History of the Royal Air Force

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Royal Air Force

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The history of the Royal Air Force, the air force of the United Kingdom, spans nearly a century of British military aviation.

1 Formation and early history (1918–1939)
2 World War II (1939–1945)
3 Cold War (1945–1990)
4 1990–present
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Formation and early history (1918–1939)

The RAF was founded on April 1 1918 by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The Royal Flying Corps had been born out of the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers and was under the control of the British Army. The Royal Naval Air Service was its naval equivalent and was controlled by the Admiralty. The decision to merge the two units and create an independent air force was a response to the events of World War I, the first war in which air power proved to be decisive. The creation of the new force was based on the report prepared by Field Marshal Jan Smuts for the Imperial War Cabinet on which he served

The newly created RAF was the most powerful air force in the world on its creation, with over 20,000 aircraft. The squadrons of the RFC kept their numerals while those of the RNAS were renumbered from 201 onwards

Its last known surviving founder member is the World War I veteran Henry Allingham.

The inter-war years were relatively peaceful for the RAF, with only minor actions in the British Empire. In the early 1920s, the RAF was given responsibility for all British forces in Iraq with the task of 'policing' the tribal unrest. The RAF also saw service in Afghanistan where the first evacuation of civilians occurred in 1928. In 1936, a reorganisation of RAF command saw the creation of Fighter Command, Bomber Command and Coastal Command. The Naval Air Branch was also de-merged and renamed the Fleet Air Arm under the control of the Royal Navy.

[edit] World War II (1939–1945)

Main article: British military history of World War II

The RAF underwent rapid expansion following the outbreak of war against Germany in 1939. This included the training of British aircrews in British Commonwealth countries under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, and the secondment of many whole squadrons, and tens of thousands of individual personnel, from Commonwealth air forces. For example, by the end of the war, the Royal Canadian Air Force personnel had contributed more than 30 squadrons to service with RAF formations; almost a quarter of Bomber Command's personnel were Canadian.[1]. Similarly, about nine per cent of the personnel who served with the RAF in Europe and the Mediterranean were seconded from the Royal Australian Air Force.[2] To these and other British Commonwealth peronnel were later added thousands of men from other countries, including many who had fled from German-occupied European countries.

Residential area of Hamburg after the 1943 RAF attack (Operation Gomorrah)

A defining period of the RAF's existence came during the Battle of Britain. Over the summer of 1940 the RAF held off the Luftwaffe in perhaps the most prolonged and complicated air campaign in history. This contributed immensely to the delay and cancellation of German plans for an invasion of England (Operation Sea Lion) and helped to turn the tide of World War II. Of these few hundred RAF fighter pilots, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said in the House of Commons on August 20, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".^[1]

The largest RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany. From May 31, 1942 RAF Bomber Command was able to mount large-scale night raids involving up to 1000 aircraft, many of which were the new heavy four-engined bombers. There exists considerable historical controversy about the ethics of such large firebombing attacks against German cities during the last few months of the war, such as the Bombing of Dresden (35,000 dead), the Bombing of Pforzheim (21,266 dead), the Bombing of Darmstadt (12,300 dead), the Bombing of Kassel (10,000 dead), the Bombing of Heilbronn (6500 dead) or the Bombing of Hamburg (45,000 dead) and other German cities. This is in contrast to the Luftwaffe attacks on British cities between 1939 and 1941 referred to as The Blitz (43,000 dead).

On 3 May 1945, in the last days of the war, three ships (Cap Arcona, Thielbek, and Deutschland) were sunk in the Bay of Lübeck, after four separate attacks by RAF planes. Around 7,000 civilians of many nations were killed, most of them concentration camp prisoners from the Neuengamme, Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dora camps. The British Government has sealed all documents pertaining to these attacks until 2045.[3]

[edit] Cold War (1945–1990)

After victory in World War II, the RAF was to be further re-organised, as technological advances in air warfare saw the arrival of jet fighters and bombers. After the British development of nuclear weapons, the RAF's V bomber squadrons took sole responsibility for carrying the UK's nuclear deterrent until the development of the Royal Navy's Polaris submarines. Following the introduction of Polaris in 1968 the RAF's strategic nuclear role was reduced to a tactical one, using the WE.177 gravity bombs. This tactical role was continued by the V bombers into the 1980s and until 1998 by Tornado GR1s.

The primary role of the RAF in the Cold War years was the defence of Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union. With the decline of the British Empire, global operations were scaled back, and RAF Far East Air Force was disbanded on October 31, 1971.

Royal Air Force Memorial
Great Britain

For RAF personnel killed in the two Great Wars
Unveiled	1923
Location	near Victoria Embankment, London, England
Designer	Sir Reginald Blomfield, William Reid Dick
I bare you on eagles wings and brought you unto myself (Exodus 19:4)

Despite this, the RAF fought in many battles in the Cold War period. The RAF played a minor role in the Korean War, with flying boats taking part. However, the Suez Crisis in 1956 saw a large RAF role, with aircraft mainly flying from Cyprus and Malta. The Konfrontasi against Indonesia in the early 1960s did see use of RAF aircraft, but due to a combination of deft diplomacy and selective ignoring of certain events by both sides, it never developed into a full scale war.

The Falklands War in 1982 was mainly fought by the Navy and Army due to the distance of the battlefield from friendly airfields. However RAF aircraft were deployed on Ascension Island and on board the Navy's aircraft carriers. The most high profile missions in this conflict were the famous Black Buck raids using Avro Vulcans flying from Ascension Island. However, the service did many other things during the conflict, with its helicopters in the Falklands themselves, its Harrier GR3s flying from HMS Hermes, its fighter aircraft protecting Ascension, maritime patrol aircraft scanning the South Atlantic, and tanker and transport fleet helping in the enormous logistical effort required for the war. Much of this, however, was done by the Fleet Air Arm.

[edit] 1990–present

In 1991 over 100 RAF aircraft took part in the Gulf War, in virtually every conceivable role. It marked an important turning point in the RAF's history as it was the first time the service had used precision-guided munitions in significant amounts. Later the Kosovo War in 1999 saw the RAF deployed in Europe for the first time since World War II. The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan saw the RAF provide support to the United States by the provision of tankers and reconnaissance aircraft and as bases.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq saw a large RAF deployment to the Gulf. The RAF also stage the base for 4 US B-52 Bombers which attacked Iraq almost very night. The only RAF losses were a friendly fire incident when an RAF Tornado jet was shot down by a US Patriot missile killing both pilot and Weapons Systems Operator due to the Patriot missile regonised the tornado as a Mig, and a Hercules transport plane shot down by ground fire killing the ten personnel on board just after take off from the US controlled airfield

Currently, as part of Operation Herrick, RAF Harriers are based at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, operating in the close air support role in operations against the Taliban.

[edit] References

Finn, C. J. et al (2004). Air Publication 3003 - A Brief History of the Royal Air Force. HMSO
Chant, Christopher (1993). The History of the RAF. Regency House Publishing. ISBN 1-85361-126-3
Bruce Barrymore Halpenny To Shatter the Sky: Bomber Airfield at War (ISBN 978-0850596786)
Bruce Barrymore Halpenny Fight for the Sky: Stories of Wartime Fighter Pilots (ISBN 978-0850597493)