Records of the Department of the Chief of the Air Staff

Records of the Department of the Chief of the Air Staff relating to Royal Air Force operations, planning, intelligence and communications.

Registered files of the department are in AIR 8

Records of the directorates of intelligence, operations and planning, etc will be found in AIR 9 and AIR 40

Records relating to combined planning and liaison with the United States of America and other allied nations during the Second World War will be found in AIR 42, AIR 45 and AIR 46

Records of the Inspector General of the RAF are in AIR 33

• Air Ministry, Department of the Chief of the Air Staff, 1918-1964
• Ministry of Defence, Department of the Chief of the Air Staff, 1964-1964

Topics

Air Force

Conflict

Americas

Operations, battles and campaigns

The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) is the professional head of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and bears responsibility, through his department, for (i) RAF policy(ii) the conduct of air operations(iii) the fighting efficiency of the RAF(iv) policy questions connected with the way in which RAF units are formed, armed and equipped, manned, trained and maintained, and with their disposition and accommodation(v) the collection of intelligence(vi) RAF communications(vii) questions connected with the training of officers in staff duties such as those undertaken by the RAF Staff Colleges

Immediately under the CAS comes the Vice Chief of the Air Staff (VCAS), the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (DCAS), and assistant chiefs of the air staff (ACAS). The VCAS post was created in 1940; the DCAS post which, in 1942, was redesignated ACAS (Operations), was revived in 1943 with particular responsibility, under the CAS and VCAS, for operations, tactics, and air staff aspects of public relations. The assistant chiefs of the air staff, whose posts were created in 1938, were each responsible for specified areas of work.

The Commandant General of the RAF Regiment, formed in 1942 for the defence of RAF installations against ground attack, was also attached to the air staff, as was the Scientific Adviser to the Air Ministry appointed in 1944 to deal primarily with the scientific aspects of their operations. This latter appointment brought the Air Ministry into line with the Admiralty and the War Office, although since 1940, when much scientific work formerly undertaken in the Department of the Air Member for Development and Production had been transferred to the Ministry of Aircraft Production, they had enjoyed the services of a scientific adviser on telecommunications.

Below this level the air staff was generally organised in directorates the number of which, together with the chain of command and organisation, changed from time to time. Broadly speaking, however, they revolved around policy and plans, operations, intelligence, operational requirements, staff duties and signals, stemming from the original Directorates of Flying Operations and Air Intelligence created at the time of the formation of the Air Ministry in 1918.

At one time or the other, the Department of the Chief of Air Staff also included directorates relating to equipment, medical services, organisation, personnel, and works and buildings, subsequently absorbed in the Departments of the Air Members for Supply and Research and the Air Member for Personnel. The Directorate of Training also came under the department from 1919 to 1924, when it passed to the Air Member for Personnel, and again from 1948 under an Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Training). From 1941 to 1946 the RAF Delegation, Washington, formed the air staff component of the Joint Staff Mission.