RAF Transport Command

De Havilland DH.106 Comet , 1994

The RAF Transport Command was an air transport command of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) between 1943 and 1967 and was responsible for air transport .

history

The RAF Transport Command was formed on March 25, 1943 from the previously independent Ferry Command , founded on July 20, 1941 from the previous Atlantic Ferry Service . The Ferry Command itself was established on March 25, 1943 at No. 45 (Atlantic Ferry) Group renamed. The first commander of the RAF Transport Command was then Air Chief Marshal Frederick Bowhill , who had previously been in command of Ferry Command since July 20, 1941 .

On August 1, 1967, the RAF Transport Command was renamed Air Support Command ( RAF Air Support Command ) and the previous commander of the RAF Transport Command , Air Marshal Thomas Prickett , was the first commanding general of the RAF Air Support Command .

fleet

Blackburn Beverley , 1967

Bristol Britannia , 1964

In the course of its existence the Transport Command operated, among others, the following types of aircraft:

• Armstrong Whitworth Argosy
• Avro Anson
• Avro York
• Blackburn Beverley
• Bristol Britannia
• Consolidated B-24 Liberator
• De Havilland DH.104 Devon
• De Havilland DH.106 Comet
• Douglas DC-3 / C-47 Dakota
• Handley Page Hastings
• Hawker Siddeley Andover
• Lockheed C-130 Hercules
• Percival Pembroke
• Scottish Aviation Pioneer
• Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer
• Short Belfast
• Vickers Valetta
• Vickers VC10

Commander

Air Chief Marshal Frederick Bowhill was first in command of the Ferry Command between 1941 and 1943 and then first in command of the resulting RAF Transport Command from 1943 to 1945

The RAF Transport Command was usually subordinate to a Lieutenant General ( Air Marshal ) as Commanding General AOC-in-C (Air Officer Commander-in-Chief) according to today's NATO rank code OF-8 .

Start of term of office	Rank	Official
July 20, 1941: Commander of Ferry Command . March 25, 1943: Commander of RAF Transport Command	Air Chief Marshal	Frederick Bowhill
February 15, 1945	Air Marshal	Ralph Cochrane
September 24, 1947	Air Marshal	Brian Edmund Baker
March 31, 1950	Air Marshal	Aubrey Ellwood
January 1, 1952	Air Vice Marshal	Robert Blucke
June 3, 1952	Air Vice Marshal	Charles Guest
March 15, 1954	Air Vice Marshal	George Beamish
October 15, 1955	Air Marshal	Andrew McKee
May 16, 1959	Air Marshal	Denis Barnett
April 30, 1962	Air Marshal	Edmund Hudleston
December 1, 1963	Air Marshal	Kenneth Brian Boyd Cross
January 27, 1967	Air Marshal	Thomas Prickett
August 1, 1967		Resolution of the command

literature

• Christopher Cole and Roderick Grant: But Not In Anger. The RAF in the Transport Role . Ian Allan, Shepperton 1979.

Web links

• RAF Home Commands formed between 1939–1957 on Air of Authority - A History of RAF Organization

Individual evidence

1. ^ Cole, Grant 1979.