Churchill blocked Stalin plan to merge RAF with US and Soviet air forces
JOSEPH STALIN, the Soviet dictator, proposed to merge the RAF with the air forces of the United States and the Soviet Union before the idea was rejected by Winston Churchill.
Stalin put forward a vision to create an “International Air Corps” that would maintain world peace after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
However, declassified UK Government papers have revealed that the plan was scuppered by the personal intervention of Winston Churchill, partly over fears that Moscow could gain access to British aviation technology.
The Soviet proposal was put forward at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, held between August and October 1944 in Washington DC, which was attended by delegations from the UK, USA and USSR to discuss the framework of the United Nations, which was formed after the Second World War to maintain international peace.
A Cabinet report on the Soviet proposal stated: “At Dumbarton Oaks the Soviet representatives argued that a force placed under the immediate control of the [UN] Security Council could be brought more rapidly into action than would be the case if orders of the Security Council were implemented by national governments” and that this tri-national International Air Corps could carry out “swift and powerful action” which would act as a deterrent to would-be aggressors.
“The principal function of the International Air Corps will be to take immediate and independent air action.
“Action by the IAC would range from demonstration flights or leaflet dropping to heavy bombing attack,” the report explained.
The paper also argued that such a force would foster closer Anglo-soviet co-operation, enabling “personnel of national contingents to work together, overcome language difficulties, learn each other’s technical and tactical methods and establish ‘esprit de corps’ based on common purpose of preserving world peace.”
However, Britain’s military chiefs were concerned about security implications, concerns shared by Churchill. Minutes of a Cabinet meeting revealed that he believed “a purely international force would give rise to grave difficulties, particularly as regards security” as it would be “impossible to preserve secrecy regarding new equipment.”
Churchill’s opposition prompted the Foreign Office to send a telegram to the British delegation, ordering them to “go slow on this matter. He [Churchill] has ruled that the matter raises very large questions of principle and cannot be decided on purely military grounds”.