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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1353.PDF
OYAL AIR From a watercoiour by J. C. S. White. The History of its Birth : an Account of its Work and that of its Parents, , "--". .. the R.F.C. and the R.N.A.S., in the Last War * - i By CAPTAIN NORMAN MACMILLAN, M.C., A.F.C. THE Royal Air Force was born in war. The year was1918. The day was the first of April. Contem-porary cynics of the parent Services—the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps—laid em- phasis on the date. The R.F.C. had a distinctive uniform. The Corps was proud of its uniform. There was something exceptionally neat about the khaki " maternity " jacket with its patrol collar and hidden buttons, clean-cut breeches, puttees or field boots, and field service cap. In fact, the uniform was better streamlined than the aeroplanes of the period. In the R.A.F. to-day it is the other way about. The R.N.A.S., on the other hand, felt that they were airmen sailors plucked from the sea and thrown among Army outcasts. Many\ of them weren't sailors at all, for they had gone direct into the R.N.A.S. after war began in 1914. But often enough the person on the fringe of things is the most enthusiastic. Anyhow, the R.N.A.S. hated being robbed cf their naval uniforms, loathed the idea that they could no longer tread the quarter-deck of one of H.M. ships with an affectionate air of possession. A new uniform was devised for the R.A.F.—in khaki, with rings around the sleeves like those of naval insignia of rank; the stars and crowns of the Army were abolished ; but Army ranks were retained and the R.A.F. began its history with Captains and Majors, Colonels and Generals of the same categories as the Army. The new peaked cap was cross-bred between those of the Navy and the Army. Maternity jacket and forage cap, naval uniform, and the assorted uniforms of Army officers seconded for service in the R.F.C. could still be worn, for it was wartime and regulations were relaxed ; as a war economy, too, men's uniforms were not replaced. The new uniform was slow to catch on. Very senior officers, of course, acquired R.A F. uniforms and were the objects of ribald remarks when they appeared at stations where the outfit was still in the nature of Exhibit "A." For a time the R.A.F. presented a strange appearance when on parade. When the R.A.F. was born its uniform was designed solely in Service Dress. Mess Kit and Full Dress were not required in wartime. They came later. And of all the Full Dress uniforms ever designed, surely that of the R.A.F. is the least becoming—giving its wearer (inappro- priately enough) the look of a trussed fowl which can neither fly nor run. It really ought to be redesigned when this present war is over. The distinctive R.A.F. ranks—from Aircraftman to Marshal of the Royal Air Force—also came after the 1914- 1918 war. The choice of some of the ranks seems a little unfortunate, for they fail in euphony, simplicity and mar- tial significance. It may be too late to change them now, but one hopes not. The new Service came as the successor to a distinguished line of short-lived precursors of naval and military avia- tion. But its cradle was really rocked by the great man of munitions, David Lloyd George, after he became Prime Minister. The R.A.F. was his solution to the equation, " Aeroplanes = Guns + Tanks." So long as the air services remained in the hands of the Departments responsible for military and naval activities, aeroplanes could be sacri- ficed by Admirals upon the altar of big guns and ships and by Generals upon the altar of guns and tanks. For there was a limit to the man power of Britain which was available for production, and more of one thing meant less of another. It was Lloyd George who appointed Lord Cowdray to be Chairman of the Second Air Board, which succeeded the First Air Board of Lord Curzon early in 1917. Of Lord Cowdray, Sir Sefton Brancker, who served on his Board, said : "He was the first British Minister to formu- late a definite national air policy apart from the adminis- tration of the R.N.A.S. and the R.F.C." And, con- currently, the whole of the aeronautical supply of both the Army and the Navy was turned over to the Ministry of Munitions, while a centralised design department derived from the technical branches of both the Army and Navy was placed directly under Lord Cowdray's Board. The Independent Air Force The new Air Board decided to create an Independent Air Force v/hose sole duties would be to attack German indus- trial centres. The creation of this force was to begin as soon as the supply of aeroplanes and pilots was sufficient to meet the requirements of the eighty-six squadrons then demanded by the Army in the Field. In October, 1917, Lieut.-Colonel Newall (now Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril Newall, Chief of the Air Staff) was sent to Ochey, in the neighbourhood of Nancy, to organise the 41st Wing of the R.F.C. This was the nucleus of the
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