The Air Board is created

On 17 May 1916 the Under-Secretary of State for War, Harold Tennant, announced in the House of Commons that the government was setting up an Air Board. It was to coordinate the work of Britain’s two rival air arms: the Royal Flying Corps, under the army, and the Royal Naval Air Service, belonging to the navy. The chairman of the board was Lord George Curzon, a member of the cabinet. It was the answer to months of criticism of the state of British aviation, but its powers raised doubts from the start.

Two air services and one market

Since the outbreak of war the army and the navy had developed aviation separately. Each ordered its own aircraft and engines, often from the same manufacturers, and competed with the other for the limited capacity of industry. The navy did not confine itself to maritime tasks: its airmen defended the country against airships, and at the beginning of 1916 the Admiralty began to form a squadron for bombing German industry. In the winter of 1915–1916 British airmen on the Western Front suffered heavy losses during the “Fokker Scourge”, and German airships flew over the country with impunity, reaching as far as the Midlands in January. In the press and in Parliament there were growing demands for a minister of air, who would have the same standing as the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for War.

The loudest critic was Noel Pemberton Billing, a former naval air officer and founder of the aircraft firm that later took the name Supermarine. In March 1916 he won the East Hertfordshire by-election as an independent candidate. In the House of Commons he fiercely attacked the government and the state-owned Royal Aircraft Factory, whose aircraft he considered obsolete and deadly to their own pilots. As a result of his accusations the Prime Minister set up a committee of inquiry, headed by a judge, to examine the administration of the Royal Flying Corps.

Derby’s failed committee

The first attempt to put things in order was the Joint War Air Committee, which the Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, set up on 15 February 1916 under the chairmanship of Lord Derby. It was to coordinate the supply and design of equipment for both services. It lasted less than two months. It had no executive power, and the Admiralty’s representative could decide nothing without the consent of its Board. On 3 April Derby resigned. He wrote to the Prime Minister that there was a fundamental disagreement between the two air services and that they could not be brought closer until they were merged into a single service, which in his view would have to happen one day but was practically impossible in wartime.

The matter was taken up by Curzon, Lord Privy Seal. In a memorandum he even considered the creation of an air ministry and a separate air force, but he proposed an intermediate solution: an air board with wider powers, which was to prepare the ground for a future ministry. The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, considered that the board might be useful, but stipulated that the representatives of the two services on it could not commit the Admiralty or the Army Council. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur Balfour, replied that the fighting service should itself be responsible for its equipment, men and operations, and that naval aviation should be autonomous. He admitted, however, that the political situation was serious and that he would not stand in the way if his colleagues considered a change necessary. The government’s War Committee decided to set up the board on 11 May.

A board without power

Tennant set out its principles to the House during a debate in which the Conservative MP William Joynson-Hicks called on the government to create a strong air service. The board consisted of representatives of the navy and the army and of Lord Sydenham as an independent member, and in the House of Commons it was to be represented by Major John Baird. The board could discuss general air policy, joint operations of the two services and the types of aircraft needed, coordinate supplies and prevent competition between the departments. It was, however, only an advisory body. If the Admiralty or the War Office rejected its recommendations, the chairman could only refer the matter to the War Committee. Tennant announced that the board would also consider a future air ministry, but stated that creating one in the middle of a great war would cause too much disruption.

The critics did not hide their disappointment. Winston Churchill praised the choice of Curzon, but asked whether the board would be able to order anything without the consent of both departments, and was told that it would not. The first meeting took place on 22 May. Curzon declared that no matter connected with aviation would be foreign to the board. The lack of executive power, however, quickly led to conflict with the Admiralty. At the turn of 1916 and 1917 the government replaced Curzon’s board with a new one, with wider powers, under the chairmanship of Lord Cowdray. Only in January 1918 was an air ministry created, and on 1 April 1918 the Royal Air Force, the world’s first independent air force, was formed by merging the two services.