Hugh Trenchard

Hugh Montague Trenchard (1873–1956) was a British military officer who helped establish the Royal Air Force and became its first chief of the air staff.

Frederick Sykes: A British military officer who led the Royal Flying Corps and later served as chief of the air staff. Sykes preceded Trenchard as commander of the Royal Flying Corps and briefly as chief of the air staff.
Independent air force: An air service organized separately from an army and navy, with its own command and resources. Trenchard argued that aviation needed an autonomous service rather than subordination to land or sea forces.
Royal Flying Corps: The British Army’s air arm, established in 1912 and merged with the Royal Naval Air Service in 1918. Trenchard commanded the RFC in France during much of the First World War before the RAF replaced it.
Air policing: The use of aircraft to monitor and enforce state control over territory, often in colonial settings. Trenchard promoted RAF air control as a cheaper alternative to deploying large ground forces in parts of the British Empire.
David Henderson: A British Army officer who helped organize the Royal Flying Corps and led its military wing in the First World War. Henderson advocated a separate air service and helped prepare the institutional ground Trenchard inherited.
Strategic bombing: The use of air power to attack an enemy’s war-making capacity, infrastructure, or morale beyond the battlefield. Trenchard strongly supported offensive bombing as a means of weakening an enemy’s ability and will to fight.
Royal Naval Air Service: The British naval aviation service that operated independently until it merged into the Royal Air Force in 1918. Its merger with the RFC created the service Trenchard helped lead and shape.
Bombing of Iraq (1920): British air and ground operations used to suppress the 1920 Iraqi revolt against British rule. The campaign became an early test of RAF air control under the postwar policy Trenchard championed.
Winston Churchill: A British statesman who served as prime minister during the Second World War and held several earlier ministerial offices. As air minister in 1919, Churchill oversaw the settlement that made the RAF a permanent service.
Air superiority: A degree of control in the air that allows friendly operations without prohibitive interference by enemy aircraft. Trenchard’s offensive approach depended on contesting control of the air over the battlefield.

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