Chief of the Air Staff (2nd appointment)
In early 1919 Churchill was appointed Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. While Churchill was preoccupied with implementing post-war defence cuts and the demobilization of the Army, the Chief of the Air Staff, Major-General Frederick Sykes, submitted a paper with what were at the time unrealistic proposals for a large air force of the future. Being dissatisfied with Sykes, Churchill began to consider reinstating Trenchard, whose recent performance at Southampton had once more brought him into favour with Churchill.
During the first week in February, Trenchard was summoned to London by official telegram. At the War Office, Churchill asked him to come back as Chief of the Air Staff. Trenchard replied that he could not take up the appointment, for Sykes was currently in post. After Churchill indicated that Sykes might be appointed Controller of Civil Aviation and made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE), Trenchard agreed to consider the offer. Churchill, not wanting to leave matters hanging, asked Trenchard to provide him with a paper outlining his ideas on the re-organisation of the Air Ministry. Trenchard's briefly written statement of the essentials required met with Churchill's approval, and he insisted that Trenchard take the appointment, Trenchard returning to the Air Ministry in mid-February and formally taking up post as Chief of the Air Staff on 31 March 1919.
For most of March he was unable to do much work as he had contracted Spanish flu. During this period he wrote to Katherine Boyle (née Salvin), the widow of his friend and fellow officer James Boyle, whom he knew from his time in Ireland. At his request, Mrs Boyle took on the task of nursing him back to health. Once he had recovered, he proposed marriage to Katherine Boyle, who refused. Trenchard remained in contact with her, and when he proposed marriage again, she accepted. On 17 July 1920, they were married at St. Margaret's Church in Westminster.
During the summer of 1919, Trenchard worked on completing the demobilization of the RAF and establishing it on a peacetime basis. This was a sizable task as the force was budgeted to shrink from 280 squadrons to around 28. It was also during this time that the new RAF officer ranks were decided upon, despite some opposition from members of the Army Council. Trenchard himself was regraded from major-general to air vice-marshal, and then promoted to air marshal a few days later.
By the autumn of 1919, the budgetary effects of Lloyd George's Ten Year Rule were causing Trenchard some difficulty as he sought to develop the institutions of the RAF. He had to argue against the view that the Army and Navy should provide all the support services and education, leaving the RAF only to provide flying training. He viewed this idea as a precursor to the break-up of the RAF, and in spite of the costs, he wanted its own institutions which would develop airmanship and engender the air spirit. Having convinced Churchill of his case, he oversaw the founding of the RAF (Cadet) College at Cranwell as the world's first military air academy. In 1920 he inaugurated the Aircraft Apprentice system, which provided the RAF with highly technically trained specialist ground-crews for the next 70 years. In 1922 the RAF Staff College at Andover was established to provide air force specific training to the RAF's middle-ranking officers.
Late 1919 saw Trenchard created a baronet and granted £10,000 for his war services. Although he had attained a measure of financial security, the future of the RAF was far from assured. He judged that the chief threat to the new service came from the new First Sea Lord, Admiral Beatty. Looking to take the initiative, Trenchard arranged to see Beatty, meeting with him in early December, Trenchard, arguing that the "air is one and indivisible", put forward a case for an air force with its own strategic role which also controlled army and navy co-operation squadrons. Beatty did not accept Trenchard's argument and Trenchard resorted to asking for a 12 months amnesty to put his plans into action. The request appealed to Beatty's sense of fair play, and he agreed to let Trenchard be until the end of 1920. Around this time Trenchard indicated to Beatty that control over some supporting elements of naval aviation (but not aircrew or aircraft) might be returned to the Admiralty. Trenchard also offered Beatty the option of locating the Air Ministry staff who worked in connection with naval aviation at the Admiralty. Beatty declined the offer and later, when no transfer of any naval aviation assets occurred, came to the view that Trenchard had acted in bad faith.
During the early 1920s, the continued independent existence of the RAF and its control of naval aviation were subject to a series of Government reviews. The Balfour Report of 1921, the Geddes Axe of 1922, and the Salisbury Committee of 1923 all found in favour of the RAF's continued existence, despite lobbying from the Admiralty and opposition in Parliament. On each occasion Trenchard and his staff officers, supported by Christopher Bullock, worked to show that the RAF provided good value for money, and was required for the long-term strategic security of the United Kingdom.
Trenchard also sought to secure the RAF's future by finding a war-fighting role for the new Service. In 1920 he successfully argued that it should take the lead during the 1920 conflict between British forces and Somaliland dervishes. The success of this small air action then allowed him to put the case for the RAF's air policing of the vast distances of the British Empire. Trenchard particularly argued for it to take the lead in Iraq at the Cairo Conference of 1921, and in 1922 the RAF was given control of all British Forces in Iraq. The RAF also carried out imperial air policing over India's North-West Frontier Province. In early 1920 he suggested that it could even be used to violently suppress if necessary "industrial disturbances, or risings" in the United Kingdom itself, following on from his experience in such matters in successfully quelling the troop mutiny at Southampton Docks in the previous year. Churchill was unsettled at Trenchard's apparent willingness to use lethal military force domestically upon British subjects, and told him by reply not to refer to this proposal again.
By late 1924 the creation of the reserve air force, known as the Auxiliary Air Force, meant that Trenchard was able to modestly expand the RAF's strength, and over the next two years, 25 auxiliary squadrons were created. It was during this period that he oversaw the introduction of the short-service commission scheme. which proved to be useful in providing some of the regular manning on the new squadrons. He also instigated the University Air Squadron scheme, and in 1925 the first three U.A.S. squadrons were formed at Cambridge, London and Oxford.
Since the early 1920s Trenchard had supported the development of a flying bomb, and by 1927 a prototype, code-named "Larynx", was successfully tested. However, development costs were not insignificant and in 1928, when he applied for further funding, the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Cabinet discontinued the project. Following the British failure to win the Schneider Trophy in 1925, Trenchard ensured that finances were available for an RAF team, with which the High Speed Flight was formed in preparation for the 1927 race. After the British won in 1927, he continued to use Air Ministry funds to support the race, including purchasing two Supermarine S.6 aircraft which won the race in 1929. He was criticised for this by figures in HM Treasury for wasting money.
On 1 January 1927, Trenchard was promoted from air chief marshal to marshal of the Royal Air Force, becoming the first person to hold the RAF's highest rank. The following year he began to feel that he had achieved all he could as Chief of the Air Staff and that he should give way to a younger man, and he offered his resignation to the Cabinet in late 1928, although it was not initially accepted. Around the same time as Trenchard was considering his future, the British Legation and some European diplomatic staff based in Kabul in the Kingdom of Afghanistan were cut off from the outside world as a result of the civil war in Afghanistan. After word of the crisis had reached London, the Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain sent for Trenchard, who assured him that the RAF would be able to rescue the stranded civilians. The Kabul Airlift began on Christmas Eve and took nine weeks to rescue around 600 people.
Trenchard continued as Chief of the Air Staff until 1 January 1930. Immediately after he had relinquished his appointment, he was created Baron Trenchard, of Wolfeton in the County of Dorset, entering the House of Lords, becoming the RAF's first peer. Looking back over Trenchard's time as Chief of the Air Staff, while he had preserved the fledgling RAF, his emphasis on the Air Force providing defence at a comparatively low cost had led to a stagnation and even deterioration in the quality of the service's fighting equipment.
