RAF Transport Command
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RAF Transport Command was an RAF Command which controlled all transport aircraft of the air force. It was established on 25 March 1943 by the renaming of RAF Ferry Command and renamed RAF Air Support Command in 1967.
During World War II it at first ferried aircraft from factory to operational unit and performed air transport. Later it took over the job of dropping paratroops from Army Cooperation Command as well.
After WWII, it decreased rapidly in size. It took part in several big operations, including the Berlin airlift which reinforced the need for a big RAF transport fleet. With the shrinkage of the postwar world also came a lack of new aircraft. The Command soldiered on with its older aircraft for the first part of the 1950s. In 1956 new designs arrived including the first operational jet transport, the de Havilland Comet.
The largest jobs of this period were support of operations during the Suez Crisis and ferrying personnel and supplies out to Christmas Island for the UK's atomic bomb tests. In addition, Transport Command was responsible for running strategic air routes which kept the RAF's overseas stations in touch with the UK.
The 1960s saw a reduction of the RAF and a loss of independence for the old functional commands. Transport Command was renamed Air Support Command. Air Support Command in turn was absorbed into Strike Command in 1973.
[edit] Commanders-in-Chief
- 25 March 1943 - Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill
- 15 February 1945 - Air Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane
- 24 September 1947 - Air Marshal Sir Brian Baker
- 31 March 1950 - Air Marshal Sir Aubrey Ellwood
- 1 January 1952 - Air Vice Marshal R S Blucke
- 3 June 1952 - Air Vice Marshal C E N Guest
- 15 March 1954 - Air Vice Marshal G R Beamish
- 15 October 1955 - Air Marshal Sir Andrew McKee
- 16 May 1959 - Air Marshal Sir Denis Barnett
- 30 April 1962 - Air Marshal Sir Edmund Hudleston
- 1 December 1963 - Air Marshal Sir Kenneth Cross
- 27 January 1967 - Air Marshal Sir Thomas Prickett
