Sykes was forced to step down and Trenchard was put in charge of overseeing the post war demobilisation and slimming down of the RAF from around squadrons to only If ever a service needed a despot to run it properly the R.
And the peculiar fitness of General Trenchard to fill the part of the benevolent despot is almost too obvious to need indicating. Questions were asked in Parliament. However, suspicions soon began to arise. We want to know and we must know. Even as early as 3 April , there were rumours that Lord Rothermere might resign. With the amalgamation of two services formerly run by the Army and a Navy, there were bound to be undercurrents of inter-service rivalries and the RAF was no exception.
However, there were calls for unity. If the Air Force is to become a permanent institution — and who will be fool enough to deny an obvious fact? Save only the duds and passengers who will be deprived of their lucrative posts in the Ship of State.
Despite initial criticism of some aspects of the new combined Service, the significance and importance of the RAF did not go unnoticed.
When Naval Aviation is properly developed, the day of the big surface ship will be done. With properly handled torpedo-carrying seaplane no ship can exist above water. The Aeroplane April There was also much debate about the way that the new Service would be run as far as discipline was concerned. In the Flying Service it may be very pretty to see everyone in a nice line to be looked at, but the moment actual work starts, combined action as one understands it in the Army, ceases, and it is every man to his individual job, be he a flier or a mechanic.
With all the current debate about human factors and what makes a good military pilot, it is interesting to read the comments made on the same subject years ago. At the time of the formation of the RAF in early April, the future progress of the war was far from certain.
April proved to be a critical month in the Great War after Germany launched a new military offensive to try and break the trench-bound deadlock. The Germans began their attack at the end of March and began to push back the Allied ground forces over the next two months, eventually getting to within 80 miles of Paris. However, at the end of May the tide began to turn and the Germans were first held and then pushed back, leading to their eventual defeat in November However, in April there was no anticipation of the war being near its end.
They need have little fear of the war being over before they have completed both terms of service. He was brave man, a clean fighter and an aristocrat. May he rest in peace. We should also perhaps acknowledge the stimulus provided by a number of German pilots. The latter had the temerity to fly their rather cumbersome bi-plane bombers over the heart of London in the summer months of , dropping a number of bombs which killed more than two hundred people and injured five hundred more.
The raids took place in daylight and the defences proved largely ineffective, so for example on the first raid the disparate and largely unco-ordinated efforts of ninety-five Army and Royal Navy pilots flying twenty-one different aircraft types resulted in only one German aircraft being shot down whilst the defenders lost two aircraft. This division was judged by many to be unhelpful both in respect to organising the air defence of the UK and more broadly in the procurement of aircraft and their allocation to the war effort.
Attempts to co-ordinate the supply of aircraft through Boards chaired first by Lord Derby and then Lord Curzon and finally Lord Cowdray, had proved ineffective, in large part because the Admiralty and to a lesser extent the War Office were wont to obstruct any proposal which it was felt impinged on their own freedom of action.
He knew little of the ins and outs of air forces, however, and thus relied heavily on advice from the man who had been the first commanding general of the Royal Flying Corps, the Scot, Lieutenant General Sir David Henderson. Over the Somme, German aircraft, including fighters, are opposed by Royal Flying Corps aircraft, which include fighters. The offensive achieves a number of spectacular early successes, shattering the British defensive line.
During the initial stages of the offensive, the Royal Flying Corps RFC is instrumental in gathering intelligence about the timing and composition of the attack and on the first day of the offensive, British aircraft from 27 squadrons strafe and bomb the advancing German Army, disrupting its operations and damaging enemy morale. McLeod of No. At 19 years old, he is the youngest airman to receive this award during the First World War, for action during a bombing mission over Bray-sur-Somme in France and for saving the life of his observer, Lieutenant A.
Jerrard of No. Manfred von Richthofen was the most successful fighter pilot of the First World War and at the time of his death, he had shot down 80 Allied aircraft in air combat. Although Captain Roy Brown of No.
This is the first time that an Air Force had been formed for the express purpose of conducting a war, without reference or subordination to Army or Navy Commands. The IAF operates by day and night against industrial targets in Germany and enemy aerodromes. Allied intervention is undertaken in an effort to inhibit the transfer of German troops between the Eastern and Western Fronts, to deny Russian resources to the Germans and to prevent the German Navy from using the ports as bases from which submarines could threaten transatlantic shipping.
July Major A. The drops are conducted from an altitude of feet and two of the twelve aircraft involved are shot down by German ground fire. From a position off the Lyngvig Light, HMS Furious launches seven Sopwith Camels modified to carry 50 pound bombs on a dawn strike against German dirigible steerable airship sheds at Tondern at the mouth of the Elbe. August Allied air forces mount concerted attacks on enemy airfields, especially those occupied by the German Schlachtstaffeln Close Air Support Squadrons.
There was also intense air-to-air combat with the Royal Air Force losing aircraft in the second week of August and claiming German aircraft shot down. August Fighter sweeps are instituted over the Western Front. These were usually composed of Sopwith Camel squadrons at 10, feet, Royal Aircraft Factory SE5 squadrons at 14, feet and Bristol Fighter squadrons at 18, feet. August In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the Russian army that had previously blocked Turkish forces in the south Caucasus collapses and a British force under the command of Major-General L.
It falls into the sea in flames, 8 miles from Wells-next-the-Sea, killing all of the crew.
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