page_title: Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard
section_title: Establishing the RAF and the struggle for survival
hierarchical_section_title: Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard / Between the wars / Chief of the Air Staff (2nd appointment) / Establishing the RAF and the struggle for survival
caption_attribution_description: English: Major-General Sir Hugh Trenchard as Chief of the Air Staff
context_page_description: Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Montague Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was a British officer who was instrumental in establishing the Royal Air Force. He has been described as the "Father of the Royal Air Force."
  During his formative years, Trenchard struggled academically, failing many examinations and only just succeeding in meeting the minimum standard for commissioned service in the British Army. As a young infantry officer, Trenchard served in India and with the outbreak of the Boer War, he volunteered for service in South Africa. While fighting the Boers, Trenchard was critically wounded and as a result of his injury, he lost a lung, was partially paralysed and returned to Great Britain. On medical advice, Trenchard travelled to Switzerland to recuperate and boredom saw him taking up bobsleighing. After a heavy crash, Trenchard found that his paralysis was gone and that he could walk unaided. Following further recuperation, Trenchard returned to active service in South Africa.
context_section_description: During the summer of 1919 he worked on completing the demobilization of the R.A.F. and establishing it on a peacetime basis. This was a sizable task as the force was budgeted to shrink from 280 squadrons to around 28. It was also during this time that the new RAF officer ranks were decided upon, despite some opposition from members of the Army Council. Trenchard himself was regraded from Major-General to Air Vice-Marshal, and then promoted to Air Marshal a few days later.
  By the autumn of 1919 the budgetary effects of Lloyd George's Ten Year Rule were causing Trenchard some difficulty as he sought to develop the institutions of the R.A.F. He had to argue against the view that the Army and Navy should provide all the support services and education, leaving the R.A.F. only to provide flying training. He viewed this idea as a precursor to the break-up of the R.A.F., and in spite of the costs, he wanted its own institutions which would develop airmanship and engender the air spirit. Having convinced Churchill of his case, he oversaw the founding of the RAF (Cadet) College at Cranwell as the world's first military air academy. In 1920 he inaugurated the Aircraft Apprentice system, which provided the R.A.F. with highly technically trained specialist ground-crews for the next 70 years. In 1922 the RAF Staff College at Andover was established to provide air force specific training to the R.A.F.'s middle-ranking officers.
  Late 1919 saw Trenchard created a baronet and granted £10,000 for his war services. Although he had attained a measure of financial security, the future of the R.A.F, was far from assured. He judged that the chief threat to the new service came from the new First Sea Lord, Admiral Beatty. Looking to take the initiative, Trenchard arranged to see Beatty, meeting with him in early December, Trenchard, arguing that the "air is one and indivisible", put forward a case for an air force with its own strategic role which also controlled army and navy co-operation squadrons. Beatty did not accept Trenchard's argument and Trenchard resorted to asking for a 12 months amnesty to put his plans into action. The request appealed to Beatty's sense of fair play, and he agreed to let Trenchard be until the end of 1920. Around this time Trenchard indicated to Beatty that control over some supporting elements of naval aviation (but not aircrew or aircraft) might be returned to the Admiralty. Trenchard also offered Beatty the option of locating the Air Ministry staff who worked in connection with naval aviation at the Admiralty. Beatty declined the offer and later, when no transfer of any naval aviation assets occurred, came to the view that Trenchard had acted in bad faith.
  During the early 1920s, the continued independent existence of the R.A.F. and its control of naval aviation were subject to a series of Government reviews. The Balfour Report of 1921, the Geddes Axe of 1922, and the Salisbury Committee of 1923 all found in favour of the R.A.F. continued existence, despite lobbying from the Admiralty and opposition in Parliament. On each occasion Trenchard and his staff officers, supported by Christopher Bullock, worked to show that the R.A.F. provided good value for money, and was required for the long-term strategic security of the United Kingdom.
  Trenchard also sought to secure the R.A.F.'s future by finding a war-fighting role for the new Service. In 1920 he successfully argued that it should take the lead during the 1920 conflict between British forces and Somaliland dervishes.  The success of this small air action then allowed him to put the case for the R.A.F.'s air policing of the vast distances of the British Empire. Trenchard particularly argued for it to take the lead in Iraq at the Cairo Conference of 1921, and in 1922 the RAF was given control of all British Forces in Iraq. The R.A.F. also carried out imperial air policing over India's North-West Frontier Province. In early 1920 he suggested that it could even be used to violently suppress if necessary "industrial disturbances, or risings" in the United Kingdom itse
caption: Trenchard as Chief of the Air Staff in June 1919
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