RAF kills post-World War II was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 31 March 2010 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into History of the Royal Air Force. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
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This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
The current paragraph is problematic and written from one point of view:
The RAF's view at the time, chiefly led by Trenchard was that the "air is one and indivisible" and that it was part of the role of the RAF to operate the naval cooperation squadrons and develop naval airpower doctrine. The above paragraph fails to explicitly mention that the Fleet Air Arm was created and developed by the RAF and the importance of strategic bombing has been hotly debated and cannot be fairly summed up by the one-sided statement above. The statement that "the RN was the crucial component of Britain's defences" is certainly not generally accepted. Greenshed ( talk) 20:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
That the FAA was developed by the RAF is irrelevant - that it was returned to the RN in 1939 points out that putting naval air in the RAF's hands caused it to have arrested development. Contrast this to the situation in Japan or even more the USA where navies owned their air services and the implications are obvious. The RAF - as Till shows - failed to give due attention to these very issues (naval co-operation and doctrine development) and 'dual control' led to failure. Trenchard's concept of undivisible air was purely an attempt to fight off Army and Navy attacks on his patrimony. This statement is supported by refereed material. Furthermore, to suggest that the RN was anything other than the crucial component of Britain's defences is misleading on several points. (i) recent research has shown that it was the Navy, not the RAF which deterred German invasion in 1940. (ii) Britain relied on imports of raw materials and manufactured goods to fight and win the war. Severing of these supplies by Axis naval units would have meant that Britain would have been unable to continue to prosecute the war - indeed her population would ultimately have starved as she could not feed herself, let alone supply sufficient oil etc. Thus the Battle of the Atlantic was the key campaign to maintain Britain as a fighting force. Whilst Coastal Command was in the hands of the RAF it should have been Naval - the reason it was not returned to the Navy along with the FAA is entirely political. It too was starved of the best aircraft before and during the war, and went to war with obsolescent aircraft. (iii) strategic bombardment failed both to deter the Germans for launching the war and failed to knock Britain out of it. Under far heavier bombardment in 1944-5 Germany fought on (it did not reach full potential until the H-bomb). Thus we can argue that strategic bombardment and defences against it were not crucial (although they were important) aspects of Britain's defences in the war. The same could be said of the Army. Both these services helped win the war but only the RN could have lost it, as was true in WWI where Jellicoe was the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddy1980 ( talk • contribs) 21:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Greenshed ( talk) 19:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - I accept your point of view generally, there is need for a recognition in this article that a debate exists about what impact the founding of the RAF had and why it was opposed. -- Toddy1980 ( talk) 16:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
The red link to the Smuts Report was recently removed. The Smuts Report (or possibly reports as I believe it was published in several documents) was historically important as it paved the way for the creation of the World's first independent air force. Although I have read a fair amount of analysis on the report, I have yet to get hold of a copy. Does anyone know a source? This reference might form the basis for starting the article. Greenshed ( talk) 00:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Any sources on numbers of RAF personnel during the first half of the 20th century would be useful. Greenshed ( talk) 22:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
The current coverage on the Malayan Emergency is sparse and could stand some improvement. Any expert input would be welcome. Greenshed ( talk) 05:51, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
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"The main RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany."
I do not fully understand the RAF war effort in WW2, and am not really qualified to make comment on this statement, but it seems to be very authoritative for something that is not sourced. From what I understood, the RAF served in multiple theatres. They fought over France prior to the surrender there. Over Britain against Luftwaffe raids. Over Italy, Greece, North Africa etc. This is a number of theatres, and while I understand that the casualties from strategic bombing, and the effect on Third Reich industry may have been significant, I wonder if this is perhaps not an encyclopedic thing to say in light of the successes of the RAF in aerial combat?-- Senor Freebie ( talk) 11:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
This section gets just 1½ lines, despite the formation of Bomber Command in 1936, and the pre-war career of ‘Bomber’ Harris in 58 Squadron and later in Palestine, of which there is no mention. Valetude ( talk) 19:13, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
RAF kills post-World War II was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 31 March 2010 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into History of the Royal Air Force. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
History of the Royal Air Force article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
The current paragraph is problematic and written from one point of view:
The RAF's view at the time, chiefly led by Trenchard was that the "air is one and indivisible" and that it was part of the role of the RAF to operate the naval cooperation squadrons and develop naval airpower doctrine. The above paragraph fails to explicitly mention that the Fleet Air Arm was created and developed by the RAF and the importance of strategic bombing has been hotly debated and cannot be fairly summed up by the one-sided statement above. The statement that "the RN was the crucial component of Britain's defences" is certainly not generally accepted. Greenshed ( talk) 20:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
That the FAA was developed by the RAF is irrelevant - that it was returned to the RN in 1939 points out that putting naval air in the RAF's hands caused it to have arrested development. Contrast this to the situation in Japan or even more the USA where navies owned their air services and the implications are obvious. The RAF - as Till shows - failed to give due attention to these very issues (naval co-operation and doctrine development) and 'dual control' led to failure. Trenchard's concept of undivisible air was purely an attempt to fight off Army and Navy attacks on his patrimony. This statement is supported by refereed material. Furthermore, to suggest that the RN was anything other than the crucial component of Britain's defences is misleading on several points. (i) recent research has shown that it was the Navy, not the RAF which deterred German invasion in 1940. (ii) Britain relied on imports of raw materials and manufactured goods to fight and win the war. Severing of these supplies by Axis naval units would have meant that Britain would have been unable to continue to prosecute the war - indeed her population would ultimately have starved as she could not feed herself, let alone supply sufficient oil etc. Thus the Battle of the Atlantic was the key campaign to maintain Britain as a fighting force. Whilst Coastal Command was in the hands of the RAF it should have been Naval - the reason it was not returned to the Navy along with the FAA is entirely political. It too was starved of the best aircraft before and during the war, and went to war with obsolescent aircraft. (iii) strategic bombardment failed both to deter the Germans for launching the war and failed to knock Britain out of it. Under far heavier bombardment in 1944-5 Germany fought on (it did not reach full potential until the H-bomb). Thus we can argue that strategic bombardment and defences against it were not crucial (although they were important) aspects of Britain's defences in the war. The same could be said of the Army. Both these services helped win the war but only the RN could have lost it, as was true in WWI where Jellicoe was the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddy1980 ( talk • contribs) 21:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Greenshed ( talk) 19:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - I accept your point of view generally, there is need for a recognition in this article that a debate exists about what impact the founding of the RAF had and why it was opposed. -- Toddy1980 ( talk) 16:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
The red link to the Smuts Report was recently removed. The Smuts Report (or possibly reports as I believe it was published in several documents) was historically important as it paved the way for the creation of the World's first independent air force. Although I have read a fair amount of analysis on the report, I have yet to get hold of a copy. Does anyone know a source? This reference might form the basis for starting the article. Greenshed ( talk) 00:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Any sources on numbers of RAF personnel during the first half of the 20th century would be useful. Greenshed ( talk) 22:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
The current coverage on the Malayan Emergency is sparse and could stand some improvement. Any expert input would be welcome. Greenshed ( talk) 05:51, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on History of the Royal Air Force. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 00:22, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 9 external links on History of the Royal Air Force. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 08:54, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
"The main RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany."
I do not fully understand the RAF war effort in WW2, and am not really qualified to make comment on this statement, but it seems to be very authoritative for something that is not sourced. From what I understood, the RAF served in multiple theatres. They fought over France prior to the surrender there. Over Britain against Luftwaffe raids. Over Italy, Greece, North Africa etc. This is a number of theatres, and while I understand that the casualties from strategic bombing, and the effect on Third Reich industry may have been significant, I wonder if this is perhaps not an encyclopedic thing to say in light of the successes of the RAF in aerial combat?-- Senor Freebie ( talk) 11:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
This section gets just 1½ lines, despite the formation of Bomber Command in 1936, and the pre-war career of ‘Bomber’ Harris in 58 Squadron and later in Palestine, of which there is no mention. Valetude ( talk) 19:13, 6 April 2020 (UTC)