Charles Portal

CHARLES PORTAL (1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford) d1971. Royal Air Force officer who served as a bomber pilot in WW1 and rose to become first a flight commander and then a squadron commander, flying light bombers on the Western Front. In the early stages of WW2, he was commander-in-chief of Bomber Command. He was an advocate of strategic area bombing against German industrial areas and viewed it as a war winning strategy. In October 1940, he was made Chief of the Air Staff and remained in this post for the rest of the war. During his time as Chief, he continuously supported the strategic bombing offensive against Germany and advocated the formation of the Pathfinder Force, critical to improving the destructive force of Bomber Command. He fended off attempts by the Royal Navy to take command over RAF Coastal Command and resisted attempts by the British Army to establish their own Army Air Arm. Hel retired from the RAF following the end of the war. He served as Controller of Production (Atomic Energy) at the Ministry of Supply for six years. He was then made chairman of British Aluminium. He was unsuccessful in fending off a hostile takeover of British Aluminum by Sir Ivan Stedeford's Tube Investments in what was known as the "Aluminium War". Afterward he served as chairman of the British Aircraft Corporation. He died in Sussex aged 77 on April 22nd 1971