot and carried only half the bomb load. The light bombers bombed by day and the heavy bombers by night. Radial engines were favoured for the fighters since their external cylinder pots made for easier maintenance but their unstreamlined shape gave them only a slight advantage in speed over the light bombers.

The results of the 1928 air exercises were much the same as those of 1927. There was held to be an improvement of the fighter’s ability to intercept the bombers, but there had also been an improvement in the air pilotage of bomber crews. Clouds and strong winds were held to favour the bomber by day and the fighter by night, but since the heavy bombers were attacking by night it was these that the RAF was relying upon to break an enemy’s morale and will to fight on. If the Hyderabad is a guide, the improvement in defensive armour was at the expense of bomb load. This was also the last bomber to be made out of wood.

 

Conclusion

There was only a little improvement in speed and armament of heavy bombers over the decade from the HP V/1500 to the Hyderabad. There was no improvement in the firepower of aircraft guns, and little or no attempts had been made to improve the destructive power of the bombs. There was a presumption that the enemy would adopt the same strategy as Britain, known as ‘mirror imaging’, i.e. they too would concentrate resources on bombers and so reduce the fighter threat to RAF bombers. If the enemy did not the RAF’s faith in the ability of the bomber to get through was misplaced. But Trenchard was not to be moved on this central theme, and there follows a discussion of the air doctrine prevailing in 1929.

It is easy with hindsight to be critical of Trenchard and his staff in the 1920s. They did not know then that an even more destructive world war, ending with the nuclear bomb, was only a decade away. As far as they could see into the future the only operational work for the RAF was in controlling the activities of tribesmen overseas. The ‘Ten-Year Rule’, the Locarno Treaty, the Kellogg – Briand Pact, pacifist Labour governments and the pursuit of disarmament created an atmosphere of calm. The RAF’s arsenal may not have been much improved over the decade, but at least the service was ‘the best flying club’ in the world. So what was the hurry?

 

Air Doctrine in 1929

Following the presentation of the Air Estimates to the House of Commons in March 1929, the Air Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare, praised the achievements of the RAF at home and abroad since its formation eleven years earlier. Now that the RAF was firmly established, Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, Commandant of the Imperial Defence College, had recommended that it was time the ‘principles of war’ should appear in the Service Manual of all three services in identical terms. Trenchard suggested that this proposal had been prompted by the Army’s and Navy’s unwillingness to accept the Air Staff view that in future wars air attacks would most certainly be carried out against the vital centres of communication and the manufacture of munitions of every sort, no matter where these centres were situated. Whatever the other two services believed were the main objectives of the RAF in war, Trenchard was determined to lay down a ‘marker’, and he clearly felt that this was a good time to state RAF doctrine explicitly. The resulting paper was titled ‘The War Object of an Air Force’, and in its essentials it was to form the basis of Air Staff strategic thinking until the Second World War.

 

The Defeat of an enemy nation Trenchard believed that the object of all three services was to defeat the enemy nation, not just his armies in the field or its naval forces, nor the attainment of air superiority over an enemy’s air force. The enemy nation meant its homeland, with its communications, industries, ports and cities. Having said that this should be the object of all three services, he was well aware that the RAF was uniquely placed to carry the war to the enemy homeland over the heads of Royal Naval ships and the British Army. For an army to achieve this objective, he reasoned, it must first defeat the enemy’s army, and this was a barrier to overcome before the enemy nation could be defeated. But the RAF did not need to defeat an enemy’s armed forces in order to defeat an enemy nation. To do this it would penetrate the enemy’s air defences to attack the centres of production, transportation and communication. Destruction of these centres would mean that the armies in the field and naval forces at sea would eventually be deprived of supplies of munitions, spares, replacement aircraft, ships and tanks, etc., and thus be forced to retreat or surrender. He further believed that it would not be necessary for there to be a series of air battles where one side gained air superiority before proceeding to attack the enemy homeland. While conceding that there would be air battles of some intensity and that enemy air bases would have to be attacked, such attacks would not be the main operation. Thus the gaining of air superiority would be incidental to the main direct offensive on the enemy’s homeland even if carried out simultaneously with it.

 

The air offensive and international law Trenchard also addressed the question of the legality of aerial bombing under international law. The problem was that if the bombing of military, industrial, transport and communications were legitimate acts of war such targets might be close to or within centres of civilian populations. Trenchard answered this by likening aerial bombardment of coastal towns by naval guns when civilians might be caught up in it. The main thing was to do everything possible to limit the destruction of civilian life and property. What he did regard as illegitimate was the indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population for the sole purpose of terrorizing the people. This may have been the doctrine that the Air Staff took into the Second World War, but things turned out very differently in the heat of battle. Of course we have the benefit of hindsight. Whether we are talking about the destruction of Coventry and the London blitz in 1940 or the sustained US/RAF bomber offensive involving the destruction of cities like Cologne, Hamburg or Dresden, such attacks hit civilian populations. Whether or not the purpose or the effect was to terrorize civilian populations is, of course, debatable. In the inter-war years there was a basic Air Staff assumption that sustained bombing would result in an enemy suing for peace. Again, whether or not that could be achieved by simply waging war against military and industrial targets is also debatable.

 

Finishing a war Trenchard was careful not to assert that the RAF could finish a war alone. Airpower could be used in conjunction with naval forces to blockade, and with armies in the field to defeat enemy armies This would be materially to assist in keeping up the pressure on the enemy, but he returned to his main theme, the attacks on the enemy homeland, which would bring about the destruction of the enemy’s means of resistance and the lowering of his determination to fight. He stressed the inevitability of aerial bombardment in a future war, something that, incidentally, the other service staffs did not deny. Where they differed from the Air Staff was in the claims made for the power of the Air. He then asserted that, in a vital struggle, all available weapons had been used in war and would continue to be used. He felt that there was not the slightest doubt that in the next war both sides would send their aircraft without scruples to bomb those objectives that they considered the most suitable. That was to suggest that an enemy might attack Britain by setting out to terrorize the British people. If an enemy fought ‘with its gloves off’, would Britain fight with them on or might this country be forced to do likewise? Was there a distinction between defeating an enemy nation and finishing a war? Was it not only an army that could occupy an enemy territory and disarm its forces, and was it not only the use of naval vessels that could ensure that all enemy vessels had been rounded up or sunk? Until that happened would the war be finished? These are questions that were not answered in the Memorandum.

 

Reactions to the Memorandum

It was inevitable that the Naval and Army Staffs would find the tone of Trenchard’s paper condescending. The RAF would be the service to deliver the lethal blow, but the other two services could play their part in keeping up the pressure on the enemy. Predictably , Sir George Milne, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, opposed Trenchard’s Memorandum when it was circulated to the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He objected on three grounds. Firstly, he felt that the RAF was proposing that it could fight a war independently of the Royal Navy and the Army. Secondly, he felt that the paper amounted to a declaration of ‘unrestricted warfare’ against the civil population of an enemy nation. And thirdly, the General Staff believed that the most probable conflict involving the British Empire would be against Russia in Central Asia. Milne conceded that Trenchard’s air offensive might work against France, the least likely of enemies, but he could not see the RAF paralysing production centres in such a vast continent as Asia. And in a war against Japan carrier-borne air forces would be needed to attempt to achieve the Chief of the Air Staff’s war object. Of course, heavy bombers could not take off from aircraft-carriers, and in 1929 it would have been difficult to imagine light bombers like the DH9A, the Fox and the Fawn, used in the 1927/28 air exercises, flying long distances over enemy territory with a pilot, a gunner and bombs slung beneath the wings. Another problem for Trenchard was the paucity of war experience upon which to base a doctrine. Nothing that happened in the First World War pointed to the certainty that Britain could paralyse an enemy through the use of airpower alone. The Independent Bombing Force came into existence only in the last year of the war. For the most part airpower had been used to support naval forces at sea and the armies in the field. The Zeppelin and the Gotha raids on Britain did involve civilian populations in war in a way never experienced before, but neither the life of London nor Britain’s production centres were paralysed. And when the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) did seek an armistice in late 1918, their economies were not in a state of near-collapse. Even supposing the war had continued into 1919 with aircraft like the HP V/1500 four-engined bombers attacking Berlin, evidence of sustained attacks on enemy targets showed that such attacks only hardened the will and strengthened the resolve to resist. Be that as it may, it was believable that sustained aerial bombardment would be a frightening prospect in the public’s imagination. Who could tell for sure? In the event, Sir Maurice Hankey, the Secretary to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, considered that Trenchard tended to exaggerate ‘both the actual power of the air and its morale effect’, and he advised the CAS to recast his memorandum to recognize that the aerial offensive, although important in winning a war, was by no means the sole means. Indeed, Hankey brought to bear all his experience of the First World War in government meetings, in conversations with other authorities on air matters and in his own observations on the front line. The full texts of his letters to Trenchard and Trenchard’s reply are to be found in Appendix Q. He went so far as to give his opinion that Trenchard’s claims for the power of the Air were an ‘abuse’ of language. Hankey’s criticisms were so hard hitting that he had to ask the Air Marshal not to be cross, and to accept that the war object of the RAF was to contribute, with the Army and Navy, towards the breaking down of the enemy’s means of resistance. And there for the time being the matter rested. The Chiefs of Staff failed to agree on a common definition of the war object of the three services for inclusion in a joint service manual.

 

Conclusion

The controversial nature of Trenchard’s paper meant that it was hardly likely to meet with the approval of the other two services. He was on the point of retirement as CAS and he was understandably proud of what had been achieved under his stewardship in just ten short years. Given the sustained attack on his service by Admiral Beatty and General Wilson in the immediate post-war years, Trenchard may be forgiven for coming up with a ‘big idea’ that portrayed the RAF as the prominent service, with the Royal Navy and Army playing a supporting role. Some might say that his paper was impudent, and it is not surprising that it did not gain acceptance. When the war did come in 1939, the RAF did put light-bomber forces into the field, but in support of the land war, and in that it failed. It is one of those rich ironies that the RAF’s first major battle since the statement of air doctrine in 1929 was a defensive fight for survival in the skies over Kent and the Home Counties in the late summer of 1940.

THE ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OF THE AIR MINISTRY

Organization of the Air Ministry from 1921 to 1929

The organization of the Air Ministry at the beginning and the end of the decade that is the subject of this volume may be found on the next two pages. This shows the considerable changes that had taken place in the Air Ministry’s internal departmental structure. One example is the appearance of an Accidents Branch following the spate of accidents in the 1920s that gave rise to questions in the House of Commons. It shows a considerable narrowing of the sub-departments that came directly under the Chief of the Air Staff. Equipment, personnel, training and medical services all moved out to other departments. Throughout the period civil aviation came directly under the Secretary of State for Air. Works and buildings remained directly under Trenchard, an indication of his determination to build up the RAF’s real estate in these formative years. The RAF Cadet College at Cranwell is a particular case in point.

 

The Air Ministry in 1919

During the last few months of the First World War the RAF was administering a force of some 188 squadrons, 30,000 officers and 300,000 men. The HQ was in the Hotel Cecil in the Strand, and branches spread into several buildings in Kingsway. The Kingsway branches mostly housed those staff officers dealing with the delivery of contracts and supplies of raw materials to the contractors who were building aircraft and aero-engines.

Organization of the Air Ministry, 1921

Their work also covered scientific research. Once hostilities ceased many of these offices on the west side of Kingsway and the Hotel Cecil were deserted, and the staff officers, known as the ‘Kingsway Captains’, got back into their plain clothes and returned to civilian life. It was at this point that the Air Staff sought a new home, and obtained premises on the east side of the south end of Kingsway. This became known as Air House, and was conveniently near to the War Office and the Admiralty.

Reference to the charts on pages 310 & 311 will show that the King headed the RAF, but since every RAF officer carried his commission this was unsurprising. Under him was the Air Council, headed by its political master, the Secretary of State for Air, and as a general rule, each member of the Air Council headed one of the departments into which the Air Ministry was divided. The Department of the Chief of the Air Staff was run by the RAF’s most senior officer, Hugh Trenchard, who had a seat on the Council.

 

The Air Ministry in the 1920s

 

The Secretariat Much of the Ministry was run by civil servants who represented the Treasury when it came to spending money. It was the Secretariat of the Air Ministry that approved the price at which supplies were bought and refused payment if the goods were not up to specification. The first civil servant to head this department was Mr W.A. Robinson, followed by Mr W.F. Nicholson, who was appointed in April 1920 and remained for the rest of the decade. In these early days there were one or two interesting departments. One was earmarked for legal work, another was engaged in writing the Air History of the War for the Committee of Imperial Defence. Yet another was Secretary to the Commission of Awards to Inventors. Then there were the statisticians and accountants with a Directorate of Accounts and of Contracts. There were constant disputes with suppliers of all sorts in respect of raw materials, component parts, accessories, complete aircraft and engines, etc.

 

The Directorate of Lands The Directorate of Lands, known affectionately as ‘Bricks and Buildings’, had the responsibility to buy or commandeer land for aerodromes and to demolish old buildings. In those early days, however, the directorate was more concerned with selling off unwanted land or auctioning buildings and contents. Reference to the organization diagram for 1930 shows that the directorate is absent. By that time the airfield situation at home had stabilized, and the unwanted airfields, seaplane bases and landing grounds had all been disposed of.

 

The Department of the Chief of the Air Staff This was the purely service department of the Air Ministry, which actually made war. The Chief of the Air Staff was in effect the Commander-in-Chief, and had overall operational control of the service, although the Cabinet and the Committee of Imperial Defence might have some input into operational decisions. The Directorate of Operations and Intelligence dealt with plans for all operations being undertaken and for intelligence. This would include collecting, collating, filing and tabulating all sorts of apparently innocent bits of information. Pictures out of foreign newspapers, photographs of foreign celebrities and articles from newspapers could give away valuable information. An article written in all innocence could contain, quite unknown to the writer, information that could be of use to an enemy or potential enemy. Under this department came the Liaison Officers who worked with the British Dominions, and the Air Attachés who were accredited to foreign governments and were attached to British Embassies and Legations. Then there was Training and Organization. At the beginning of the decade personnel matters came under this directorate, but there was later a department devoted to personnel matters. Another directorate which came under the CAS in the early days was that for equipment, which covered the design of aircraft and aero-engines and the materials from which they were constructed.

Organization of the Air Ministry, 1930

The reason for placing the Director of Medical Services under the CAS in the early 1920s was that, apart from the need to have doctors treating war casualties in the field, they were also responsible for seeing that officers and men were fit to go to war if need be. That sub-department, too, was moved, later, to the Personnel Department. Works and Buildings came firmly under Trenchard’s control, as has been explained, and the work involved the location of airfields and the design and construction of buildings in which men were housed. These all directly affected the readiness of the RAF to go to war.

 

The Controller-General of Civil Aviation One of the first things that the Air Ministry did after the First World War was to impose a system of supervision over all civil aircraft and their pilots. Before anyone was allowed to fly outside an airfield at which he was a pupil, he had to qualify for an Aviator’s Certificate. There were two classes of certificate for civil aviators – one the ‘A’ licence for a private pilot, and the other the ‘B’ licence for the commercial pilot. Those who had applied for both ‘A’ and ‘B’ licences had to submit to a medical examination by the same panel of doctors who examined RAF pilots. As it happened, the medical for the Class ‘A’ pilots was not as strict as that for RAF pilots, the doctors mainly wishing to ensure that the applicants would not faint in the air and had good eyesight. Before an aircraft was allowed to fly outside the airfield at which it was put together for flying, a Certificate of Airworthiness had to be obtained from the Department of Civil Aviation. The officials were members of the department of Supply and Research who examined the civil machines, and they had to consider whether the designs of aircraft were such that they could stand the stresses of flying. These calculations were based on the known strength of the materials used for both civil and military aircraft.

A Controller of Communications worked on developing systems of signalling, radio-telephony and wireless telegraphy. This benefited military as well as civil aviation, and the Controller was served by two senior assistants, six junior assistants and four officers attached from the RAF, together with two officers detached from the map section of the War Office.

A further sub-department was that dealing with aerodromes and licences. Anyone who owned land who wanted to turn it into a public aerodrome had to get the approval of the Air Ministry. The two main criteria of fitness were, firstly, that the surface of the airfield was such that it would not break any normal aircraft on landing, and secondly, that the approaches to the airfield in all directions, particularly that of the prevailing wind, were such that a pilot of average ability could get down safely.

Finally there was the Meteorological Office (Met. Office for short), headed by a Director and served by three assistant directors and ten superintendents. The Met. Office was formed out of the Royal Meteorological Society, which itself was a complicated organization. Although placed under the Air Ministry, the Met. Office dealt with a vast number of other industries and organizations. Its forecasts were used, among others, by the Army, Navy and agriculture. It used to be said that before issuing a forecast the Met. Office would ring up sundry farmers and fishermen for their opinion. This may be a ‘tall’ story, but it reminds us that forecasting was not the more exact science it is today. Weather maps that might have become commonplace were not published during the Second World War in case they might be of use to the enemy. The table below serves as an illustration of the scope of Met. Office responsibilities of the various assistant directors and superintendents:

Observatories

Contributive Stations (with rain gauges and wind-measuring equipment)

Forecasts

Information to and from ships

Met. Research at Benson

The British Rainfall Organization

Supply and Research

Supply meant seeing that active service members of the RAF got the aircraft, aero-engines, spark plugs, bombs and cartridges they required in the quantities they required. Research meant that that equipment was of the highest quality given the latest state of technology. The first director-general of Supply and Research was Air Vice-Marshal Sir Edward Ellington, who worked alongside Trenchard in the early formative years. Sub-departments dealt with aircraft, aero-engines, airship research, armament and instruments. The latter were in their infancy, for a pilot of the day would have just an altimeter to give him his height, an engine revolution counter, a compass and possibly an airspeed indicator.

The Air Force List for October 1921 showed that the Directorate of Research was manned almost entirely by serving officers with experience of the First World War who appreciated what needed to be done. On the other hand the Directorate of Aircraft Supplies was manned almost entirely by civilians. This may be explained by the need for heads of sub-departments to have experience in their dealings with people in the aircraft industry on the purely commercial and production side.

 

Aeronautical Inspection This directorate was founded by Captain J.D.B. Fulton RA, one of the first Army officers to fly before the First World War. He was succeeded by General Bagnall-Wilde, who steadily improved the department’s relationship with the aircraft industry, as did his successor, Colonel H.W.S. Outram. Not only aircraft and aero-engines had to be inspected, but so did every component part, including washers, nuts and bolts. Woods and metal being used for aircraft construction had also to be inspected. When the war ended many inspectors were demobilized, and the main problem was to retain sufficient numbers of inspectors of the right quality. As the reputation of the department increased, the aircraft industry could shelter behind the AID, knowing that if their products had got past the hands of the inspectors it must be of a good quality. Eventually the AID instituted a scheme of ‘approved firms’ that would take direct responsibility for the quality of their products, subject, of course, to periodic check inspections by the local AID inspectors.

 

Air Ministry Committees

The following committees give an indication of the wide scope of responsibilities of the Air Ministry:

 

The Aerodromes Committee considered the suitability of aerodromes for their jobs and for commandeering the land for new aerodromes.

 

The Advisory Committee on Civil Aviation had as its chairman Lord Weir, the former Air Minister. During the early 1920s civil aviation was going through a bad time. Mr George Holt-Thomas’s Aircraft Travel and Transport Ltd had collapsed, and other airlines were struggling, but although a number of airlines did go out of business the network of airlines was spreading all over the world at the outbreak of the Second World War.

 

The Awards to Inventors and Patentees Committee was kept busy recommending awards for things that were invented during the First World War and afterwards.

The Committee on the Future of Experimental Establishments was a purely domestic affair of the Air Ministry studying the problems of the Department of Research in conjunction with financial problems.

 

The Contract Coordinating Committee was a matter between the finance people at the Treasury, the Air Ministry and the aircraft industry. It brought in representatives of the Admiralty and the War Office to see that firms that were supplying all three fighting services were even-handed in their dealings with each.

 

The Committee on Cross-Channel Services (Subsidies) dealt with the problems facing four separate airlines trying to ‘scratch’ a living running services to the continent.

 

The Royal Air Force Committee responded to the hazards facing the operators of aircraft that owned highly inflammable aircraft and gasoline. The committee brought in people from the Ministry of Transport, electrical engineers, personnel from Works and Buildings, the Metropolitan Police and others.

 

The Medical Advisory Board coordinated the work of the RAF Medical Service with that of the other services and also civil practice.

 

The Meteorological Committee brought in people from the War Office and the Colonial Office, the Board of Trade and the Royal Society, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Scottish Office and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

 

The Permanent Buildings Committee was particularly concerned with giving RAF personnel decent accommodation after living in wooden huts that were built in a hurry during the First World War.

 

The Whitley Council was set up in all government departments and in all industries to try to bring about better industrial relations. Its work covered men in the services, including the lower grades of civil servants.

 

The Industrial Whitley Council dealt with manual labourers, and not office workers.

 

Other Committees The Air Ministry also had representatives on a lot of inter-departmental committees, such as the Imperial Education Committee; the NAAFI; the Air Survey Committee; the Standing Committee of Representatives of the Government of Ex-Service Organizations; the Ordnance Committee, which dealt with armament, much of which was common to all three services; the Radio Research Board; the Advisory Council to the Committee for Scientific and Industrial Research; the Shell-shock committee, which dealt with cases of fighting men suffering this in battle; the United Services Trust; and the Wireless Telegraphy Board.

THE AIR COMMANDERS

Appendix R lists the names of members of the Air Council and commanders of RAF formations during the 1920s.

 

The paragraphs that follow will firstly provide a thumbnail sketch of those officers who held the highest command positions in the postwar years, followed by a representative sample of some officers in lower positions. Many very senior officers who commanded RAF brigades, wings and areas in a service of 188 squadrons during the First World War could not survive the peace with only a skeleton organization at home and a few squadrons overseas. Those few senior officers who survived filled the few command and staff posts in the early 1920s. The opening paragraphs of Chapter 9 briefly considered the careers of four of the most senior RAF commanders, and this chapter looks closely at the contribution they and subordinate commanders made to RAF operations, organization and administration.

 

Hugh Trenchard

Hugh Trenchard was born in Taunton in 1873 and was commissioned into the Royal Scots Fusiliers at the age of 20. He served in India before being sent to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. By this time he was an acknowledged good horseman at both polo and racing. When he was shot through the lung he went to convalesce in Switzerland, where he won the freshman’s and beginner’s Cresta Run, and largely cured his paralysis in the process. On his return to South Africa his skill as a horseman was put to the test when Lord Kitchener sent him to organize three mounted infantry battalions, and also to organize an expedition to capture the Boer Government, though Trenchard was unsuccessful in this.

When he returned to England in 1912 Trenchard was a 39-year-old major, with only one good lung and therefore limited career prospects. The newly formed RFC did provide an opportunity to advance himself, and he learned to fly in just thirteen days, whereupon he was sent to the Central Flying School at Upavon. Though an indifferent flyer, he had military experience and was soon made deputy to the first Commandant, Captain Godfrey Paine. From there he went to command the Military Wing at Farnborough on the outbreak of war in 1914, and in November of that year he was posted to France to command No. 1 Wing RFC. It took just nine months for him to succeed General Henderson as GOC Royal Flying Corps, with responsibility for all British air operations on the Western Front. These were difficult times owing to the success of the German Fokker aircraft, and their effectiveness against British aircraft became known during this period as the ‘Fokker scourge’. In spite of this Trenchard refused to let his pilots wear parachutes. Some might regard this as a rather callous stance, while others would suggest that it showed his determination that his pilots should at all times be more concerned with pressing home their attacks.

The Air Ministry that would oversee the new RAF was set up in December 1917, and having led the RFC in France with distinction, he was the obvious choice to become Chief of the Air Staff, and he accepted this post on 18 January 1918, only to resign in March over differences of policy with the Air Minister, Lord Rothermere. He was succeeded by Major-General Sykes. Trenchard was then prevailed upon to accept a post in France in command of the Independent Bombing Force. This was his opportunity to demonstrate the strategic employment of airpower, and targets in Germany, west of the Rhine, were attacked, but the war ended before Berlin could be bombed. Since there was no need for a strategic air force of the size of the 8th Brigade, with its five squadrons of 83rd Wing, equipped with HP 0/400 bombers, and with HP V/1500s coming on line, Trenchard was again without a job. But there had been a change at the top, and the new Minister for War and the Air was Winston Churchill, who was persuaded by Lord Weir that Trenchard was the man who would best lead the RAF during a period of economic stringency. So it was that Sykes was moved to civil aviation. In the event Weir was proved right, and Trenchard remained as Chief of the Air Staff until his retirement in 1929.

 

Frederick Sykes

Frederick Sykes was born in 1877, and on the outbreak of the Boer War, enlisted as a trooper. He was later commissioned into Lord Roberts’s Bodyguard and was seriously wounded, but on his recovery he was granted a regular commission in the 15th Hussars. Apart from a brief spell in West Africa, he served mainly in India, where he attended the staff college at Quetta in 1908. His interest in aviation began as early as 1904, when he attended a course with the balloon section of the Royal Engineers. A soon as he could he undertook a flying course at Brooklands, where he went solo and gained his licence on a Bristol Boxkite in 1911. By that time he was a staff officer in the War Office and had become a firm believer in the importance of aerial reconnaissance in war. He was therefore the natural choice to join the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence to consider the way forward in military aviation. In 1912 that committee recommended the formation of the Royal Flying Corps, and he was selected to recruit, train and command the Military Wing at Farnborough. Sykes later wrote that this was the happiest and busiest period of his life. There was an added urgency to his work as war loomed larger. Treading entirely new ground, he had to acquire aircraft, construct a programme of flying training, find men to instruct trainee pilots and other men who had the technical skill to service and repair aircraft, test aircraft and carry our military manoeuvres with aircraft. This would be a daunting task for any man.

The flying units that went to war in 1914 were, therefore, largely his creation. However, Sykes did not have the seniority to command the RFC in France, and so General Sir David Henderson was placed in command, with Sykes as Chief of Staff. For the next nine months he either worked for Henderson or stood in for him. It was inevitable, given his position in the scheme of things, that he would get caught in the crossfire over the position of the RFC wings in relation to RFC HQ France. Trenchard, by then a commander of one of the RFC wings, felt that the wings should report directly to the corps or divisional commanders in whose sectors they operated. Others felt that all RFC wings should report direct to RFC HQ. These strains led to Sykes being transferred to Gallipoli in May 1915. There his services were required giving advice to the RNAS in its operations in support of Allied troops in the Dardanelles. The troops could not make any headway on the beaches held by Turkish forces, and required air support. He was therefore loaned to the Admiralty to command the air forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, and he directed these forces, in cooperation with the fleet, with success. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1916 to undertake several tasks: firstly, to organize the Machine-Gun Corps, then to work on manpower planning in the War Office, to be followed by service with the British section of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council in Versailles under General Wilson.

Having spent two years without any direct involvement with flying, it came as a surprise to find himself appointed to the post of Chief of Air Staff in the rank of major-general, vice Trenchard, who had resigned over his differences with Lord Rothermere. Sykes’s immediate task was to integrate the RFC and RNAS into the new service organization. The RFC squadrons simply became RAF squadrons, but the RNAS flights were not reorganized into RAF squadrons until August of 1918. He was a staunch believer in the need for a separate Air Force and the setting up of an independent bomber force, which was needed to break the impasse of trench warfare.

Before he could turn round, the war had ended and he found himself leader of the British Air Section at the Versailles Peace Conference. He had to consider enemy disarmament and an international air code, and he pressed, unsuccessfully, for an ‘open skies’ policy, but it was his thoughts about the future size and role of the RAF that resulted in his replacement by Trenchard in March 1919. Sykes envisaged a series of permanent bases throughout the Empire from which an Imperial Air Force could be deployed. And so, only one month after the war’s end, he was proposing sixty-two service and ninety-two cadre squadrons, plus a further thirty-seven cadre squadrons in the Dominions. These proposals were far sighted, but they were completely out of tune with the thinking of politicians, where defence expenditure on the scale proposed was furthest from their minds.

The handover to Trenchard as CAS was described in the last section, but it left the government with a problem of what to do with a man at the peak of his profession and still only 41 years old. In what must seem a turbulent career, Sykes was moved after only one year as CAS to the post of Controller-General of Civil Aviation. With this high-sounding title went a seat on the Air Council. This would undoubtedly have been a sop to a man who was moving from head of a service that he had devoted so much time and effort in establishing to a department of the Air Ministry that attracted only a fraction of the funds allocated to the RAF. Although there was an enormous amount of work to be done for civil aviation in those early post-war years, such as producing new flying regulations, planning Empire air routes, establishing the International Commission of Aerial Navigation, etc., he resigned in 1922. It was because there was so much to be done and so little money with which to do it. He felt that the government was ignoring the needs of a growth industry, and he left to enter the House of Commons.

 

Edward Ellington

Edward Ellington was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1887, aged 20. Ten years later he graduated from Staff College and went to the War Office. While serving there he obtained his pilot’s licence in 1912. He then went to General Henderson’s RFC Planning Committee as secretary and afterwards headed the Air Policy and Administrative Section of the newly formed Military Aeronautics Directorate. From there he moved to Upavon, where he qualified as a military pilot in December 1913.

Having acquired these aeronautical skills Ellington was rather inexplicably moved to staff and regimental duties with the Artillery, where he spent most of the First World War, and it was not to be until November 1917 that he returned to military aviation, not flying, but again on staff duties, this time under John Salmond, where he was Deputy Director-General of Military Aeronautics. Two months later, when Salmond returned to France, Ellington succeeded him in the post, and in August 1918 he joined the recently formed Air Council as Controller-General of Equipment, later designated Supply and Research. In that post he was able to work alongside Trenchard to establish the structure of the RAF and solve its day-to-day problems. On 1 March 1922 he became AOC Middle East for a year before leaving to become AOC India on Guy Fawkes’ Day 1923. Three years later he was AOC Iraq, where he remained until his return to the United Kingdom in January 1929 to become AOC-in-C Air Defence of Great Britain. Thereafter he was Air Member for Personnel before being promoted to Air Chief Marshal and taking up the post of CAS on 1 January 1933.

 

John Salmond

John Salmond joined the Army in 1900 at the age of 19. After graduating from Sandhurst he first served in South Africa and then went on to the South-West Frontier Force. Back home in 1907, he became seriously interested in the military possibilities of powered flight, having flown as a passenger from Hendon. His appetite whetted, he qualified as a pilot in 1912. Like Trenchard and Ellington, so too did Salmond attend the course at Upavon, where he qualified as a military pilot. He then became an instructor, and before the First World War had even started he had flown a BE biplane to 13,140 feet, a solo British altitude record.

When war broke out he was placed in command of No. 3 Squadron, which was engaged mainly on reconnaissance duties in France. In April 1915 he returned briefly to command the RFC Training Wing at Farnborough, but was soon back in France commanding No. 2 Wing under Trenchard. This was the time of mounting pilot losses in action, and so back to England went Salmond to reorganize the whole training system, since it was clear that RFC pilots arriving in France were quite unprepared for air action against German pilots. During the period Salmond did much flying himself, and tested new types.

In October 1917, still only 36 years old, John Salmond replaced Henderson on the Army Council as Director-General of Military Aeronautics. When Trenchard came home to take over as CAS, Salmond succeeded him as Commander of the RFC, with sixty-three squadrons under command to meet the German offensive of early 1918, and to take part in the counter-offensive that followed. This made Salmond the leading field commander of the RFC as the war came to an end.

Clearly Salmond was a very valuable member of Trenchard’s post-war team, and he was placed in command of Inland Area, with its HQ at Uxbridge. In 1922 he was sent to India to report on the state of the RAF squadrons on the North-West Frontier, then in October 1922 he became the first-ever RAF officer to be placed in overall command of Army and RAF formations in an operational theatre. This was as AOC Iraq. He returned home in 1924, initially to Trenchard’s staff at the Air Ministry, and then as AOC-in-C Air Defence of Great Britain. This kept Salmond busy, but he still had time to visit Australia and New Zealand in 1928 to advise on the development of their air forces. In January 1929 he became Air Member for Personnel, but he held the post for only one year, since he succeeded Trenchard as the Chief of Air Staff at the end of the year.

 

Cyril Newall

Cyril Newall was born in India in 1886, and after a Sandhurst training, he was commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1905 and served on the North-West Frontier. While he was home on leave in 1911 he learned to fly a Bristol biplane at Larkhill, and went on to Upavon to get his RFC ‘wings’ in 1913. He was then posted to the Central Flying School at Sitapur as an instructor.

When the First World War commenced, he returned home to join No. 1 Squadron as a flight commander. He was then made OC No. 12 Squadron in March 1915 as a temporary major, and went to France, taking part in the Battle of Loos, bombing railways and carrying out reconnaissance. He earned the Albert Medal by leading a party of airmen to put out a fire in a bomb store and thereby prevented what could have been a catastrophic explosion. He then went on to command both Nos 6 and 9 Wings as a temporary lieutenant-colonel. It was as OC No. 9 Wing under Trenchard’s command that Newall’s seven squadrons provided the RAF’s long-range bombing and reconnaissance force in France. When No. 41 Wing was formed, Newall was the obvious choice to command, and in February 1918 No. 41 Wing became the VIIIth Brigade, whose task it was to bomb strategic targets. Under Newall’s command the squadrons of the VIIIth Brigade carried out 142 raids, of which fifty-seven were against Germany. When the brigade became the Independent Bombing Force under Trenchard’s command, Newall was his deputy.

When the war ended, Newall spent three years in the Air Ministry as Deputy Director of Personnel before proceeding to Halton in 1922 as deputy to the Commandant of No. 1 School of Technical Training. Between 1926 and 1931 he served in the Air Ministry as AOC of the Special Reserve and Auxiliary Air Force, as a member of the League of Nations Disarmament Committee, as Director of Operations and Intelligence and as Deputy Chief of Air Staff. This enormously diverse and rich experience, including wartime command and staff duties, prepared Newall for the ultimate command post in the RAF, that of CAS, to which he was appointed on 1 September 1937.

 

Charles Portal

Charles Portal, or Peter as he was known to his friends, was born in Hungerford in 1893 and was educated at Winchester and Christchurch, Oxford, but the war cut short his studies when he had intended to qualify as a barrister. He enlisted in the Royal Engineers as a dispatch rider and was sent to France. Given his background, he was soon commissioned, and without any previous training he found himself seconded to the RFC, where he flew operationally with No. 3 Squadron as an observer. He then learned to fly, and in May 1916 returned to France to fly with No. 60 Squadron on artillery and spotting duties, moving later to No. 3 Squadron as a flight commander, and on 16 June 1917 he was posted to command No. 16 Squadron. He then earned an MC and two DSOs, and on 26 June 1918 he was made a temporary lieutenant-colonel to command No. 24 Wing, in which post he remained for the remainder of the war.

On his return to the England Portal was placed in command of No. 24 (Training) Wing at Grantham, and most of the time he was chief flying instructor at the newly opened RAF College, Cranwell. After attendance at the RAF Staff College at Andover, he joined the Operations and Intelligence staff at the Air Ministry. Obviously his wartime experience was of particular value in working out operational requirements, and he came to be highly regarded by Trenchard. Having attended the Senior Officers’ War Course at Greenwich, he was posted in March 1927 to be OC No. 7 Squadron at Bircham Newton, and in 1929 he attended the Imperial Defence College. By the end of the decade he had acquired operational, training and staff experience necessary to equip him for higher command, and he was appointed Chief of the Air Staff in October 1940.

 

Arthur Harris

Arthur Harris was born in Cheltenham in 1892, and at the age of 16 he went looking for adventure in Rhodesia, taking on a variety of jobs until the outbreak of war in 1914, when he joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment as a bugler. Although he served briefly in German South-West Africa, he wanted to be closer to the action, and returned to the United Kingdom, where he was accepted for training with the RFC. Having completed his pilot training in January 1916, he was posted to No. 39 Squadron, with which he flew against Zeppelins. After a period on day-fighters in France, he returned to England to train a new night-fighter squadron at Marham, then back to France to take command of No. 44 Squadron.

It was not until the end of the First World War that Harris was granted a permanent commission in the RAF. The years 1919 and 1920 were depressing for him, since he spent much of this time closing down units, and a posting to No. 31 Squadron in India saw him contemplating resignation when he found the RAF in India in such an appalling state. In July 1922 matters improved when he was posted to Iraq, first to the HQ in Basra, then to command No. 45 Squadron on air-control duties. Here Harris was able to use some imagination, employing the squadron’s Vernons both as troop carriers and bombers. Three years later, in 1925, he returned to the UK to command No. 58 Squadron with Vickers Virginias at Worthy Down. In July 1927 he was promoted to the rank of wing commander, and attended the Army Staff College at Camberley before proceeding to the Middle East as Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO). Apart from a spell as OC No. 210 Flying-Boat Squadron, Harris would spend the rest of his career in staff and senior command positions. He did not become CAS, but his place in history is secure following his position as AOC-IN-C Bomber Command during the Second World War.

 

Other Air Commanders

Other senior officers played an important part in the early development of the RAF. They were those officers who already held senior positions in the RFC, and these names crop up frequently in accounts of those early days – names such as Scarlett, Brooke-Popham, Game, Vyvyan, Lambe, Bonham-Carter, Higgins and Ludlow Hewitt. Some, like Longmore, had come from the RNAS. There were those who were to reach the giddy heights and become Chief of the Air Staff, like Tedder and Dickson, but they did not get involved in staff work until the late 1920s. Then there were the first of the purely RAF types who would later become CAS and who joined as flight cadets at Cranwell, as did Dermot Boyle in 1922 and Pike in 1924. This chapter is concerned for the most past with the participation of senior commanders in the early, most formative years.

 

Quality of Command

Before considering the contribution that the most senior RAF officers made to the early development of the service, the reader is asked to cast aside the benefits of hindsight. This and the succeeding volume is a history of the inter-war years, but in the year 1919 and those that followed there were no inter-war years. Try to visualize a staff officer going in to work at the Air Ministry in late 1919. A war to end all wars had just finished. There was a ‘Ten-Year Rule’ that had been instituted by the government, which meant that Britain could not be expected to be involved in a major war during that period. Some 160 RAF squadrons were in the process of being disbanded. Thousands of men were being demobilized and surplus aircraft were being scrapped or sold off as war surplus. The nation was war weary, the Air Estimates for the year had just come down from over £56 million to under £20 million and the Army and Navy wanted the RAF dismembered and handed back to their former owners. There were a handful of squadrons left in the outposts of the Empire by the end of the First World War, tens of thousands of aircraft per year were leaving the aircraft factories, only to be burnt on arrival at the aircraft parks, and one was entitled to ask if the country any longer had a use for an air force. Mussolini had not then gained power in Italy, and Hitler had only just left the Army to dabble in minor politics in Munich. As far as one could see, stretching away endlessly into the future, was peace, the League of Nations and disarmament.

The first future CAS trained and recruited entirely by the RAF was not due to report to the RAF College Cranwell until 1922. All Trenchard’s men came from the RFC and the RNAS. During the battles between the Army and the RAF over the latter’s independence, the War Minister, Lord Derby, had asserted that the RAF did not have sufficient staff officers capable of filling all the staff appointments at the Air Ministry, and as if to rub salt into the wound, offered to lend some on secondment to Trenchard. The experience of most RAF senior commanders and staff officers in 1919 was mostly Army, and many of those who had worked in staff positions in the RFC at home and abroad had confined their attentions to air matters. It was alleged that they did not see the ‘big picture’, acting more as air advisers at various Army command levels, and even in their special field, the air, none of them would have been trained as a military pilot until just before or during the First World War. Reference to the preceding accounts of the careers of senior officers show that they were moved with almost breathtaking speed from one post to another, out to France and back again, then out again to command at flight, squadron and wing levels. No sooner had they become pilots than they were instructors. No sooner had they commanded a squadron than they were training a squadron. The RFC strength had gone from four squadrons at the outbreak of war to 188 squadrons. The pace of expansion meant that officers who had reached senior positions in the RAF were still young.

Chapter 6 explains how some naval officers regarded service with the RNAS as an unwelcome deviation from their chosen career path. Similarly the Army officer who saw himself as a future CIGS or corps or divisional commander might see service with the RFC as a diversion. Those who held senior positions in the RAF in 1919 had gone out of their way to fly. The preceding paragraph shows that there would not have been any difficulty in promoting officer pilots quickly to fill posts in a fast-expanding service, as well as to replace battle casualties. As fast as pilots could be trained, they were needed for squadrons and for flying training schools both at home and overseas. They were also needed at Farnborough and Upavon and to fill staff posts at the War Office and the various formations.

 

Parameters for planning Trenchard’s memorandum of 1919 laid down the foundations of an independent air force. New rank titles did more than anything to remind officers and men that they belonged to a new service. Flights, squadrons and wings were retained, but brigades went, to be replaced by groups and areas. Air units were to be allocated to the Army and Navy for work with those services, but the rest of the RAF would be divided between fighting and bombing squadrons, which was pure air force business. Experience in the air defence of London and with the IBF in France provided at least a basis of experience from which to move forward. Then came air control, and for the next twenty years the RAF had an operational raison d’être. Trenchard knew that he needed an RAF staff college, a cadet college and an apprentice school to cultivate his ‘air force spirit’.

 

Trenchard’s post-war team

There can be no denying Trenchard’s vision, and his immediate subordinates could see where they fitted into the scheme of things. They had the necessary mix of experience. Salmond had the operational command experience, but Ellington might almost have been a civil servant working in the Air Ministry who also had an interest in aeroplanes. He had never gone into action in the air, let alone commanded a flying unit. Unlike many of his colleagues, he had no DFCs or Military Crosses, but he could see the ‘big picture’ and had been involved with the use of aeroplanes in war from the very beginning. Newall and Portal had the necessary combat and command experience to make a valuable input into operational plans. Perhaps the biggest loss to the RAF was Sykes. He had enormous organizational ability and had worked with military aircraft from the very beginning, but he always seemed to be in the wrong place at the time, and had to be moved by his superiors through conflict of interest or outlook. Although we have said that he was a loss, he would not have fitted easily into Trenchard’s post-war team.

 

Air Staff planning One thing in which all the senior RAF commanders believed was offensive defence. Salmond, in particular, believed that one could not, through air defence alone, provide complete protection against air attack, and that it was necessary to strike hard at the enemy’s military and industrial targets from the outset. It is therefore hard to understand how operational requirements for the first post-war bomber should result in the Avro Aldershot discussed earlier in this chapter. The RAF had to tread carefully. Retaining, say, just two squadrons of four-engined HP V/1500s in 1919 with the capability to bomb Berlin neither fitted with the reduced budget nor sent the right signals in a period of disarmament. The Air Staff might talk about offensive defence, but the diminutive DH9A looked far less menacing. A couple of squadrons of Vimys and DH10s could be paraded in the guise of Imperial policing, and then air control. In this context, therefore, the equipping of the RAF with Avro Aldershots and Fairey Foxes in the 1920s can be understood. It is clear that the Air Staff allowed its ideas about the bomber to become entrenched dogma before it had considered them in a serious analytical fashion. Eventually the Air Staff began to believe its own rhetoric. Specifications for aircraft throughout the 1920s, when compared with advances in civil aviation, lagged behind. Those specifications resulted in the introduction of aircraft with performance levels not greatly surpassing those of some of the aircraft that saw service in the First World War. A study of Appendix A will show this to be the case. Compare, for example, the Gamecock with the Bristol M1C in speed and service ceiling, or the Virginia with the HP V/1500 in terms of service ceiling and defensive armament. It has already been made clear that firms not held back by the constraints of Air Ministry specifications produced aircraft with a more exciting performance.

 

The Staff College, Andover The quality of the future operational commanders and staff officers would be determined largely by the RAF having its own staff college, which was part of Trenchard’s philosophy, that flying was an art to be mastered and the use of aircraft in war was a matter for an independent air force. As staff officers began to emerge from the Staff College, they would have been schooled in the thinking of the day. Wilfred Freeman was appointed senior instructor at the Staff College on 14 October 1921 before the college opened. The first Commandant was Brooke-Popham, and among the first intake were the future senior commanders of the RAF, including Sholto Douglas, Keith Park of Battle of Britain fame and Charles Portal. The courses surveyed the principles of war, imperial strategy, the tactics and organization of air, ground and naval forces, intelligence, supply and communications, domestic and foreign policy and the relationship of economics, commerce and science to RAF affairs. Basic staff duties had to be mastered, which included letter and report writing, and students were taught how to organize formal receptions, for Brook-Popham set high standards on social occasions. The courses lasted a year, during which time students had to maintain flying practice, surveyed sites for airfields and had to consider a wide range of non-RAF matters. They visited the Navy, the London Docks and a railway terminus, and there were exchange visits to the Navy and Army Staff Colleges. With the Navy, for example, students considered the defence of Singapore, an exercise which was to become reality nineteen years later for the Commandant, Brooke-Popham.

The RAF Staff College Course of 1922 Wilfred Freemen is second from the left in the front row. Other famous names are Brooke-Popham (front row 4th from left), Park (2nd from the right), Sholto Douglas (middle row 4th from Right), Portal (back row 2nd from Left) and Pierce (back row 3rd from left).

 

Notable Contributions made by Individual Commanders

 

Edward Ellington

From March 1922 there followed seven years abroad, firstly as Air Officer Commanding in the Middle East, then in India and finally in Iraq, before returning home. He flew a fair amount during his tours abroad, but as a passenger. These tours gave him extensive experience of operational command, the first that he had personally experienced. It is, to say the least, most unusual and almost unique for a commander in any of the three services to start the operational part of his career in one of the highest ranks of his service. He was an AOC when his squadrons were regularly engaged in peace-keeping operations, but that did not prepare him for his eventual rise to the post of Chief of the Air Staff in 1933, planning for a European war. Of course Ellington was not alone in this respect, for most senior air commanders of the 1930s had only air-control experience to add to that gained in the First World War, and he, like the others, was wedded to the belief in offensive defence. How effective a commander Ellington would have been in a fighting war against an enemy that put up resistance in the air we shall never know. He stepped down from active service just before the Battle of Britain. Maurice Dean, Ellington’s private secretary, spoke of him in his relations with Ministers. At times, says Dean, it was the Ministers rather than Ellington who led the way, since he had little personal knowledge of aviation, which sounds unbelievable in an Air Marshal. On the other hand he had an acute mind and was quick to embrace new ideas. He was, as CAS, in his element. He had always been, and continued to be, a superb staff officer, and it was during his tenure of that post that the specifications were issued for the Spitfire and Hurricane.

 

John Salmond

John Salmond was the natural successor to Trenchard when the latter retired at the end of 1929. His contribution was vital, having first-hand command experience in action and being a very able pilot. He was the natural choice to be AOC in Iraq in October 1922, and he was not afraid to take hard decisions, particularly in his handling of Turkish incursions into northern Iraq. He took over at a bad moment. The Turks were threatening the northern province of Mosul, and a Kurdish rebellion led by Sheik Mahmud was under way. Salmond received no firm political direction from the United Kingdom, and there were those, especially critics in the Army, who were watching closely to see how well he handled the situation, no one more so than the CIGS, Sir Henry Wilson, who refused to allocate the necessary armoured-car units to Salmond. But he did not protest at this unfriendly act, and simply formed his own RAF armoured-car units. The judicious use of bombing and moving his ground troops quickly forward by air meant that he was able to use his limited resources effectively. It was Salmond’s masterly handling of the situation that demonstrated the effectiveness of air control. His report on the state of the RAF in India was also a most valuable exercise, resulting in a gradual improvement of the quality of aircraft maintenance and supply during the 1920s. In the late 1920s he was in command of the air defence of Great Britain. He had scarce resources and still outdated aircraft with which to conduct the first annual air exercises in the UK, where, as Chapter 3 makes clear, he was wedded to the then current air doctrine of offensive defence, and the odds were stacked in favour of the bomber. When he did finally succeed to the post of CAS, he was not able to achieve very much, for it was the height of the great economic depression, when resources were scarce, and the Geneva Disarmament Conference, which began in 1932, meant that Salmond faced calls for air and other disarmament.

 

John Slessor

John Slessor’s own account of his contribution to the work of the Air Ministry from his book The Central Blue is illuminating. He had never taken the view that staff appointments are a fate to be avoided if humanly possible, and believed that one should get a fair ration of both command and staff duties. He recalled that his first posting to a staff position was in 1923, but at rather too early an age. He thought that RAF officers should remain on flying duties for at least the first ten years of the service, and he knew of some potentially first-class officers being spoiled by being condemned too early to an office stool. Having lost the sharpness of constant flying practice, it was sometimes difficult to get it back. (In fairness to the service, provision was made for those in office jobs at the Air Ministry to fly as regularly as possible at Hendon.) Worse still was that if a staff officer was particularly good he might be rotated around the various positions until, in Slessor’s words, he became ‘a sort of goldfish swimming round in a bowl without ever getting out into the open sea’. Such officers might then be denied the top command posts in the service, which was manifestly unfair. In arriving at really important judgements, Slessor felt that any amount of theoretical knowledge and the deepest study of military history cannot compensate for lack of experience of having to take responsibility for decisions oneself in contact with the enemy, which, of course, makes Ellington’s case so unusual.

 

Brooke-Popham

Brooke-Popham was one of the founding fathers of the RFC and the RAF. He was an Air Vice-Marshal as Commandant of the RAF Staff College, a very able administrator and utterly devoted to the Service until his death in 1953. Under his leadership the Staff College got the first course under way, commencing in 1922. Slessor recalls that the students had to feel their way towards a doctrine of air warfare, for there was little experience to guide them. The air service having been an auxiliary to the Army and Navy in the First World War, it was up to Trenchard and his officers to have the faith and vision to evolve a theory of air warfare based on the supremacy of the offensive. The faith in the offensive may seem to have been premature in the 1920s, but Brooke-Popham played a vital role in ensuring that new arts were being learned by his students. He went on to command Fighting Area in the late 1920s, and his units took part in the 1927 and 1928 air exercises. When the Second World War started in 1939, most of his ex-students held important command and staff positions in the RAF.

 

Hugh Dowding

Hugh Dowding is probably best known as head of Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain in 1940. He did not, however, succeed to the post of CAS, being retired in 1942. As it happens, he had already been told that he was due for retirement, even before the war started. This is to say that Dowding’s progress to senior rank was not always smooth. Even as the First World War ended, Dowding had to wait to see if he was to be awarded a permanent RAF commission, and be able to join the new team to fashion the post-war service. He had already had differences of opinion with Trenchard when in command of the 9th Headquarters Wing in France during the Battle of the Somme, and he was sent back home for the rest of the war to command the Southern Training Brigade at Salisbury. He did secure a command post as a staff officer in HQ No. 1 Group, and had responsibility for organizing the first Hendon Air Pageants, and then as Chief Staff Officer, first at HQ Inland Area, then at HQ Iraq. He came into his own in 1926 when he was appointed Director of Training, and he was then able to influence policy. His previously strained relations with Trenchard improved. At the end of the decade he was appointed AOC Transjordan at a time of growing hostility between Jew and Arab.

 

Wilfred Freeman

Surprisingly, Freeman did not like instructing at the Staff College. He said it made him feel like a schoolmaster, and he seriously considered leaving the RAF. This is not to understate, however, the importance that staff training had and still has for future air commanders. He was promoted to group captain in January 1923, and headed the directing staff for the third course to pass through the college. He was then posted to the Central Flying School at Upavon, tasked with preparing to move the school to Wittering in 1925. The CFS, built on Smith-Barry’s pioneering system of flying training, achieved a worldwide reputation for flying instruction on its eleven-week courses. In the interval between courses the instructors would visit other flying schools to monitor standards. A notable contribution that Freeman made to aerobatic flying was to persuade the Air Ministry to purchase six ‘Genet’ Moths and prepare a number of his instructors to form a team for the 1927 Hendon Air Display. The DH 60G Moths with the light Genet radial engines had been lent to the CFS to teach Greek pupils, who were used to the aircraft, and Freeman found them a delight to fly. The members of the team, led by D’Arcy Greig, included Atcherley, Waghorn and Stainforth, all future members of the RAF High-Speed Flight. Freeman was remembered by his CFS staff as a brilliant officer. He was quiet and reserved but had a sense of humour. On the other hand he could be intolerant and incapable of suffering fools gladly. He corrected the rather lax regime of ‘Topsy’ Holt, who encouraged his instructors to carry out all sorts of stunts, sometimes damaging aircraft in the process.

On 27 February 1927 he left CFS for the Air Ministry, to become Deputy Director of Operations and Intelligence, spending almost two years working closely with Trenchard. But Freeman suffered from migraines, and after working in London for eighteen months he became frequently more ill, and suffered from intermittent fever. Trenchard took pity and had him posted to command the RAF station Leuchars, which was out of doors and to his liking. He ended the decade as SASO of the UK Inland Area.

The ‘Genet’ Moths of CFS.

Wing Commander R.C.M. Pink

There can be no doubt that Wing Commander Pink was one of the outstanding commanders of the inter-war years. He showed initiative in organizing long-distance flights that would not only ‘show the flag’ but would practise his pilots in navigation and working a long way from their home base. The operations during March to May 1925 against the Abdur Rahman Khel tribe have become known as ‘Pink’s War’, and when he briefed his men for these operations he so impressed them that he reportedly got a round of applause. Everyone who speaks of Pink tells of his qualities of leadership, and he often flew with his pilots, accepting the risks that they took. It is thus all the more sad that cancer claimed his life in 1932, bringing short what would have undoubtedly been a career that would have taken him to the top.

 

Squadron Leader Harris – bombing and night flying

Earlier in this chapter it was mentioned that the RAF did not have a bombing development unit until the later 1930s. The Air Staff simply worked on the premise that the bomber would get through, and that, in any case, the morale effect of bombing was more important than the destructive effect. And so nothing was done to improve bombing techniques and the quality of bombs. When Squadron Leader Harris assumed command of No. 45 Squadron in Iraq, he had a squadron of troop transports. One of his flight commanders, Flight Lieutenant Ralph Cochrane, stated that, ‘We literally took the beer up to the troops and brought back the casualties. But that wasn’t at all in accord with Bert Harris’s idea of what he wanted to do.’ Not one to let the grass grow under his feet, Harris set out to investigate improved methods of bombing in various conditions. He calculated that it was theoretically possible for a single Vernon aircraft to carry a bomb load equivalent to the load-carrying capacity of an entire squadron of DH9As (Ninaks), the standard bombing aircraft of the RAF. In carrying out experiments, Harris was, in effect, undertaking operational research, something the Air Staff should have been doing.

Turning the troop-carrying Vernons into bombers required adaptation, and this is what Harris undertook. The standard method of aiming and dropping bombs from a DH9A at this time was for the pilot to look through a sight on the side of the fuselage, and the air gunner in the rear cockpit dropped the bombs on a signal from the pilot. Harris sought to improve upon this method by developing a line-of-flight sighting mechanism. A hole was cut in the floor of the aircraft’s nose so that the bomb-aimer could lie prone, looking down through the sight and with the ability also to release the bombs at just the right moment. This left the pilot free to concentrate on keeping the aircraft straight and level on the run-up to the target with the bomb-aimer calling out corrections to the pilot as necessary. This was to be the method used by RAF Bomber Command throughout the Second World War.

Another innovation was to design an air current indicator. In hot climates the lift of aircraft is much reduced, and a fully loaded Vernon might not be able to get above 100 feet. Such an instrument would indicate to the pilot when he could take advantage of air currents to reach a greater altitude. Once Harris had designed the equipment, he needed to practise his squadron using dummy bombs. Hours were spent flying upwind of the target at between 1,000 and 2,000 feet, and the crews got their bombs to within ten or fifteen yards. With a ground speed of not much more than 40 mph – the maximum airspeed of a Vernon being 80 mph – achieving accuracy was not too difficult. But Harris’s aircraft were not encountering bad weather or enemy fighter and anti-aircraft fire. He nevertheless took his ideas to his AOC, John Salmond, proposing a competition between his squadron and the squadrons of DH9As and Bristol Fighters currently engaged in operations on the front. Salmond agreed, and the improvement in bombing accuracy by the Vernon crews resulted in No. 45 Squadron taking over the bombing role.

A further development undertaken by Harris was in night flying. What was needed for effective bombing at night was pathfinding and target marking. Little had been achieved during the First World War to overcome the problems associated with bombing at night, and until Harris carried out his experiments, nothing had been done in the early post-war years. Since Harris believed that night bombing could be extremely effective, he knew that good navigation was the key to success. And so he practised his squadron in night flying to the point where they could be relied upon to arrive near the target at the right time. What was then needed was to mark the target for the benefit of all crews in the formation. To do this Harris devised a target marker using a Very light attached to a standard bomb. He had to admit that the conditions under which he was operating were ideal, clear skies and low level, something that would hardly pertain in a European war against sophisticated airpower in poor weather. The point in this context is that Harris was illustrating in a very practical way the problems that had to be overcome, and in the event, they were not to be overcome until well into the Second World War. This was a classic example of the Air Staff making claims for the potential of airpower that had no basis in practical experience.

William Dickson

William Dickson’s name has been included in a consideration of the contribution made by commanders to the work of the RAF in its early years because he was one of the few to come over from the RNAS. Trained to fly seaplanes, first on Lake Windermere and then at Calshot, he flew anti-submarine patrols and also flew against the Gotha bombers. He was then posted to HMS Furious, where he learned of the difficulties facing a navy pilot trying to put down on the sea. He then went on to help pioneer deck landings and later took part in the first carrier-based bombing raid against a Zeppelin base at Tondern. By August 1919 he was Fleet Aviation Officer on HMS Queen Elizabeth, but he was somewhat disheartened by the Navy’s attitude towards aircraft, and he was persuaded of the need for an independent air force. By then the RNAS had been absorbed into the RAF, and he had the option of remaining a naval officer, albeit with an equivalent RAF rank, or becoming a RAF officer proper. He was granted a permanent RAF commission, and his expertise and background made him a valuable addition to the staff, the more so because Trenchard knew little about naval aviation. After a motor cycle accident that cut short his work as a test pilot at Farnborough, he found himself as the sole flight lieutenant on the staff at the Air Ministry, where he doubled up as Personal Assistant to Sir John Steele, the DCAS. This came at a time when Trenchard was having to fight off attempts by the Navy to regain its own integral air arm, and Dickson’s knowledge was valuable. It certainly established his reputation as a clever staff officer, and after a distinguished career he rose to become CAS in 1953.

 

Conclusion

The individual and collective contribution to the development of the RAF and to the study and development of air theory of other officers may not appear in the paragraphs above, not because they do not merit recognition, but simply that they more or less mirror the experiences of those whose contributions are described. These would include such names as Geoffrey Salmond, Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt, John Steele, Sholto Douglas, Bonham-Carter et al. The conclusions that may be drawn from their collective experience are as follows. Firstly, that Trenchard provided the leadership, the vision and the determination to lay the foundations of the RAF of the future, built in peace but prepared to expand to meet the needs of a major war. Secondly, that his immediate subordinates and the Air Ministry staff shared his vision and determination to succeed. Trenchard had the necessary mix of experience and skills with which to move forward, and although some of his staff officers might not, initially, have had the experience that fitted them to see the wider picture, from 1922 the RAF Staff College course at Andover would rectify this deficiency. Thirdly, the Air Staff may have been slow to develop modern types of aircraft throughout the decade of the 1920s, but one could say, in its defence, that since no major war for ten years was the rule there were more important jobs to be done from meagre funds, such as buildings at Cranwell and Halton, the development of Imperial air routes and air policing overseas, for which duties the DH9A and Bristol Fighter aircraft were adequate. Finally, many of the senior officers of the period were relatively young and therefore likely to be vital. This was an accident of history, that so many men who happened to show an interest in flying and entered service with the RFC and the RNAS found themselves receiving early promotion to meet the demands of rapidly expanding air arms. Those, like John Salmond, could not have expected to succeed to Air rank at such a young age in a peacetime or an established air force. One could argue that most of those mentioned above were fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time.

This chapter could not be concluded without mention of the junior officers, NCOs and airmen whose qualities and achievements brought credit to the new service. Their names would be too numerous to include in this chapter, but they do appear in the squadron diary accounts in Chapter 4. There were those who showed great initiative in developing equipments for aircraft to suit certain operational requirements, including such things as parachutes for supply dropping, the Gosport tube, unauthorized additions to the kit that festooned the DH9As, getting downed aircraft back to base in one or several pieces and developing engineering techniques that permitted aircraft to be maintained in primitive surroundings. There was never going to be a shortage of talent upon which Trenchard could draw.