I.

Introduction

Royal Air Force (RAF), military air force of the United Kingdom. The Royal Air Force (RAF) is responsible for the protection of the United Kingdom and its dependent territories, and for the deterrence of external threats. Part of its role is to help promote international peace and security. It provides the means to establish air power over land battlefields and maintains an offensive and reconnaissance (preliminary military survey) capability. The RAF is controlled by the Air Staff under the Secretary of State for Defence. It is divided into Strike Command, Personnel and Training Command, and Logistics Command. At the end of World War II the total number of RAF personnel stood at around 1,115,000. This level has now been reduced to about 54,000.

II.

World War I and the Inter-War Period

The RAF came into being on April 1, 1918 following the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. While this had little effect on day-to-day operations, the latter months of World War I saw the formation of the RAF's Independent Force, a strategic wing set up to attack German industrial targets. In the inter-war period the RAF contracted dramatically from its wartime position of strength and was reorganized into 11 commands: 5 at home, and 6 overseas. At home the RAF was responsible for the air defence of Great Britain, coastal protection, cooperation with the Royal Navy, and training. It also developed long-range flights, thereby pioneering air routes which were to be exploited commercially and which would eventually link the British Empire. It also became involved in policing actions (known as Air Control), which were conducted on the north-western frontier of British India, Transjordan, Iraq, and the Sudan. In 1929 the RAF performed the first air evacuation of civilians, when 586 people were rescued from the besieged city of Kabul in Afghanistan.

During this period RAF officers became known for their flying achievement record. John William Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown flew non-stop across the Atlantic in 1919; RAF aircraft broke records for duration flying to distant places such as Australia and South Africa, and an RAF team won the Schneider Trophy seaplane air race outright in 1931. The RAF began belatedly to modernize, and by the time of the Munich Crisis of September 1938, the biplane, on which the RAF hitherto relied, had been replaced by the first examples of a new breed of monoplane fighters—the Hurricane and Spitfire.

III.

World War II

During World War II the RAF played a vital tactical role and was in combat from the first day of the war to the last. At the beginning of the war it had 2,000 aircraft. Initially, the Advanced Air Striking Force was posted to France and suffered heavy losses—especially of its obsolete aeroplane, the Fairey Battle—when the Germans attacked the Low Countries and France in June 1940. Following the surrender of France and the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk, the defence of the British Isles rested with RAF Fighter Command. The ensuing Battle of Britain brought about the defeat of the Luftwaffe and a much-needed respite from the threat of invasion allowed a period of recovery for Britain's forces.

In 1941 the emphasis moved to offensive operations; these included the first major raids by Bomber Command on German industrial and civilian targets by night, and fighter and light-bomber attacks on the mainland of occupied France. In May 1943, 617 Squadron, under the command of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, delivered the newly developed “bouncing bomb”, invented by Barnes Wallis, against three of Germany's dams in the Ruhr, thereby flooding vital industrial areas. In North Africa, the Western Desert Air Force came into being as a tactical arm to work with the armies in the field. So successful was this arm of the RAF that when the time came to develop plans for the D-Day invasion of northern France, a 2nd Tactical Air Force (2TAF) was formed to operate in support of the allied armies. Operating in the latter half of 1943, 2TAF attacked enemy communications, coastal defences, and troop concentrations. Mosquito aircraft also attacked pin-point targets, including the Gestapo jail at Amiens on February 8, 1944 in order to free French Resistance workers, and the launch sites of the German V-1 rocket. Once the Allied invasion of northern Europe was under way, the rocket-firing Hawker Typhoon performed as flying artillery against the armoured units of the Axis powers. In the theatre of war in East Asia, the Japanese Air Force was regarded as a formidable threat following its attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. However, the balance was redressed with the adoption of new methods of fighting in this theatre, particularly in using RAF aircraft to re-supply ground troops from the air, and to re-equip with modern aircraft, greatly helped the Burma campaign to succeed, as did the formation of the 3rd Tactical Air Force (3 TAF). At the end of the war bomber crews were used to make food drops to the starving population of the Netherlands, and, for repatriating newly liberated prisoners of war.

IV.

Post-War Development

In the post-war period, Britain's defence forces became part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In the last months of the war the piston engine was replaced by the jet and the RAF brought its first jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor, into service. The first jet-powered bomber, the Canberra, was introduced in May 1951.

In the 1950s and early 1960s the RAF was engaged in anti-insurgent conflicts related to Britain's withdrawal from the empire, notably in Malaya, Aden, Borneo, and also the abortive Anglo-French operation in Suez following the seizure of the Suez Canal by Egypt in 1956. Bomber Command was given the task of carrying the nation's airborne nuclear deterrent and the V-Force came into being as the means to deliver the United Kingdom's nuclear arsenal. Fighter Command reverted to being a defensive force, but with the capability to act as a strike force if necessary. The V-Force was equipped with fast jet-bombers: the Vickers Valiant, the Handley Page Victor, and the Avro Vulcan. The Royal Navy assumed the strategic nuclear role when the Polaris submarine came into service in 1969. Bomber Command and Fighter Command combined to form Strike Command in 1968.

V.

The RAF Today

The RAF continues to play a key role in contemporary conflicts. During the Falklands War, RAF Harriers operated with those carried by the Royal Navy on aircraft carriers, and Vulcans flew from the forward base at Ascension Island to bomb the airfield at Stanley. In the Gulf War RAF bombers and fighters supported the coalition forces, in disabling Iraq's command and control centres and maintaining air superiority. With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Cold War, however, the role of the RAF has changed dramatically. It has provided close air support to assist humanitarian aid for the United Nations' efforts in the former Yugoslavia, and within the framework of NATO played a significant role in both the Rapid Reaction Force in Bosnia and the air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo crisis. In 2003 it repeated its role from the Gulf War when it provided invaluable support to the US-led invasion of Iraq that was designed to both disarm that nation and depose the regime of Saddam Hussein (see War on Iraq). During its short history, the highest British honour for bravery, the Victoria Cross, has been awarded to 51 members of the RAF—out of which 32 were awarded during World War II. The present-day RAF has 42 squadrons, including 6 nuclear-capable squadrons, flying Tornado bomber aircraft; 6 fighter squadrons flying Tornado F-3 fighter aircraft; and 5 ground attack aircraft squadrons.