The Birth of the RAF, 1918
by Richard Overy Allen Lane, 160 pages, £14.99
The Royal Air Force celebrates its 100th birthday in April. As Richard Overy explains, it was born out of the perceived failures of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in the previous three years of the war. In 1914 the British air services were tiny, and there was little idea of how aeroplanes could be used in modern warfare. RFC and RNAS squadrons were largely used in support of the army in reconnaissance work over enemy lines or in the vital role of spotting artillery – that is, ensuring that the guns were hitting their targets.
However, neither service could defend British cities against German raids, which, although they did not do very much physical damage, traumatised city dwellers and led to searching questions from newspapers and politicians. In practice, as Overy points out, with the technology available at the time, there was little aircraft could effectively do to combat the Zeppelins and Gotha aircraft. Less publicly known was the vicious behind-the-scenes infighting between the War Office and the Admiralty over who should control the air services, wasting precious resources in men and materials. Divisions between the departments nearly saw the abolition of the RAF in the years after the Armistice, and really only ended with the transfer of the Fleet Air Arm to the Royal Navy in mid-1939.
This book describes the circumstances behind the establishment of the RAF and how it fought to retain its independence in the intermediate post-war period. It is written by one of Britain’s finest modern historians. However, it is not a history of the war in the air, nor of the men and women who served with the RAF and its predecessors.