Talk:History of the Royal Air Force

Inter-war naval air power point of view problems
The current paragraph is problematic and written from one point of view:


 * Unfortunately the creation of the RAF had a serious impact upon the development of naval airpower in Britain. The removal of personnel left the Royal Navy (RN) without the necessary experienced personnel to properly integrate airpower into its doctrine. It was only with the return of the RNAS in the form of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) to Admiralty control in 1939 that some of these problems were rectified. Worse, the RAF staff's fixation with strategic bombardment - an unproven theoretical concept which was adopted primarily to defend it's position vis-a-vis the other services - meant that the maritime dimension received little attention and equipment. This left the FAA and RN with substandard and unpowered aircraft too few in number to properly fight the World War. As the RN was the crucial component of Britain's defences, this had serious implications for her ability to fight the war.

The RAF's view at the time, chiefly led by Trenchard was that the "air is one and indivisible" and that it was part of the role of the RAF to operate the naval cooperation squadrons and develop naval airpower doctrine. The above paragraph fails to explicitly mention that the Fleet Air Arm was created and developed by the RAF and the importance of strategic bombing has been hotly debated and cannot be fairly summed up by the one-sided statement above. The statement that "the RN was the crucial component of Britain's defences" is certainly not generally accepted. Greenshed (talk) 20:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

That the FAA was developed by the RAF is irrelevant - that it was returned to the RN in 1939 points out that putting naval air in the RAF's hands caused it to have arrested development. Contrast this to the situation in Japan or even more the USA where navies owned their air services and the implications are obvious. The RAF - as Till shows - failed to give due attention to these very issues (naval co-operation and doctrine development) and 'dual control' led to failure. Trenchard's concept of undivisible air was purely an attempt to fight off Army and Navy attacks on his patrimony. This statement is supported by refereed material. Furthermore, to suggest that the RN was anything other than the crucial component of Britain's defences is misleading on several points. (i) recent research has shown that it was the Navy, not the RAF which deterred German invasion in 1940. (ii) Britain relied on imports of raw materials and manufactured goods to fight and win the war. Severing of these supplies by Axis naval units would have meant that Britain would have been unable to continue to prosecute the war - indeed her population would ultimately have starved as she could not feed herself, let alone supply sufficient oil etc. Thus the Battle of the Atlantic was the key campaign to maintain Britain as a fighting force. Whilst Coastal Command was in the hands of the RAF it should have been Naval - the reason it was not returned to the Navy along with the FAA is entirely political. It too was starved of the best aircraft before and during the war, and went to war with obsolescent aircraft. (iii) strategic bombardment failed both to deter the Germans for launching the war and failed to knock Britain out of it. Under far heavier bombardment in 1944-5 Germany fought on (it did not reach full potential until the H-bomb). Thus we can argue that strategic bombardment and defences against it were not crucial (although they were important) aspects of Britain's defences in the war. The same could be said of the Army. Both these services helped win the war but only the RN could have lost it, as was true in WWI where Jellicoe was the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddy1980 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps we can break this up into several points:
 * Please sign your comments with ~
 * This article is about the history of the RAF, such things as the detail of the performance of the FAA during WW2 are out of scope.
 * The purpose of this talk page is to work out how to improve the article.
 * Reliably sourced views that are critical of the RAF can be included but where there is no widespread agreement, then other reliably sourced views need to be included for balance.
 * The fact that the FAA was developed by the RAF is wholly relevant to an article on the history of the RAF.
 * It think that it worth contrasting your words "recent research has shown that it was the Navy, not the RAF which deterred German invasion in 1940" with the more balanced statement from the lead section of the Battle of Britain article ("Neither German Führer Adolf Hitler nor his High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) believed it possible to carry out a successful amphibious assault on Britain until the RAF had been neutralised. Some historians, such as Derek Robinson, have argued an invasion could not have succeeded; the massive superiority of the Royal Navy over the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) would have made Sealion a disaster and the Luftwaffe would have been unable to prevent decisive intervention by British cruisers and destroyers, even with air superiority.") The way to proceed should be independent of your view (or mine) on the relative merits of air forces and navies - we should aim to describe any debate, not to have it.

Greenshed (talk) 19:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - I accept your point of view generally, there is need for a recognition in this article that a debate exists about what impact the founding of the RAF had and why it was opposed. --Toddy1980 (talk) 16:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Smuts Report
The red link to the Smuts Report was recently removed. The Smuts Report (or possibly reports as I believe it was published in several documents) was historically important as it paved the way for the creation of the World's first independent air force. Although I have read a fair amount of analysis on the report, I have yet to get hold of a copy. Does anyone know a source? This reference might form the basis for starting the article. Greenshed (talk) 00:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Number of personnel
Any sources on numbers of RAF personnel during the first half of the 20th century would be useful. Greenshed (talk) 22:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Malayan Emergency
The current coverage on the Malayan Emergency is sparse and could stand some improvement. Any expert input would be welcome. Greenshed (talk) 05:51, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

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A statement in the WW2 history section
"The main RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany."

I do not fully understand the RAF war effort in WW2, and am not really qualified to make comment on this statement, but it seems to be very authoritative for something that is not sourced. From what I understood, the RAF served in multiple theatres. They fought over France prior to the surrender there. Over Britain against Luftwaffe raids. Over Italy, Greece, North Africa etc. This is a number of theatres, and while I understand that the casualties from strategic bombing, and the effect on Third Reich industry may have been significant, I wonder if this is perhaps not an encyclopedic thing to say in light of the successes of the RAF in aerial combat?--Senor Freebie (talk) 11:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Strategic bombing pre-WW2
This section gets just 1½ lines, despite the formation of Bomber Command in 1936, and the pre-war career of ‘Bomber’ Harris in 58 Squadron and later in Palestine, of which there is no mention. Valetude (talk) 19:13, 6 April 2020 (UTC)