Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard

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Hugh Montague Trenchard
3 February 1873 – 10 February 1956
Image:Sir Hugh Trenchard (cropped).jpg Trenchard in RAF full dress
Nickname	Boom
Place of birth	Taunton, England
Place of death	London, England
Allegiance	Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom
Service/branch	Image:Ensign of the Royal Air Force.svg Royal Air Force
Years of service	1893 – 1 January 1930
Rank	Marshal of the Royal Air Force
Battles/wars	South African War, World War I
Awards	GCB OM GCVO DSO
Other work	Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Montague Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard GCB OM GCVO DSO (3 February 1873 - 10 February 1956) was the British Chief of the Air Staff during World War I, and was instrumental in establishing the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Trenchard Aircraft Apprentice scheme. He is recognized today as one of the first advocates of military strategic bombing. He has been described as the Father of the Royal Air Force.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Early military career 3 Flying school and World War I 4 Between the wars 5 Later years 6 Legacy 7 References 8 Notes 9 External links

[edit] Early life

Hugh Montague Trenchard was born at Windsor Lodge in Taunton, England on 3 February, 1873. He was the third child and second son of Henry Montague Trenchard and his wife Georgina Louisa Catherine Tower. Georgina Tower was the daughter of the Royal Navy captain John McDowall Skene.

As a boy, Trenchard did not excel academically; his enthusiasm for games and riding were however evident. When Trenchard was 16 years old his father, who was a solicitor, was declared bankrupt. The young Trenchard then depended upon the charity of his relatives for the remainder of his education.^[1]

[edit] Early military career

Trenchard was notoriously bad at passing exams and was turned away from Dartmouth Naval College (Royal Navy) and Woolwich Academy (Army). Trenchard only succeeded on entering the Army after scraping a pass on his third attempt at passing the entrance exams. However, in 1893 at the age of twenty, he was commissioned into the Royal Scots Fusiliers and served in the South African War where he was found to be an excellent horseman. A gunshot wound received in action in October 1900 punctured his lung and grazed his spine resulting in Trenchard being invalided home where he could only walk with the aid of sticks.

During the winter of 1900, Trenchard embarked on a convalescent trip to St Moritz in Switzerland where the air was hoped to be beneficial to his lungs. Boredom saw him take up bobsleighing and during a heavy crash from the Cresta Run his spine was jolted back into line, enabling him to walk freely once more. Subsequently Trenchard returned to South Africa in May 1901. Post Boer War, Trenchard saw service in Nigeria as second in command of the South Nigeria Regiment. His service here saw him appointed to the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1906.

[edit] Flying school and World War I

In 1913 he learned to fly at Thomas Sopwith's flying school at Brooklands. At age 39 he was just short of 40, the maximum age for military student pilots. According to his instructor, "he would never have made a good pilot" but "he was a model pupil." After passing his course (which cost £75 and involved a meagre two-and-a-half weeks tuition and a grand total of 64 minutes in the air), he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) as second in command of the Central Flying School. It was here that Trenchard earned his nickname "Boom" Trenchard, for his distinctly loud speaking voice. In November 1914, Trenchard was sent to France to command the newly formed First Wing. This consisted of Nos 2 and 3 Squadrons and flew in support of the Fourth Army Corps and the Indian Corps. The next year on 25 August 1915, Trenchard was appointed Officer Commanding the RFC in the Field (this appointment is sometimes described as Officer Commanding the RFC in France as "the Field" was effectively France).

In August 1917 he agreed to return to Britain and re-organise training with Robert Smith-Barry at a new school at Gosport. The curriculum combined classroom training and dual flight instruction. Students were not led away from potentially dangerous manoeuvres but deliberately exposed to them in controlled environments so they could learn to recover from errors of judgement.

The Air Council was formed in January 1918, and Trenchard became Chief of the Air Staff. He helped establish the RAF in April 1918 when the RFC was merged with the Royal Naval Air Service, but he resigned two weeks before its inauguration after a quarrel with the Air Secretary, Lord Rothermere.

Returning to active duty, Major-General Trenchard began in June 1918 to organize intensive strategic bombing attacks on German railways, airfields and industrial centres. These attacks used the RAF's 55 and 100 squadrons as part of the Independent Air Force based near Nancy, France, and continued until the end of the war.

[edit] Between the wars

Trenchard returned as Chief of the Air Staff in 1919 under Winston Churchill, and remained until retiring in 1929.

On 17 July 1920, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard married Katherine Boyle, the widow of James Boyle, son of Patrick Boyle, 8th Earl of Glasgow, at St. Margaret's Church in Westminster.

After the war, the RAF was budgeted to shrink from over 250 to 25 squadrons. Against this background of demobilisation and continued savage budget cuts, Trenchard fought to keep the air force separate from the British Army and the Royal Navy, and built the basis for a much larger organisation whose time would come in 1940.

Trenchard showed the effectiveness of strategic bombing for colonial counter-insurgency by 1920's operations in Somaliland and Iraq, when poison gas was used against the rebels. In early 1920, he wrote that the RAF could even suppress “industrial disturbances or risings” in Britain itself [1]. Churchill told him not to refer to this proposal again, but by World War II strategic bombing had become standard military doctrine.

In 1927, he became the first person to hold the highest RAF rank of Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

In 1930 he entered the House of Lords as Baron Trenchard (upgraded to Viscount Trenchard of Wolfeton in 1936), and was appointed commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Trenchard carried important police reforms and established the Police College at Hendon.

[edit] Later years

Following his service as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Trenchard devoted much of his time to the United Africa Company. However, the looming prospect of war prompted him to speak publicly about air force matters. Trenchard's frequent remarks about the unpreparedness of the RAF did little to endear him to serving senior commanders. With the outbreak of World War II, Trenchard took it upon himself to act as an unofficial Inspector-General for the RAF. He visited many RAF units both in the UK and overseas dispensing advice and giving encouragement. When visiting airfields during WW2, Trenchard liked to pick a pilot and ask him what his RAF service number was. When the pilot would ask him back what his number was Trenchard delighted in telling him "1".

After World War II, Trenchard continued to set out his ideas about air power. He died on 10 February 1956 and was buried in the Battle of Britain Chapel in Westminster Abbey.

[edit] Legacy

Trenchard's actions in gaining status for the RAF as a separate military branch were highly influential to U.S. General Billy Mitchell. Mitchell would eventually be court-martialled for insubordination in his efforts to create a U.S. Air Force.

Trenchard is a house at Welbeck College where all five houses are named after prominent military figures.

Part of the collection of the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust is housed in Trenchard House, which includes a library, an archive, and a store.

[edit] References

• A Thousand Shall Fall Peden, Murray (Stoddart) 1979

• Vincent Orange, ‘Trenchard, Hugh Montague, first Viscount Trenchard (1873–1956)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006

• Probert, H. (1991). High Commanders of the Royal Air Force. HMSO. ISBN 0-11-772635-4

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Air of Authority - A History of RAF Organisation - MRAF Trenchard
• USAF Assoc. Magazine
• RAF Halton Trenchard Museum - unofficial site
• Farnborough Air Sciences Trust (FAST) - Trenchard House museum

Military offices
New title Wing established	Officer Commanding 1st Wing RFC 1914 – 1915	Succeeded by E B Ashmore
Preceded by Sir David Henderson	Officer Commanding the Royal Flying Corps in the Field Became General Officer Commanding from 24 March 1916 (promotion) 25 August 1915 – 3 January 1918	Succeeded by J M Salmond
New title RAF established	Chief of the Air Staff 1918	Succeeded by Sir Frederick Sykes
Preceded by Sir Frederick Sykes	Chief of the Air Staff 1919 – 1930	Succeeded by Sir John Salmond
Police appointments
Preceded by The Viscount Byng of Vimy	Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis 1931 – 1935	Succeeded by Sir Philip Game
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New title Title created	Viscount Trenchard 1936 – 1956	Succeeded by Thomas Trenchard

v • d • e Image:Ensign of the Royal Air Force.svg Chiefs of the Air Staff

Sir Hugh Trenchard • Sir Frederick Sykes • Sir Hugh Trenchard • Sir John Salmond • Sir Geoffrey Salmond • Sir John Salmond • Sir Edward Ellington • Sir Cyril Newall • Sir Charles Portal • Sir Arthur Tedder • Sir John Slessor • Sir William Dickson • Sir Dermot Boyle • Sir Thomas Pike • Sir Charles Elworthy • Sir John Grandy • Sir Denis Spotswood • Sir Andrew Humphrey • Sir Neil Cameron • Sir Michael Beetham • Sir Keith Williamson • Sir David Craig • Sir Peter Harding • Sir Michael Graydon • Sir Richard Johns • Sir Peter Squire • Sir Jock Stirrup • Sir Glenn Torpy

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