History of the Royal Air Force

During the war it was responsible for the aerial defence of Great Britain, the strategic bombing campaign against Germany and tactical support to the British Army around the world.

During the Cold War, the main role of the RAF was the defence of the continent of Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union, including holding the British nuclear deterrent for a number of years.

[6] The contact patrols flown by RAF fighter aircraft were key to stopping the Imperial Germany Army's spring offensive in 1918.

[7] Following the end of World War I and the accompanying British defence cuts, the newly independent (and still temporary) RAF waited nine months to see if it would be retained by the Cabinet.

The Cabinet sanctioned a maximum of 1,500 and the Air Ministry offered 1,065 to the applicants, publishing the first list on 1 August 1919, 75% of them short-term (two to five years).

Sir Hugh Trenchard, the Chief of the Air Staff, had formulated ideas about the use of aircraft in colonial policing and these were first put into practice in 1920 when the RAF and imperial ground units defeated rebel Somaliland dervishes.

The RAF also saw service in Afghanistan in 1925, where they were employed independently for the first time in their history, then again in 1928, when following the outbreak of civil war, the British Legation and some European diplomatic staff based in Kabul were cut off.

[14] During the 1920s and first half of the 1930s, Government spending on the RAF was limited and the air staff put a higher priority on strategic bombing than on naval aviation.

This arguably contributed immensely to the delay and cancellation of German plans for an invasion of the United Kingdom (Operation Sea Lion).

Of these few hundred RAF fighter pilots, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said in the House of Commons on 20 August, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".

However, in recent years some military historians have controversially suggested that the RAF's actions would not have prevented an invasion and that the key deterrent was the Royal Navy's command of the sea.

[25] Due to the confused circumstances of the 1948 Middle East conflict, the RAF found itself fighting the Jewish militias, and later, the nascent Israeli Air Force.

[26] After victory in World War II, the RAF was to be further re-organized, as technological advances in air warfare saw the arrival of jet fighters and bombers.

At least one pilot was killed when his F-84E Thunderjet was shot down by anti-aircraft fire on 2 January 1952 as he attempted to strafe a column of trucks near Sunsan, a village north of Pyongyang.

The RAF V bomber squadrons took sole responsibility for carrying the UK's nuclear deterrent until the development of the Royal Navy's Polaris submarines.

[32][33] The primary role of the RAF in the Cold War years was the defence of Western Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union, with many squadrons based in West Germany.

With the decline of the British Empire, global operations were scaled back, and RAF Far East Air Force was disbanded on 31 October 1971.

[38] The Konfrontasi against Indonesia in the early 1960s did see use of RAF aircraft, but due to a combination of deft diplomacy and selective ignoring of certain events by both sides, it never developed into a full-scale war.

[40] In November six Hawker Siddeley Harriers of 1 Squadron were flown to Belize to provide some defence of the border and support the troops.

1 Squadron was deployed to the British Fleet during the War, operating from HMS Hermes and flying ground attack missions against Argentine forces.

[43] The most high-profile RAF missions in this conflict were the famous Black Buck raids using Avro Vulcans flying from Ascension Island.

In 1984 RAF Mount Pleasant was built to provide a fighter and transport facility on the islands thereby strengthening the defence capacity of the British Forces.

Various radar sites were established and a detachment of the RAF Regiment provided anti-aircraft support until that role was transferred to the Royal Artillery.

The only RAF losses were a friendly fire incident when an RAF Tornado jet was shot down by a US Patriot missile killing both pilot and Weapons Systems Officer due to the Patriot missile mistakenly recognising the Tornado as a Mig, and a Hercules transport plane shot down by ground fire killing the ten personnel on board just after takeoff from the US controlled airfield.

[54] The Guardian reported that the RAF conducted Operation Turus in response the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping by Boko Haram in Nigeria in April 2014.

A source involved with the Operation told the Observer that "The girls were located in the first few weeks of the RAF mission," and that "We [RAF] offered to rescue them, but the Nigerian government declined," this was because it viewed any action to be taken as a "national issue," and for it to be resolved by Nigerian intelligence and security services, the source added that the girls were then tracked by the aircraft as they were dispersed into progressively smaller groups over the following months.

Flying out of RAF bases in Cyprus, they have been known to have destroyed multiple ISIL targets and deliver humanitarian aid in Iraq (2014–present)[56] as well as carry out surveillance missions in Syria.

[64] In 2004, four RAF Panavia Tornado F.3s deployed to the Baltic States for three months to provide the British contribution to the NATO-led Baltic Air Policing operation[65] and in 2005 support and transport aircraft were dispatched to South East Asia following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake disaster in order to provide aid relief support.

The Exercise's goal was to enhance interoperability between the RAF, Korean Air Force and USAF, whilst deepening the UK and Republic of Korea's partnership in security and defence.

We have no specific country or region in our mind," South Korean and US officials said the drill would improve the allies' ability to strike key targets in North Korea, including military facilities and those linked to the regime's leader, Kim Jong-un; the drill in Japan was also known as Exercise Guardian North 16 and it ended in early November.