First World War · 1914 – 1918

First World War

The RFC and RNAS forged air power over the Western Front, the Middle East and the North Sea. The Royal Air Force itself was born on 1 April 1918 — the world's first independent air arm, with just seven months of war remaining.

34 Total Records

1 Operations

1 Aircraft

8 People

7 Squadrons

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The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service went to war in 1914 as embryonic organisations, flying fragile aircraft with no clear doctrine and little understanding of what air power might achieve. Within four years they had developed every discipline that would define military aviation for a century: strategic bombing, air superiority, close support, reconnaissance, anti-submarine patrol.

On 1 April 1918, with seven months of war remaining, the RFC and RNAS were merged to form the Royal Air Force — the world's first independent air arm. The new service inherited 22,000 aircraft and nearly 300,000 personnel, and immediately began fighting for its own survival against those who believed air power should be subordinated to the older services.

"The aeroplane is useless for the purposes of war." — Field Marshal Haig, 1914

The cost had been severe. The life expectancy of a pilot on the Western Front in 1917 was measured in weeks. Aircraft technology advanced so rapidly that an aircraft could be obsolete within months of entering service. Yet from this crucible emerged the pilots, the doctrine and the institutional culture that would carry the RAF through the next two decades.

Operations · 1 operation

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First World War

North Russia Intervention

A concise history of the North Russia Intervention, showing how early RAF units supported Allied operations at Archangel,…

1918–1919

Article

Captain Albert Ball Posted Missing Over the Western Front

On this day in 1917, Captain Albert Ball was posted missing after combat over the Western Front, marking the loss of one of Britain’s best-known airmen.

7 May 2026 · 4 min read Read the article →