Air Commodore Lionel Evelyn Oswald Charlton, CB, CMG, DSO (7 July 1879 – 18 April 1958) was a British infantry officer who served in the Second Boer War.

Most notably, Charlton resigned his position as the RAF's Chief Staff Officer in Iraq as he objected to the bombing of Iraqi villages.

[1] He served with the 2nd Battalion of his regiment in the Second Boer War 1899–1901, including as part of the Ladysmith Relief Force, and was severely wounded at the battle of Spion Kop, for which he received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).

[11] On 2 February 1923, Air Commodore Charlton took up the post of Chief Staff Officer at the headquarters of the RAF's Iraq Command.

In the same month he arrived, Charlton visited the local hospital in Diwaniya, and was shocked by seeing the wounds of Iraqis injured in RAF bombing raids present, later writing in his memoirs that "indiscriminate bombing of a populace... with the liability of killing women and children, was the nearest thing to wanton slaughter.

"[12] On his return to Great Britain, Charlton expected to be summoned to see the Chief of the Air Staff, Hugh Trenchard.

In 1938, he published The Air Defence of Britain, a reasoned analysis and prediction of the impending Second World War, correctly emphasizing the crucial importance which bombing civilian populations would have.

Charlton was homosexual and lived with an old RAF friend, Tom Wichelo; he belonged to a circle including Edward Morgan Forster, Joe Ackerley, Raymond Mortimer and John Gielgud.