Skip to main content

Royal Air Force Jubilee (Names Of Pioneers)

Volume 388: debated on Friday 2 April 1943

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

46.

asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that in several talks on the British Broadcasting Corporation and articles in the Press in connection with the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Royal Air Force, the name of the right hon. and gallant Member for the Central Division of Nottingham (Major-General Sir F. Sykes) was omitted, he can, in the interests of historic truth, give the names, with dates, of appointments of the principal officers concerned in creating the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Naval Air Service and those who were chiefs of staff in building up the Royal Air Force when the two services were amalgamated in 1918?

The names and appointments of the officers associated with the creation of the Services referred to have already been published in full detail in the Official History of the War, and further publication at this stage in the OFFICIAL REPORT would hardly be warranted. None of the broadcasts or articles connected with the R.A.F. Jubilee purported to give the names of all these officers, but the name of the right hon. and gallant Member for Central Nottingham, who was one of the most distinguished of the early pioneers, was in fact mentioned both on the air and in print.