End of The War
At the end of the war there were 5,182 pilots in service (just 2% of the RAF). In comparison the casualties from the RFC/RNAS/RAF for 1914–18 totalled 9,378 killed or missing, with 7,245 wounded. Some 900,000 flying hours on operations were logged, and 6,942 tons of bombs dropped. The RFC claimed some 7,054 German aircraft and balloons either destroyed, sent 'down out of control' or 'driven down'.
Eleven RFC members received the Victoria Cross during the First World War. Initially the RFC did not believe in publicising the victory totals and exploits of their Aces. Eventually however, public interest and the newspapers' demand for heroes lead to this policy being abandoned, with the feats of aces such as Captain Albert Ball raising morale in the service as well as on the "home front".
For a short time after the formation of the RAF, pre-RAF ranks such as Lieutenant, Captain and Major continued to exist, a practice which officially ended on 15 September 1919. For this reason some early RAF memorials and gravestones show ranks which no longer exist in the modern RAF. A typical example is James McCudden's grave, though there are many others.
Read more about this topic: Royal Flying Corps
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)