The Birth of British Airpower : Hugh Trenchard, the First World War, and the RAF

Author: Dye, Peter

United Kingdom, Great Britain

Published on 12 May 2025 by Pen & Sword Books Ltd in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 320 pages, 22 mono illustrations
164 x 241 x 33 | 546g

The Birth of British Airpower describes how Hugh Trenchard, a man with few leadership skills, became a much-loved and inspirational commander who laid the foundation for British airpower on the Western Front in World War I and created the preconditions for the establishment of the world’s first independent air service, the Royal Air Force. Author Peter Dye explores how friendship can overcome significant personal and character deficiencies and how, by assembling the right senior leadership team, Trenchard achieved greatness.

The book also examines how the development of airpower doctrine in the First World War owed as much to chance as to careful planning and how air superiority was achieved only through sustained effort, underpinned by an effective and responsive logistic system. Finally, it explains how the ethos of the postwar air force was built around these experiences and the collective effort of all those involved in the air war.