Charles Burnett ( RAF officer ) Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Stuart Burnett ( 3 April 1882 – 9 April 1945 ) was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force during the first half of the 20th century . He was Air Officer Commanding Iraq Command during the early 1930s . During the Second World War , he served as Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Australian Air Force . Early life . Charles Burnett was born in Browns Valley , Minnesota , USA on 3 April 1882 . He was the second son of John Alexander Burnett and Charlotte Susan Burnett . John Burnett was originally from the Scottish village of Kemnay in Aberdeenshire . Burnett was educated at Bedford School in England . His younger brother was Robert Burnett who was later knighted and rose to the rank of admiral . Early career . In 1899 , Burnett enlisted as a private in the Imperial Yeomanry in order to fight in the Second Boer War . Burnett claimed to be 18 when he was in fact only 17 . He was discharged in 1901 in order that he might take a commission and he was gazetted as a second lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry in October 1901 . Burnett was then attached to the Imperial Yeomanry for the next three years . He temporarily held the rank of lieutenant from 26 April 1902 to 7 February 1903 . On 20 August 1904 , Burnett was seconded to the West African Frontier Force . During the next five years Burnett saw action in Northern Nigeria , contracted blackwater fever , was promoted to lieutenant and was twice Mentioned in Despatches . Burnett resigned his commission in September 1909 and then entered business as a part - owner of a shop in Portuguese Guinea . He did not meet with particular success as a businessman and by 1911 was employed by the British diplomatic service as the assistant resident in Ilorin , Nigeria . First World War . With the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 , Burnett rejoined the British Army . After qualifying as a pilot in November 1914 , he was commissioned as a Lieutenant on 4 December 1914 . Burnett married Sybil Pack - Beresford just six days before his first posting as a Royal Flying Corps wing adjutant , which brought a temporary promotion to captain . In May 1915 , Burnett was posted as a flight commander on No . 17 Squadron where he flew BE2c from Gosport and then Egypt . He became a substantive captain on 1 October 1916 . On 2 April 1916 , Burnett was promoted to temporary major and appointed Officer Commanding of No . 36 Squadron , which was stationed in Cramlington . In October the same year Burnett was sent to the Western Front as Officer Commanding No . 12 Squadron . During his tour as Officer Commanding No . 12 Squadron , Burnett was once again mentioned in dispatches . With a promotion to temporary lieutenant - colonel on 8 October 1917 , Burnett was granted command of the Flying Corps ' Fifth Wing which was operating in Palestine . Following his wing ' s contribution to the British victory in the Battle of Jerusalem in December 1917 , Burnett was awarded the Distinguished Service Order . He was also awarded the Egypt ian Order of the Nile , Third Class , and in the 1919 King ' s Birthday Honours he was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in recognition of his wartime service in Egypt . Inter - war period . By the close of the war , Burnett had transferred to the newly formed Royal Air Force ( RAF ) and the next few years of his military career were to involve many changes of post . In 1919 , Burnett was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier - general and appointed ( again temporarily ) as General Officer Commanding the RAF ' s Palestine Brigade . Later the same year , he accepted the offer of a permanent commission in the RAF with the rank of wing commander . In April 1920 , Burnett was given command of the RAF ' s Mesopotamian Wing and when the wing was upgraded to a group , he worked as a staff officer at the group ' s HQ . From February to October 1921 , Burnett was a supernumerary , first at the HQ Middle East Area and then at No . 7 Group where he was sent pending his next posting . It was during this time that Burnett was promoted to Group Captain , although for some of the period he was on the half - pay list . Burnett took up command of No . 29 Group in October 1921 but this was a short - lived appointment . In April 1922 , Burnett was posted as station commander of RAF Leuchars which was a training base at that time . Once again Burnett did not spend long in post . By December 1922 , he was a supernumerary once more , this time at the RAF Depot . From 1923 - early 1927 , Burnett served as the Deputy Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Air Ministry . He was made a Companion of the Bath ( CB ) in the 1927 New Year Honours . Burnett was then posted as the Commandant of the Central Flying School where he served until January 1929 . Having just been promoted to air commodore , Burnett ' s next tour saw him return to Iraq as the Senior Air Staff Officer at the HQ of Iraq Command where he served for the next two years . In early 1931 , he returned to the UK and he was appointed to the double - hatted position of Deputy Chief of the Air Staff and Director of Operations and Intelligence . Burnett was promoted air vice - marshal the following July and he remained in post for a little under a year and a half . In November 1932 , Burnett returned to Iraq once more , this time as the Air Officer Commanding Iraq Command which placed him in charge of all British forces in Iraq . During his time in command Burnett was involved in the suppression of several tribal incursions near Kuwait and during one such occasion Burnett was wounded . Burnett returned to Great Britain at the start of 1935 to take up command of the RAF ' s Inland Area . At the start of 1936 , whilst Burnett was Air Officer Commanding Inland Area , he was promoted to air marshal and was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath ( KCB ) in the New Year Honours list . Later that year the RAF ' s command structure underwent a major reorganization . One of the changes was the redesignation of Inland Area as Training Command and Burnett became the command ' s first Air Officer Commander - in - Chief . The next three years placed great demands upon Burnett and his command ; as the threat from the German " Luftwaffe " increased , Training Command played a key role in the expansion of the RAF . In July 1939 , just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War , Burnett was appointed an additional Inspector - General of the RAF and in August he was a member of British military mission to the Soviet Union . Second World War . RAAF Chief of the Air Staff . Burnett continued in his role as Inspector - General of the RAF until 1940 when he was appointed Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Australian Air Force . Burnett ' s appointment to the senior post in the RAAF was not without controversy . Apart from the fact that by 1940 Burnett was due for retirement and his health was not at its best , the choice of a British officer over an Australian one caused open resentment in many quarters of the RAAF . The Australian prime minister , Robert Menzies , had decided that a British officer should head the RAAF , believing that Australian officers lacked the necessary experience . After discussions between the British and Australian governments , Burnett was selected and given an acting promotion to Air Chief Marshal , a rank he subsequently retained . The vexed question of Australia ' s role in the Empire Air Training Scheme ( EATS ) had led to the resignation of Air Vice Marshal Stanley Goble , the previous substantive RAAF Chief of the Air Staff . Unlike Goble and several other senior RAAF commanders , Burnett believed that his most important task was to implement EATS to the full and thereby increase Australia ' s ability to provide aircrew to the RAF . Under Burnett the RAAF expanded from a strength of 3 , 489 men just prior to the outbreak of war to 79 , 074 in May 1942 . Of the approximately 80 , 000 personnel in the RAAF when Burnett was replaced , 42 per cent were EATS personnel . Burnett also strove to increase the number of aircraft in the RAAF , although in this regard he was less successful than he was with increasing aircrew numbers . Under Burnett , RAAF units were placed in forward positions and priority was given to the aerial protection of Australian sea lanes . He also took a key role in the establishments of the Women ' s Auxiliary Australian Air Force ( WAAAF ) and RAAF health services , the latter having previously been provided by the Australian Army . Return to United Kingdom and death . From October 1941 , Burnett had a strained working relationship with Arthur Drakeford the Australian Labor Party ' s minister for air who had just then been appointed . Burnett and Drakeford frequently clashed and when in early 1942 Burnett proposed sweeping organizational changes , including the abolition of the RAAF ' s Air Board , a breaking point was reached . Additionally , it had been widely argued that Burnett ' s focus on the European theatre resulted in the RAAF lacking sufficient defensive strength and by 1942 the threat of invasion by Japan was growing . Burnett was replaced in May 1942 by an Australian , Air Vice - Marshal George Jones , who succeeded to the position despite Burnett ' s lobbying for his deputy , Air Vice Marshal William Bostock , to take over . Burnett retired from the RAF shortly after his return to Britain . However , in 1943 he worked full - time in the RAF ' s cadet organisation , the Air Training Corps , as the commandant of the ATC ' s Central Command . In this role , Burnett was responsible for ATC squadrons in Hertfordshire , Middlesex , Buckinghamshire , Oxfordshire , Berkshire and Bedfordshire . By 1945 Burnett remained as commandant but his health was declining and on 9 April 1945 he died of a coronary thrombosis at the Princess Mary Hospital at RAF Halton . Charles Burnett was survived by his wife and four daughters . References .