Page 6 - The Cormorant 2018

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Birth of an Air Force Dr David Jordan
THE CREATION OF THE RAF on 1 April 1918 has been the source of much banter between members of the world’s first independent air
force and their colleagues from the longer-established services, yet even amidst the commemorations of the centenary this April, it was
not always clear that the reasons for the formation of the RAF were fully understood, nor the manner in which it came into being. The
1 April 1918 was the culmination of the process of formation, not the start. There had been much work – and angst – as the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service were amalgamated, and it is all-too-easy when looking at the bureaucratic processes undertaken to create the RAF to forget the fact that this was done against the backdrop of fighting a war. Those serving in the RFC and RNAS may have had some personal and professional interest in the creation of the new air force, but their main focus was upon their daily routines of flying and fighting the first air war.
This was exactly as the first Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Hugh Trenchard, had predicted. Trenchard had regarded mutterings that an independent air force was to be created as preposterous, arguing that there was little point in going to the time and effort of forming a third service in the middle of the war for purposes which, to him, seemed to be indeterminate. Trenchard worried that politicians wished to divert the air force from its ‘proper’ role
of supporting the British Expeditionary Force
and, by extrapolation, that of supporting the
Fleet. His views were shared by Field Marshal
Sir Douglas Haig. Contrary to popular myth,
Haig was not a technophobe, particularly when
it came to aeroplanes; by the standards of the
time, he might well have been regarded as a bit of
a ‘spotter’. Many of the RFC’s daily reports in the National Archives have marginal comments added
by Haig, demonstrating a considerable interest in what his air service was doing. He was quite right
to take this interest, since he was all too aware that aerial observation was an essential component in the effective use of artillery, the weapon which dominated the battlefield and which was vital to offensive operations. The RFC was integral to his efforts to win the war, and the thought that the air service might be directed elsewhere was of enormous concern.
Haig and Trenchard faced a significant problem in having any chance of their viewpoint winning the day. By 1916, the overall control and coordination of Britain’s air efforts had succumbed to inter-service rivalry over resources. The Asquith government set up a Joint Air War Committee under the leadership of Lord Derby in February 1916, but the Admiralty’s opposition to its very existence had seen business grind to a halt. A further attempt was made in July 1916 with the formation of the Air Board under Lord Curzon, but the Board had no executive power and immediately found its task impossible in the face
of the bureaucratic politics which had prevented Derby’s committee from working. To many politicians interested in the matter, it sometimes appeared
that the War Office and the Admiralty were more
“
interested in fighting one another over the procurement of aircraft than using those aircraft against the Central Powers. This was unfair, of course, since the dispute was rooted in competition for scarce resources which both the Royal Navy and the Army
considered of great importance. Unfortunately for both parties, the impression created was not helpful to their cause.
In December 1916, David Lloyd George became the Prime Minister. As the former Minister for Munitions, he had singular views about procurement problems and was not particularly well-disposed to the War Office and the Admiralty on aviation matters. He
set up a small War Cabinet, and one of its first acts was to give the Air Board a much wider remit. Lord Curzon disagreed with the conclusions – feeling that they did not go far enough.
Early in 1917, Admiral Sir David Beatty sought clarification from the Admiralty over air policy. Beatty contended that policy to date did not allow for the RNAS to be used to its full potential and was only too well aware that a number of RNAS units were conducting operations which appeared to have little relevance to the maritime war. The Admiralty’s response was that the RNAS’s job was to ‘assist in all operations carried out by the Royal Navy’, although this was caveated by the fact that some squadrons were being diverted to assist the RFC. This diversion was understandable, since a number of RFC fighter units were equipped with aircraft which were obsolete or on the verges of obsolescence, and their replacements were not
To many
politicians interested in the
matter... ◆◆◆