Page 7 - The Cormorant 2018

yet ready to be sent out to France. In the eyes of Haig and the War Office, this demonstrated that complaints over inefficient organisation and failure
to ensure that the RFC was provided with the latest aircraft had been entirely justified, and some of the blame for this failure was placed at the door of the Admiralty for making excessive demands (as the War Office saw it) on aircraft and aero-engine production.
This did not mean that the War Office was absolved blame in Lloyd George’s eyes. He was of the view that Haig was wasting lives, and any efforts to reduce the degree of authority that the newly-promoted Field Marshal held over the forces used to wage what
the Prime Minister considered to be wasteful and pointless offensives in France. Despite holding these views, Lloyd George seemed unlikely to be able to do anything other than to wait and see if the new Air Board was able to deliver.
Circumstances then changed dramatically. The Germans had conducted a series of bombing attacks against Britain since December 1914, most notably via airship bombings during 1915 and 1916. These caused much public angst (and anti-German feeling), but the threat had been largely negated by 1917.
The Germans then turned to recently-developed long-range bombers, most famously, Gotha aircraft variants. Raids against Folkstone and Sheerness were followed by attacks on London on 5 June, prompting enormous public concern, particularly at the apparent failure of the defences to trouble the raiders. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir William Robertson, was moved to comment that it appeared that the
end of the world had come such was the reaction. Two fighter squadrons, badly needed in France, were withdrawn to provide air defence, but no further raids transpired. They were duly returned to Trenchard’s command, only for another raid on London to occur within days of their departure. In the midst of a public
outcry, Lloyd George turned to the highly-respected South African General Jan Smuts to report on Britain’s future air defences.
Smuts knew little of military aviation, so had as
his main advisor Lieutenant-General Sir David Henderson. Henderson had been responsible for
the establishment of the Royal Flying Corps in 1912, and had served both as the RFC’s commander in France and Director General of Military Aeronautics. He knew all too well that the RFC had been established as a Joint organisation – designed to overcome the bureaucratic infighting and service rivalry which had transpired after the RFC’s naval wing had been rebranded as the RNAS and taken under direct Admiralty control. He, perhaps more than any other senior officer, had seen the infighting in all its glory, and it is no surprise that his advice to Smuts was for the creation of a single Air Service to bring about efficiency. Smuts was happy to agree and in two reports (which history has generally recorded as though they were a single document), Smuts signalled the need for an Air Ministry to stand alongside the other two service Ministries, and an independent Air Service. From his vantage point as commander of the RFC in France, Trenchard was aghast, more so when he realised that he was the obvious candidate to become the first Chief of the Air Staff. With much reluctance, he handed command
of the RFC in France over to Major General John Salmond, and returned to London. In November 1917, parliament passed the Air Force Act, allowing the new service to be constructed.
The new Secretary of State for the Air Force (the post being called President of the Air Council until 1919), was Lord Rothermere. He and Trenchard did not
get on, with the latter finding some of the politicking associated with the creation of the service unbearable. The decline in relations was swift, and Trenchard
“
submitted his resignation before the RAF had even come into being, although the crisis of the Spring Offensives saw him being persuaded to stay on until 10 April. He was replaced by Sir Frederick Sykes.
Sykes has been treated badly by history, largely because he and Trenchard heartily disliked each
other and it was Trenchard, upon returning as
CAS in 1919, who was to commission the Official History of the RAF in the war, which makes but few references to Trenchard’s nemesis. He had been Henderson’s deputy when the RFC had been created, and his passion for organisation was put to good
use in developing the new Air Force. Much of the administrative background of the era has been lost to history, mainly because the story is significantly less interesting than what the RAF was doing at the front lines. Sykes took the Air Force through to the end of the War, but his vision for policing the empire from the air was too costly for the government (although the expense has been exaggerated in many accounts), and in February 1919, the new Secretary of State
of Air, Winston Churchill, summoned Trenchard and offered him his old job, with Sykes being moved sideways to take over the development of civil aviation. Trenchard and Churchill came up with a
plan for creating a peace-time Air Force which was sustainable and which offered the prospect of using aircraft to replace army battalions in the colonial policing role. This accepted by the government, Trenchard then set about establishing an Officer Training College at Cranwell, an Apprentices college at Halton and a Staff College at Andover. He observed that he had ‘laid the foundation for a castle: if nobody builds anything bigger than a cottage on them, it
will at least be a very good cottage.’ Throughout the 1920s, Trenchard fought off attempts to demolish the cottage and this meant that – temporarily – the Air Force could be built into a significant castle in World War 2. But that is another story.
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Much of the
administrative background of the
era has been lost to history. ◆◆◆