The Birth of the Royal Air Force

1400 Pages·2013·32.17 MB·English

by  Philpott

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright © I.M. Philpott 2013
ISBN 978 1 78159 333 2
eISBN 9781473832411
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1988.
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Contents
Foreword
Preface
Part I: Operations
Chapter 1 Balloons, Airships and Aircraft at War
Chapter 2 Events Leading to the Formation of the Royal Flying Corps
and Royal Naval Air Service
Chapter 3 Military Air Operations, 1914 and 1915
Chapter 4 Military Air Operations, 1916 and 1917
Chapter 5 Military Air Operations of 1918 and the Formation of the RAF
Chapter 6 Operations of the Independent Bomber Force in 1918
Part II: Organization
Chapter 7 Aircraft Design and Development
Chapter 8 The Development of Training
Chapter 9 Airfields, Landing Grounds and Seaplane Bases
Chapter 10 Personnel and Administration
Chapter 11 Technical and Supply Matters
Epilogue Some Thoughts on the Career of Air Marshal Sir Hugh
Trenchard
Appendix A Aircraft Technical Specification Sheets
Appendix B RAF Squadron Histories – Aircraft and Locations 1912 to
1918
Appendix C Duties Assigned to Officers of the Air Department, March
1914 – Naval Wing
Appendix D War Establishments of an Aeroplane Squadron (Provisional)
Appendix E Raids by German Naval Airships during 1915 – Bomb Damage
and Casualties
Appendix F Contact Air Patrol Instructions Issued by GHQ (France) on 26
May 1916
Appendix G Deployment of RFC Squadrons on the Western Front –
January 1917
Appendix H Deployment of RFC Wings/Squadrons on the Western Front –
2 March 1918 (AH 228/6)
Appendix J Draft Air Force Act 1917
Appendix K Testing of Military Aircraft at the Experimental Aircraft Flight
– Martlesham Heath 1917 and 1918
Appendix L Admiralty Air Board Specification for Aeroplanes Type A3b
Appendix M List of Military Officers Selected to Attend the Course of
Instruction at the Central Flying School, Commencing 17
September 1913
Bibliography
Foreword
The title of this work, The Birth of the RAF, may seem, to some, a little dramatic
but there is a reason. The threat posed by German Gotha bombers in attacking
targets in south-east England in 1917 increased the urgency to combine Britain’s
two air services, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, into
one new service. Secondly, no sooner had hostilities ceased in 1918 than the
Army and the Navy saw no need for the extravagance of an Air Ministry in
times of austerity and demanded the return of their aeroplanes. In that case the
RAF would have been stillborn. Had it not been for the intervention of Winston
Churchill what might have been the outcome?
It can therefore be said that the Gotha threat brought to a head the necessity
to form a unified air service under an Air Ministry. The government was, by
1917, already well advanced in bringing about the RAF. The work of the Joint
Air Board came about following the realization that there had be one air service
with the ability to make decisions that would be binding on both the Admiralty
and the War Office to prevent waste and duplication and to make rapid decisions
regarding the output of aircraft and aero engines. It is fair to say that if the threat
posed to the south-east of England in 1917 by German Gotha bombers had been
eliminated, or at least severely limited at that time, the creation of the RAF
might well have been deferred until after the war when the urgency would have
diminished. Be that as it may there were so many civilian casualties in
Folkestone in just one raid that questions were asked in the House of Commons
about the perceived inability of the air defences to prevent these raids. RFC
squadrons were having to be diverted from their duties on the Western Front to
stiffen up the air defences of the London area. No.56 Squadron, for example,
was relocated to Bekesbourne just outside Canterbury but the pilots kicked their
heels for a fortnight before being returned to Flanders. As soon as they had gone
the Gotha raids resumed. The C-in-C of the British Expeditionary Force, Field
Marshal Haig, was losing his aeroplanes at a time not of his choosing; tension
was rising between him and the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Prime
Minister, Lloyd George, was obliged to call upon a member of the War Cabinet,
General Jan Smuts, to find a solution to the problem. To cut a long story short,
and it’s to be found in this encyclopaedia, the General came up with the solution
that everything that flew must belong to one service and that would have to be
an air service. The Smuts Report was translated into legislation and a third
service, the Royal Air Force, came into existence on 1st April 1918. This was no
mean achievement in the middle of a war. There was a major Gotha raid in May
1918 but by that time the air defences were much improved and the losses of
Gothas was so high that the raids on British airspace ceased. But by that time the
RAF was already in existence. Had the success against the Gothas been achieved
in, say late 1917, it might have been a different story.
The Royal Air Force, which came into existence on 1 April 1918, was
principally a fusing of two services, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval
Air Service. This is the history of the development of these two services in the
period leading up to the outbreak of the Great War and their employment on
operations. The new RAF was therefore very much a product of those
experiences. This included the calibre and operational experience of those who
would occupy the very top posts, the quality of the staff officers, aircrews and
ground crews and the design and efficiency of the aeroplanes which became the
property of the Air Ministry overnight. Perhaps one of the most surprising turn
of events was the leading role played by the RNAS in strategic bombing, from
the very outbreak of the war and well before Air Marshal Trenchard commanded
the Independent Bombing Force in France in the summer of 1918. But then
again the RAF V bombers, which were designed with strategic nuclear weapon
capability during the Cold War, were replaced by submarine-launched Polaris
missiles. In this case we may say that strategic bombing started and finished as
the responsibility of the Royal Navy, but such a statement could spark a furious
argument so I will leave that for others to judge.
Ian Philpott RAF Retd
Ian Philpott RAF Retd