Hugh Trenchard, the father of the RAF and the fledgling service’s first Marshal, was a long-serving but reserved and divisive figure. Historian Peter Hart, however, asks if the frequent assessment of him as one of the metaphoric ‘donkeys’ of the Great War might be a fair calculation.
The Father of the RAF
REPUTATIONS
Marshal of the Royal Air Force
ugh Trenchard
has aroused much
controversy over
the aggressive tactics
he pursued during his period
Hugh Trenchard has Commander of the Royal Flying Corps in France from 1915-1918. He is often depicted as an intransigent boor of a man, sending his men flying over the lines time and time again, often in near-obsolescent aircraft, when more flexible tactics could have reduced the butcher’s bill. As such, he has become a lightning conductor for angst over the losses suffered in the Great War - much as Arthur Harris is blamed for the painful bomber offensive over Germany in the Second World War. He is often bracketed with Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig as the epitome of the ‘stupid’ general – his men as ‘lions led by a donkey’. This is wholly and totally unfair: there were good reasons for the tactics he employed.
Born on 3 February 1873, Trenchard managed with some di…
