Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force

4. The Struggle for the RAF and the Roots of American Airpower

65 4 The Struggle for the rAF and the roots of American Airpower The stories of the royal Air Force and the u.S. Air Force are inextricable from one another. This and the next chapter weave these stories together, highlighting how in each service the quest for independence drove theorization of strategic bombing, and how strategic bombing theory provided the foundation for independence. Space does not allow a full detailed history of either the British or the American airpower experience. excellent works already exist on the air services of both nations, and this book does not seek to compete with the best work that historians have to offer. The institutional histories of the rAF and the uSAF offered here are episodic accounts of how organizational interest and organizational culture have affected, and in some sense afflicted, war fighting in the united Kingdom and the united States. episodes and campaigns appear based on the roles that they played in institution building and in the development of strategic bombing theory. The analysis in these chapters is motivated by the three Clausewitzian problems with airpower identified earlier. To recap, these include the tendencies of airpower theorists and practitioners to (1) reject the need for disarming the enemy as a means of military victory; (2) detach military issues from political context; and (3) reject the idea that the “fog of war” creates uncertainties that cannot effectively be remedied. The episodes and campaigns discussed work through illustrative examples of these tendencies as well as examine how the institutional battles that led to air force independence in each country helped generate these problems. In particular, these chapters will consistently revisit the contrast between 66 Grounded strategic and tactical airpower, which sits at the crux of most debates over the promise and limitations of airpower. Airpower in Great Britain: The Founding of the World’s First Independent Air Force In July 2011, Minister of defence Liam Fox spoke to a crowd of defense analysts at ruSI, the royal united Services Institute: “From its very establishment as an independent service in 1918, the rAF has recognised that despite standing alone as a profession, the utility of air power rests in achieving effect not only in the air, but integrating into other domains and contributing decisive effect to campaigns on the land and the sea. The concept of joint operations is in the very dnA of the rAF.” While the minister’s comments were understandable in context, participants in the birth of the rAF might remember the event in considerably more fractious terms.1 Indeed, the early history of the rAF was characterized by bitter, vitriolic bureaucratic infighting between the new air force and the other two services. This infighting affected the course of the Second World War and continues to resonate today. The rAF’s position as the world’s first air force makes its story uniquely useful for the study of how and why air forces come into existence. Advocates and opponents of independence alike often invoke the experience of the rAF in arguing their cases. The arguments made by proponents and opponents of the rAF are readily available and refreshingly direct. Most important for this study, the debate over the rAF directly prefigured the debate over the uSAF. Prehistory of the RAF The royal Flying Corps (rFC) of the united Kingdom was created in April 1912 and spent its prewar existence mainly as a recreational society for flying enthusiasts.2 Initially the corps included both army and navy elements, although the navy separated its fliers into the royal naval Air Service (rnAS) in July 1914.3 Two thousand strong at the beginning of World War I, the rFC expanded dramatically as it undertook the responsibility of serving the needs of the British Army in France. These needs included, most notably, reconnaissance, but also some primitive air su- The Struggle for the rAF and the roots of American Airpower 67 periority and close air support missions. The number of aircraft, aviators, and missions increased dramatically over the course of the war, however. By the middle of the war, fleets of biplanes fought each other over every battle on the Western Front, also making appearances in the other theaters of action.4 By 1918 the rFC and the rnAS had expanded almost a hundredfold from their prewar sizes. The sophistication, endurance, and reliability of available aircraft had also increased immensely. However, the expansion of aviation...