[BITList] Father of the RAF

[John Feltham]

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Trenchard,  Hugh Montague, first Viscount Trenchard  (1873-1956), air  
force officer, was born at Windsor Lodge, Haines Hill, Taunton,  
Somerset, on 3 February 1873, the second son and third of six children  
of Henry Montague Trenchard (1838-1914), solicitor, and his wife,  
Georgina Louisa Catherine Tower, daughter of Captain John McDowall  
Skene RN. Many struggling junior officers have been consoled since  
1918 by widespread knowledge of two facts: 'the father of the Royal  
Air Force' found examinations almost impossible to pass, and he did  
not even begin to become famous until he was well past forty. He was  
flatly rejected by both Dartmouth and Woolwich, and only just scraped  
a pass-at the third attempt-in a far less demanding test for militia  
candidates: these 'last resorts' were placed in whichever regiment  
would accept them. His difficulties owed much to inept teaching at  
both navy and army 'crammer' schools, and much to idleness (except at  
games and riding), but also owed something to the sudden shock of  
learning, at the vulnerable age of sixteen, that his father's practice  
had failed. Bankruptcy was a public disgrace hard to bear for a  
particularly proud member of an old-established family. He was  
dismayed, rather than inspired, by the knowledge that he owed the rest  
of his education to the charity of wiser and richer relatives.

Trenchard was granted a commission in September 1893 as a second  
lieutenant in the 2nd battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers, and posted to  
join his regiment in India. An inarticulate, prickly young man,  
socially inept and without money, he was known as 'the Camel' (did not  
drink, could not speak), and was far from popular until he revealed a  
rare combination of talents. He mastered any horse assigned to him;  
played polo skilfully (fending off Winston Churchill vigorously);  
traded horses profitably; picked winners regularly; shot accurately;  
and-not least-organized teams and tournaments efficiently. As his  
confidence grew, he began to read voraciously in a determined attempt  
to educate himself, but he never learned to spell or write with any  
fluency.

A dashing cavalry officer

On the outbreak of the South African War in October 1899 Trenchard was  
sent to South Africa. Promoted to captain in February 1900, he was  
told to raise and train a mounted company which brought together a  
bunch of boisterous, aggressive horsemen, many of them Australian. He  
had the makings of a fine guerrilla leader until his impetuosity led  
him into an ambush at Dwarsvlei in western Transvaal in October 1900,  
where he was severely wounded in the chest and spine, and invalided  
home to England in December. Although his left lung was permanently  
damaged, he made a remarkable recovery, thanks to a strong  
constitution and a self-imposed regime of strenuous winter sports in  
Switzerland, where a heavy fall shook his spine back into place,  
enabling him to walk freely once more. He returned to South Africa at  
his own insistence in May 1901 to resume his career as a dashing  
cavalry officer, fearless in combat, impatient of all orders but his  
own, and respectful only to those seniors whom he admired. He was full  
of high Victorian bravado, and his blunt words, boundless energy, and  
stern discipline of men under his command commended him to Field  
Marshal Lord Kitchener.

While on leave in England at the end of the war Trenchard accepted an  
appointment in October 1903 as assistant commandant of the South  
Nigeria regiment, first as major, then as lieutenant-colonel. He  
relished the opportunity to lead his own force of irregular cavalry on  
expeditions against 'unpacified' tribes in the interior, but he also  
supervised surveys, road building, and drainage projects, and enhanced  
his reputation as a man of formidable personality who never hesitated  
to criticize all and sundry in the bluntest terms. Those few who had  
the courage to answer back were, of course, the men he subsequently  
valued. In 1906 he was made a member of the Distinguished Service  
Order, and appointed to command his regiment in 1908. But he fell  
seriously ill in 1910 and was again invalided home. On recovering, he  
rejoined his original regiment, dropped in rank to major, and served  
in Ulster until 1912.

An indifferent pilot and dangerous tutor

By 1912 Trenchard was rising forty, unmarried, and discontented. He  
was respected by good officers and men, but too 'unclubbable' (and too  
poor) for high rank. After almost twenty years of strenuous military  
service, he was looking about for new opportunities, in or out of  
uniform, and his colleagues-wary of his sharp tongue-were more than  
willing to help him. One of his few friends advised him to learn to  
fly and he agreed to give it a go. He was promptly granted three  
months' leave, and boldly spent the considerable sum of £75 on flying  
lessons at the Sopwith school, Brooklands. After only two weeks of  
tuition, including no more than sixty-four minutes in the air, he was  
granted a pilot's certificate (no. 270) by the Royal Aero Club on 31  
July 1912.

The Royal Flying Corps having been formed in May 1912, Trenchard was  
immediately seconded to it and sent to the Central Flying School at  
Upavon in Wiltshire, where he met Churchill again (an even worse  
pilot). Instead of taking a pupil's course-essential if he were to  
acquire flying skills himself, let alone transmit them to others-his  
age and military experience saw him appointed to the staff. As  
assistant commandant, in the rank of lieutenant-colonel, his capacity  
for effective organization and exacting unquestioned obedience to  
orders proved of great value to a newly formed school that attracted  
many would-be free spirits. It was now that his mighty foghorn voice  
earned him, for the rest of his life, the nickname Boom. Although an  
indifferent pilot and dangerous tutor, he recognized more quickly than  
most officers of his age the aeroplane's unlimited military potential.

Constant aggression

When war broke out in August 1914 Trenchard took command of  
Farnborough, Hampshire, where he allegedly found 'one typewriter, a  
confidential box with a pair of boots in it, and a lot of unpaid  
bills'. From these small beginnings he began to build an organization  
capable of supporting a rapidly expanding number of squadrons. As  
early as November, however, he had escaped from the rear to the front,  
as an operational commander, and in January 1915 he met General Sir  
Douglas Haig, who took command of all British forces on the western  
front from December. Trenchard came to admire Haig without reserve;  
for his part, Haig declared in 1922 that the First World War had  
produced only two new things of importance: 'barbed wire and  
Trenchard'  (Boyle, 506).

 From 1915 onwards Trenchard pressed hard for the development and  
quantity production of aircraft of improved design, with more powerful  
engines and armament, equipped with reliable wireless sets and  
cameras, and a gadget to permit the accurate dropping of bigger and  
better-designed bombs. But his main concern, formulated during 1915,  
was to develop an unflinching spirit of constant aggression among  
pilots and observers. An opinion that would become an unshakeable  
doctrine was already forming in his mind. Persistent attack achieved  
air supremacy, and that supremacy (given aircraft sufficient in  
quantity and quality) would permit devastating attack upon enemy  
industrial centres and lines of communication to the fighting fronts.  
'The aeroplane', he famously (and mistakenly) asserted 'is not a  
defence against the aeroplane'. And the use of parachutes, which could  
have been as readily available for British as well as German airmen by  
1918, was forbidden because they might undermine that spirit of  
aggression. That ruling, made by non-flying members of the air board,  
was firmly supported by Trenchard.

In August 1915 Trenchard succeeded Sir David Henderson as head of the  
Royal Flying Corps in France, with the warm approval of both Haig and  
Kitchener (secretary of state for war) and was promoted to brigadier- 
general. From Henderson he inherited Maurice Baring-author, linguist,  
diplomat-as an essential assistant, who translated his incoherent  
mutterings into fluent prose. 'I can't write what I mean, I can't say  
what I mean, but I expect you to know what I mean'  (Hyde, 57). More  
poetically, Baring saw his task as 'bottling a mountain torrent while  
yet preserving the tingling fury of its natural state'  (Letley, 174).  
They visited all squadrons and depots, listened to countless  
complaints and suggestions, noticed everything, no matter how  
carefully concealed, and whenever Trenchard's tactless, overbearing  
manner caused more than usual offence, Baring poured the necessary oil  
and subtly rebuked his master. His fluent French also made it possible  
for Trenchard to establish good relations with the French air service.  
He did it so well that Marshal Foch described him as an incomparable  
staff officer.

During 1915, however, the Germans produced a Fokker monoplane equipped  
with a machine-gun that fired safely through the propeller arc and  
forced Trenchard's technically inferior aircraft onto the defensive.  
They became 'Fokker fodder' and it was said in parliament that 'our  
pilots are being murdered rather than killed'  (Lee, 214). Until  
better machines arrived in service early in 1916, he was reluctantly  
obliged to accept fewer and shorter reconnaissance patrols, and was  
unable to foster that continuous co-operation between artillery and  
aircraft (via wireless and photographs) that he and Haig foresaw as  
the key to accurate hitting of enemy targets. Although British and  
German machines were evenly matched in quality from 1916 onwards, and  
the British increasingly outnumbered their opponents, they suffered  
four times as many casualties as a result of Trenchard's policy of  
constant offensive. 'To him, as to his staff, and most of his senior  
commanders', wrote A. S. G. Lee, an able pilot who survived long  
enough to become experienced, 'for a British aeroplane to be one mile  
across the trenches was offensive: for it to be ten miles over was  
more offensive'. What really mattered, however, was not the aircraft's  
position in the sky but the calibre of its pilot and the quality of  
his machine. 'The most rashly aggressive pigeon won't get far with a  
hawk'  (Lee, 217-18).

Creation of a new service

In England, meanwhile, intense competition between the War Office and  
the Admiralty for recruits (air and ground), training facilities,  
factory space, designers, and producers of airframes and aero-engines  
was harming the war effort. In December 1916, for example, the Royal  
Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service placed orders for seventy- 
six varieties of aircraft and fifty-seven of engines  (Johns, 10-11).  
Both air arms were weaker than they should have been, and neither gave  
serious attention to home defence against aerial attack. Several  
alarmingly successful daylight raids by German bombers during June and  
July 1917 revealed the inadequacy of this defence and fuelled powerful  
demands for a united service, with its own ministry, independent of  
army or navy control, to make efficient use of aviation resources and  
frame an effective home defence. General Jan Christian Smuts (South  
African member of the imperial war cabinet) and Henderson, backed by  
the prime minister, Lloyd George, were largely responsible for the  
creation of this independent air service in April 1918. Trenchard  
agreed with the reformers, but thought it best to struggle on with an  
unsatisfactory situation until the war ended. He thus had good reason  
for disliking the title 'father of the Royal Air Force', so often  
accorded him in later years. If that service had not been created by  
the heat of battle out of fear of defeat, it would never have emerged  
out of the chill of calculation when the war to end all war had been  
won. On the other hand, although he did not father the infant, he  
certainly deserves credit for protecting it from predators until it  
was sturdy enough to thrive without anyone's help.

Despite Haig's protests and his own reluctance, Trenchard was  
appointed chief of the air staff, the first head of the new service,  
and returned to England in January 1918; he was also knighted (KCB).  
But the first air minister was Lord Rothermere, younger brother of  
Lord Northcliffe. These influential newspaper owners, backed by Lloyd  
George, were vehement opponents of Haig and hoped to procure his  
dismissal. At that time, Trenchard lacked the political skills,  
contacts, and even the resolution to counter such men. He simply  
resigned (bringing Rothermere down with him, to his surprise) in April  
and sulked for a month. While sitting on a bench in Green Park on 8  
May he overheard two naval officers discussing his conduct. 'It's an  
outrage', said one. 'I don't know why the government should pander to  
a man who threw in his hand at the height of a battle. If I'd my way  
with Trenchard I'd have him shot.' Somewhat chastened, he reluctantly  
agreed to return to France later that month as head of a small force  
intended to bomb targets in Germany. Neither John Salmond (his  
successor as head of the RAF in France) nor the French (who feared  
reprisals, and thought all resources should be devoted to the  
battlefield) co-operated willingly. 'A more gigantic waste of effort  
and personnel there has never been in any war', declared Trenchard in  
November 1918  (Hyde, 44). Nevertheless, the few raids that were  
mounted convinced him that, in any future war with Germany, a  
systematic campaign of heavy bombing would shatter the morale of its  
people. Ignoring evidence to the contrary, he was equally convinced  
that German bombing would not dismay Britons.

A legendary decade

Trenchard was created a baronet in October 1919 and received a  
handsome cash grant of £10,000. Winston Churchill, minister of war and  
air, pressed him to resume his post as chief of the air staff, which  
he did on 15 May, and during the next decade he became a legend. He  
clearly understood that his new service must be reduced to a shadow of  
its former strength, and remain small and weak for the foreseeable  
future, but it could be provided with sound foundations upon which to  
build a powerful air force, should the need ever arise. A realistic  
memorandum of September 1919 (converted into a government white paper  
in December) set out an affordable framework for a service of under  
30,000 officers and men. He founded an apprentice school (at Halton,  
Buckinghamshire) for youths aged fifteen to eighteen who became ground  
crews, a cadet college (at Cranwell, Lincolnshire) for career  
officers, and a staff college (at Andover, Hampshire) for future  
leaders. He set up squadrons at Oxford and Cambridge, introduced short- 
service commissions and a network of auxiliary squadrons-rightly  
believing that many high-spirited young men were eager to spend some  
exciting years in cockpits, but were not interested in a subsequent,  
poorly paid career behind desks.

Trenchard also learned to fight in the Whitehall jungle, with  
Churchill's intermittent support, against persistent attempts by both  
the War Office and the Admiralty to divide the RAF between them and  
end its independent existence. He found in 'air policing' of Britain's  
empire throughout the Middle East, but especially in Mesopotamia  
(Iraq), an ideal opportunity to demonstrate that the RAF was both  
effective and cheap. 'Control without occupation' Sir Samuel Hoare,  
secretary of state for air in the 1920s, called it  (Hoare, 265): an  
irresistible combination for politicians acutely conscious of  
Britain's financial weakness. A handful of squadrons, equipped with  
biplanes left over from the war, armed with light machine-guns and  
small bombs, and supported only by a small number of armoured cars  
(converted or built out of the RAF's own meagre budget) were usually  
able to impose a local peace or separate rivals more swiftly and  
cheaply than large, expensive garrisons of slow-moving soldiers.  
Trenchard encouraged annual air displays at Hendon, which proved  
enormously popular, and also fostered the gradual development of air  
routes which might one day link every part of the empire. At the end  
of 1923 he was accepted as a member of the chiefs of staff committee- 
formally equal to the heads of the navy and the army. In 1925 he  
argued in favour of making the RAF (rather than the Royal Navy,  
assisted by a garrison of soldiers) primarily responsible for the  
defence of Singapore. Even before the fall of that base to Japanese  
attack in 1942 he regarded his failure to win that argument as the low  
point of his career.

Unfortunately, the success of air policing seduced Trenchard and his  
successors into ignoring the need to prepare for possible conflict  
with nations as technically advanced as Britain. The RAF failed to  
make adequate progress before 1939 in precisely those fields which the  
offensive doctrine most required: accurate navigation, in daylight or  
darkness, in large, properly heated and fully armed aircraft capable  
of carrying heavy loads of efficient bombs (high explosive or  
incendiary) a long way and dropping them accurately on well-chosen  
targets. In 1925, however, Trenchard had been impressed by the Fairey  
Fox, a two-seat, single-engine biplane day-bomber, equipped with an  
American Curtiss D-12 engine. The Fox outclassed all other British  
machines of that time, and Trenchard immediately ordered enough to  
equip a single squadron. Objections-from industry and politicians-to  
the use of a foreign engine prevented him from ordering more, but the  
Fox example did encourage a gradual improvement. In the late 1920s,  
the RAF's success in Schneider trophy races confirmed the high popular  
regard first earned at Hendon.

Morale was high, thanks partly to team spirit generated by army and  
navy opposition, partly also to Trenchard's creation in 1919 of a  
benevolent fund (which has spent millions of pounds since that date  
relieving distress among servicemen and their families), but mostly to  
a widespread conviction that aircraft would play a vital part in any  
future war. That part, according to Trenchard's doctrine, would be  
primarily as an offensive bomber force, hitting targets of 'strategic'  
importance, rather than as a defensive fighter force, successfully  
resisting attempts by enemy bombers to hit British targets. Little  
attention was paid to co-operation with either the army or the navy,  
or to practising realistic aerial combat, or to the creation of a  
fleet of adequate transport aircraft. The doctrine was carefully  
articulated, confidently asserted, but insufficiently tested, in  
theory or practice, during (or for long after) Trenchard's term of  
office.

Trenchard closely supervised the composition of a detailed account of  
the air war which reflected his own opinions and evaded all  
controversial issues. Sir Walter Raleigh, Merton professor of English  
literature at Oxford, wrote the first volume, but he died in 1922, and  
H. A. Jones, a civil servant who had been Raleigh's chief research  
assistant, completed the task. Trenchard had offered it first to  
Baring and then to T. E. Lawrence. Baring wrote an entertaining survey  
of their wartime partnership, published in 1920, but Trenchard  
insisted on removing most references to himself, convincing the author  
that it would be impossible for him to attempt a serious, independent  
history of the air service. As for Lawrence, although he greatly  
admired Trenchard, he had the confidence, personal contacts, and  
intellectual energy to explore those issues-strategy, tactics,  
equipment, training, inter-service quarrels, political interference,  
and so on-and make up his own mind about them. Sadly, he too turned it  
down. Jones left a valuable record; Lawrence might have produced a  
great one. Instead, we have only The Mint, Lawrence's account of  
recruit life in the early 1920s, which is as vivid and controversial  
as everything else he wrote.

Trenchard was knighted again (GCB) in January 1924 and became the  
first marshal of the RAF (equivalent to five-star rank) in 1927. He  
retired on 31 December 1929 and was made a baron next day. 'You are  
too big to be the father of a grown-up child', wrote Lawrence on 18  
December. 'Let the beast go and make his own mistakes. It's going to  
be a very splendid service, and will always be proud of you'  (Hyde,  
233).

Police reformer

Trenchard was appointed a director of the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber  
Company early in 1930 and later a director of Rhodesian Railways. In  
March 1931 the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, invited him to  
succeed Lord Byng as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Morale  
was held to be low throughout the force, and its organization was  
clearly in need of reform. He was unwilling to take on a difficult and  
thankless task, but did so from November, in response to a personal  
appeal from George V. He had the support of Sir John Anderson,  
permanent head of the Home Office, and Maurice Drummond, who took on  
Baring's role as interpreter and writer.

Trenchard made two conditions, revealing his attitude to the new job.  
One was that he be released at once if his 'life's work' at the Air  
Ministry seemed in danger; and the other was that he be released as  
promptly if unrest in India suggested that he would be 'more useful'  
there in a role for which he considered himself eminently suited-as  
viceroy.

While awaiting either call, Trenchard submitted to parliament a plan  
of reform in May 1933 which the government implemented. A police  
college and forensic laboratory were to be opened at Hendon, and a  
system of short-service engagements was to be created for a proportion  
of officers (who, like some young pilots, were assumed to fancy a  
spell at the sharp end). As in the RAF, he emphasized careful  
selection, thorough training, and efficient working methods, and  
recognized a need to widen the social base from which policemen were  
recruited. He showed an uncommon concern for the overall well-being of  
the force, rescuing the provident fund from disaster and agitating for  
both better housing and sporting facilities. He introduced wireless  
cars and a central control room to deal with the information received.

Unfortunately, Trenchard had long been an enlightened despot and could  
not change his ways. He issued orders and resented suggestions that he  
discuss them first. Most senior officers believed he wished to  
militarize them. He found himself at a loss in dealing with the Police  
Federation, a powerful and articulate union that had no counterpart in  
the armed services. By 1934 he was already eager to resign, but he  
hung on at the king's particular request until July 1935. As a reward  
he was made a viscount in January 1936. His successor-Sir Philip Game,  
his own nominee-did not press forward his reforms and most of them  
quickly lapsed.

Trenchard joined the board of the United Africa Company (part of the  
Unilever group), which had interests in Nigeria, his old stamping  
ground, and served as chairman from 1936 to 1953. After his death,  
Lord Heyworth recalled that he:

was as interested in the views of a probationer after a first tour as  
of a senior executive returning from a tour of inspection. He once  
said that he had no use for people who were not willing to talk 'brain  
to brain' regardless of status. (The Times, 21 Feb 1956)

Backstairs agitator, privileged spectator

When war broke out in September 1939, Trenchard was sixty-six: young  
enough, he believed, to play an important part. Throughout the 1930s  
he had constantly and volubly asserted the primacy of bombers over  
fighters, as unconvinced as ever that fighters could successfully  
resist them. The prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, declined Hoare's  
recommendation in April 1940 that Trenchard be re-appointed chief of  
the air staff. Churchill offered him command of Britain's home forces  
in May and a role in military intelligence in November. Although he  
wisely refused both offers, Trenchard was not inactive. In alliance  
with John Salmond, he agitated secretly and effectively during 1940  
for the replacement of Newall as chief of the air staff and of Dowding  
as head of Fighter Command.

Trenchard composed a memorandum in May 1941 which completely misjudged  
the German character. British morale, he believed, was secure under  
bombardment, but 'the German nation is peculiarly susceptible to air  
bombing', being unable to crack jokes while sheltering: an opinion  
treated with more respect than it deserved by many admirers, among  
them Portal, who succeeded Newall in October 1940  (Terraine, 263-4).  
He wrote three papers on air power issues, published by the Air  
Ministry in 1946, in which he insisted that the bomber remained the  
central instrument of air power, and a strategic air offensive the  
only proper function of that instrument. Most of his senior disciples  
eventually lapsed (in practice if not in theory) from the true faith,  
but not Harris, head of Bomber Command, 1942-5.

 From 1942 onwards Trenchard enjoyed the role of privileged spectator  
and potential morale booster. He invited himself to every battlefield  
in the Mediterranean and north-west European theatres, relishing the  
deferential company of commanders whom he had encouraged in their  
early days-Park, Coningham, Tedder, and Douglas-receiving firsthand  
information about the progress of campaigns, and chatting amiably with  
awed young airmen. After the war, he often spoke in the House of Lords  
on air power issues, stoutly defending the RAF point of view, as he  
interpreted it, against admirals and generals. He became a member of  
the Order of Merit in January 1951, and received honorary doctorates  
from Oxford and Cambridge and many other tokens of esteem.

A valiant man

In July 1920 Trenchard had married Katherine Isabel Salvin (d. 1959),  
daughter of Edward Salvin Bowlby and widow of Captain the Hon. James  
Boyle (killed in August 1914); Baring was his best man. She had three  
sons from her first marriage (they all served in the armed forces  
during the Second World War and two were killed) and two more from her  
second: Hugh (born in 1921), who was killed in north Africa in 1943;  
and Thomas (1923-1987), who succeeded as second viscount.

Trenchard was a big man, surprisingly clumsy for a successful  
sportsman. Ruggedly handsome, he had a thick mop of unruly dark hair,  
shaggy eyebrows, a moustache (which in old age gave him the appearance  
of a friendly walrus), a direct glance, and a famously loud voice. He  
had been virtually blind in his right eye since 1937, and was totally  
blind during the last three years of his life, nearly deaf, sadly  
crippled, but mentally alert until the end. He died in his London home  
on 10 February 1956, one week after his eighty-third birthday, and  
received a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey on 21 February.  
Among the pallbearers were some outstanding airmen-Portal, Tedder,  
Harris, and Douglas-whose careers owed much to his support. The RAF  
ensign flew above the abbey while the coffin containing his ashes was  
conveyed from the Air Ministry's assembly hall in Whitehall Gardens  
(where it had lain in state) and throughout the service. Overhead flew  
the RAF's latest strategic bomber, appropriately named Valiant.

If Trenchard 'had not taken up flying when youth had already passed  
him the Royal Air Force would not have been the bulwark of Britain  
that it was in either world war' (The Times, 11 Feb 1956; 22 Feb  
1956). A bronze statue made by William McMillan and erected in  
Embankment Gardens, outside the Ministry of Defence, was unveiled by  
prime minister Harold Macmillan on 19 July 1961 and dedicated by the  
archbishop of Canterbury. Lord Tedder, a great airman whom Trenchard  
had always admired, laid a wreath on behalf of all former members of  
the RAF. A plaque has commemorated his birthplace since September 1973.

Vincent Orange

Sources  A. Boyle, Trenchard: man of vision (1962) + H. M. Hyde,  
British air policy between the wars, 1918-1939 (1976) + G. Lyall,  
'MRAF Lord Trenchard', The war lords, ed. M. Carver (1976), 176-81 +  
M. Baring, RFC headquarters (1920) + Viscount Templewood (Sir Samuel  
Hoare), Empire of the air: the advent of the air age, 1922-1929 (1957)  
+ W. Raleigh and H. A. Jones, The war in the air, 6 vols. (1922-37) +  
H. Probert, High commanders of the Royal Air Force (1991) + J.  
Terraine, The right of the line: the Royal Air Force in the European  
war (1984) + A. S. G. Lee, No parachute: a fighter pilot in World War  
I (1968) + E. Letley, Maurice Baring: a citizen of Europe (1991) + M.  
Smith, British air strategy between the wars (1984) + A. Morris, First  
of the many: the story of the independent force, RAF (1968) + C. G.  
Grey, 'On the departing chief', The Aeroplane, 37 (1929), 1402-16 + R.  
Johns, 'Trenchard memorial lecture', RUSI Journal, 142 (Oct 1997),  
10-16 + H. A. Taylor, Fairey aircraft since 1915 (1974) + The Times  
(11 Feb 1956) + Lord Trenchard, Three papers on air power, Air  
Ministry Publication, 229 (1946)
Archives Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, department of research and  
information services, corresp. and papers | BL OIOC, letters to Sir W.  
R. Lawrence, MS Eur. F 143 + BL OIOC, letters to Lord Reading, MSS  
Eur. E 238, F 118 + Bodl. Oxf., corresp. with Lord Simon + Bodl. RH,  
corresp. with Lord Lugard + CUL, corresp. with Samuel Hoare + Parl.  
Arch., corresp. with Herbert Samuel + King's Lond., Liddell Hart C.,  
corresp. with Sir B. H. Liddell Hart + PRONI, letters to Lord  
Londonderry + U. Glas., Archives and Business Records Centre, letters  
to Lord Rowallan FILM BFI NFTVA, news footage
Likenesses  F. Dodd, charcoal and watercolour drawing, 1917, IWM · W.  
Orpen, oils, 1917, IWM [see illus.] · W. Stoneman, two photographs,  
1919-32, NPG · O. Birley, oils, c.1926, Royal Air Force Club, London ·  
B. Partridge, chalk caricature, 1927, NPG · H. Green, pencil drawing,  
1930, Royal Air Force Staff College, Bracknell, Berkshire · E.  
Verpilleux, oils, 1936, Royal Air Force College, Cranwell,  
Lincolnshire · A. R. Thomson, oils, c.1943, Royal Air Force Staff  
College, Bracknell, Berkshire · F. Beresford, oils, Royal Air Force  
Bentley Priory, Stanmore, Middlesex, HQ 11 Group · W. McMillan, bronze  
statue, Embankment Gardens, London; plaster statuette and bronze cast,  
Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon · photograph, repro. in Boyle,  
Trenchard, facing p. 609
Wealth at death  £3576 12s. 11d.: probate, 11 May 1956, CGPLA Eng. &  
Wales