Recruiting and training the Royal Flying Corps. Finding and preparing the men who would fight Britain’s first war in the air

Abstract

This thesis explores two interrelated and previously neglected aspects of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) during the First World War: recruitment and training. The study will examine who the RFC recruited for roles both in the air and on the ground. It will explore how the force's makeup changed as the war progressed, why such changes occurred, their consequences, and how the RFC responded. It will examine how the men were targeted, the recruitment process that followed, and ultimately assess how successful the RFC was in meeting its recruitment challenge. A successful organisation can either recruit skilled men or train the unskilled. This research will show how skilled tradesmen were readily available at the beginning of the war and that the RFC had a lengthy pipeline of pilot applicants. As the war progressed, this dynamic shifted markedly, and the research investigates how the RFC built both a pilot and tradesmen training organisation to compensate for the absence of knowledge in later recruits. The research will also challenge several myths and stereotypes with a particular focus on accident rates during training, and a major new assessment of the role played in training by Robert Smith-Barry. It extensively uses previously untapped sources that challenge existing historiographical contentions, many of which have been based on limited or inaccurate sources. Ultimately, the thesis fills a sizeable gap in our understanding of who the RFC were during the First World War.