CHURCHILL’S GREATEST TRIUMPH: BOMBER COMMAND
Winston Churchill was involved from the beginning. During the First World War, Prime Minister David Lloyd George appointed Churchill Minister of Munitions in July 1917. Churchill was exceptionally effective. His many responsibilities included overseeing the supply of the new Royal Air Force following its creation on 1 April 1918. By 1919, Churchill was both Secretary of State for War and Air. He concocted with Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard (the “Father of the RAF”) “methods of using bombers to control large areas of sparsely populated territory” through “force substitution.”2 This was important, because the two men viewed air power as possessing both offensive and defensive capabilities. This belief was used to overcome pressure from the British Army and Royal Navy to disband the RAF as a separate service. The United States had no Churchill-Trenchard equivalent at the end of the First World War, and so America’s Army and Navy succeeded in preventing the creation of a separate US Air Force until 1947. Churchill’s enthusiasm made the RAF for many years the largest air force in the world. Further, his encouragement of the British air construction industry helped save Britain in the Second World War.
“The real cause of Germany’s defeat was the failure of the German Air Force.”—Hitler1
Churchill’s View of Bomber Command
With anyone but Churchill as Prime Minister in May 1940, Britain would most likely have negotiated peace with Hitler. Additionally, without Churchill, Bomber Command would most likely have been sidelined early A myth has arisen about “The Few,” which needs to be dispelled. Churchill’s immortal words praising “The Few” refer not just to Fighter Command. They refer to all RAF airmen. Here are the three sentences Churchill spoke in Parliament on 20 August 1940:
