John Salmond

John Salmond, 1925

Sir John Maitland Salmond GCB , CMG , CVO , DSO & Bar (born July 17, 1881 in London - † April 16, 1968 in Eastbourne , East Sussex ) was a British officer who was Marshal of the Royal Air Force and in the interwar period Chief of the Air Staff ascent.

Life

Salmond was born the son of officer William Salmond, who rose to the rank of major-general in the British Army . His siblings included Geoffrey Salmond , Air Chief Marshal and also briefly Chief of the Air Staff, and the artist Gwen Salmond . He attended Wellington College in Berkshire and the Royal Military College Sandhurst from 1894 . In 1901 he was accepted as a Second Lieutenant in the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment and immediately went to South Africa to take part in the Second Boer War. After the end of the war, he applied for a secondment to the West African Frontier Force , but was turned down because of his young age and only accepted in 1903. For health reasons, he was transferred back to England in 1906 and temporarily paid half pay.

In 1910 he was promoted to captain and in 1912 attended the Central Flying School , where he obtained his military pilot's license ( Royal Aero Club Certificate No. 272). He was assigned to the Royal Flying Corps and for a time commanded a training flock and a squadron at the Central Flying School. In May 1914 he was given command of the in Farnborough stationed No. 7 Squadron equipped with Sopwith Tabloid . After the beginning of World War I , he took over No. 3 Squadron that served with the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front . In April 1915 he was transferred to administrative function back to Farnborough before in August as a temporary lieutenant colonel with the No. 2 Wing again took over a front command. On February 1, he was temporarily promoted to Brigadier General in command of the II Brigade of the RFC, a little later of the V Brigade, VI Brigade and finally, in July, the Training Brigade of the RFC. In August 1917, the Training Brigade was upgraded to a Training Division and Salmond was promoted to temporary major-general . In October of that year he became Director-General of Military Aeronautics in the UK War Department and a member of the Air Council . After Hugh Trenchard's appointment as first Chief of the Air Staff in January 1918, he followed this in his previous position as Commander in Chief of the RFC units in France. He received numerous awards during the war.

After the end of the war, he was accepted into the Royal Air Force in 1919 with the permanent rank of Air Vice Marshal . Employment as a higher commander in the motherland followed. In October 1922, Salmond became Air Officer Commanding of the newly created RAF Iraq Command, succeeding General Aylmer Haldane as Commander-in-Chief of all British forces in the Mesopotamia mandate . This corresponded to the British idea of ​​being able to make the crew costs more economical by mainly relying on air units (see Imperial Policing ). In 1923 he was promoted to Air Marshal and returned to England in late 1924 to take over as Commander in Chief of the Air Defense of Great Britain . In 1928 he was temporarily subordinate to the Australian government for an inspection by the Royal Australian Air Force before he was promoted to Air Chief Marshal Air Member for Personnel in January 1929 . A year later he succeeded the long-time chief of the Air Force Trenchard Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) and held this post until April 1933. In January 1933, he was promoted to Marshal of the Royal Air Force. His older brother Geoffrey succeeded him, but died after a short time in office, so that John had to temporarily replace him until a successor was found.

Commemorative plaque ( Blue Plaque ) in the London Borough of Camden , where Salmond temporarily lived

Salmond then worked for Imperial Airways . In 1938 he accepted the presidency of the Air Defense Cadet Corps . At the beginning of World War II , Salmond became Director of Armament Production at the Department of Aircraft Production . He also served as chairman of a committee on night air defense. In 1941 he gave up his post at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, but was immediately asked by Charles Portal to accept a new position as Director General for Air Traffic Control and Air-Assisted Water Rescue. He held this post until 1943, when he largely withdrew from public life due to poor health. However, he remained (for a total of 23 years) Chairman of the Royal Air Force Club . In 1953 he took part in the coronation procession for Queen Elizabeth II .

Web links

Commons : John Salmond  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• John Salmond on rafweb.org

predecessor	Office	successor
Sir Hugh Trenchard Sir Geoffrey Salmond	Chief of the Air Staff 1930-1933 1933	Sir Geoffrey Salmond Sir Edward Ellington