Inter-War (1918-1939)

The Royal Air Force is the air force of the United Kingdom. more...

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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 was a division of the Royal Engineers, under the control of the British Army. The Royal Naval Air Service was its naval equivalent. 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 newly created RAF was the most powerful air force in the world on its creation, with over 20,000 aircraft.

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. The RAF 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.

World War II (1939–1945)

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 British 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. To these were later added thousands of personnel from other countries, including many who had fled from European countries conquered by the Germans.

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. (See also British military history of World War II.)

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).

Read more at Wikipedia.org