Richard Peirse (officer, 1892)

Richard Peirse during World War II

Sir Richard Edmund Charles Peirse KCB , DSO , AFC (born September 30, 1892 in Croydon , Surrey , † August 6, 1970 in Wendover , Buckinghamshire ) was a British officer, most recently Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force .

Life

Peirse was born the only son of Royal Navy officer Richard Henry Peirse and raised at Monkton Combe School , HMS Conway and King's College London . He began his military career as a midshipman in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and became an officer in 1912. The following year he came to Grain Island Naval Air Station, where he earned Royal Aero Club Certificate No. 460, and became an assistant instructor at the Central Flying School in May 1914 . On July 1, 1914, he was promoted to flight lieutenant.

During the First World War , Peirse was involved in the attack on Dunkirk in January 1915 , for which he received the Distinguished Service Order . In May 1915 he was promoted to flight commander in No. Appointed 4 Squadron RNAS. This was followed by promotions to Squadron Commander in 1916 and acting Wing Commander in December 1917. When the Royal Air Force was founded in April 1918, Peirse received the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel and when the new rank system was introduced in the RAF in August 1919, he was promoted to permanent rank of Squadron Leader.

Until 1922 Peirse then served as a staff officer in No. 29 (Fleet) Group of the RAF before attending RAF Staff College in Andover . From 1923 he commanded the RAF Gosport airfield with the rank of Wing Commander . In 1925 he was transferred to the Directorate of Staff Duties as a staff officer and from 1927 attended the newly opened Imperial Defense College . After graduating, he was transferred to the RAF Middle East headquarters in 1928. From 1929 he commanded RAF Heliopolis . In 1930 he went back to England, where he became Deputy Director of Operations and Intelligence . From 1933 he commanded the Palestine Transjordan Command of the RAF.

In January 1937 Peirse was appointed Deputy Chief of the Air Staff ( Deputy Chief of the Air Staff ) and Director of Operations and Intelligence appointed and sat from 1939 in the Air Council . In April 1940 he was appointed to the newly introduced post of Vice-Chief of the Air Staff and a little later promoted to temporary Air Marshal . On October 5, 1940, he replaced Charles Portal, who was appointed Chief of the Air Staff , as Commander-in-Chief of the RAF Bomber Command .

In January 1942 a new assignment as Air Officer Commanding of the air headquarters at ABDACOM in Southeast Asia followed. After the dissolution of the command in March Peirse became Air Officer Commanding of the RAF in British India and was promoted here to Air Chief Marshal. In November 1943 he became the Allied Commander in Chief of the Air Force in Southeast Asia. He was dismissed from his post in November 1944 after his affair with Jessie Auchinleck, the wife of General Claude Auchinleck, became public. His first marriage, which was in 1915, was divorced in 1945 and the following year he married his previous lover Jessie. Peirse died at Princess Mary's RAF Hospital on RAF Halton in 1970 at the age of 77 . His son of the same name reached the rank of Air Vice-Marshal in the Royal Air Force.

Web links

Commons : Richard Peirse  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The Command Chiefs on raf.mod.uk
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse on rafweb.org