The Valour and the Horror

Portal, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Charles(1893-1971), British airman, known to all his friends as Peter, who, as a member of the British Chiefs of Staff and Combined Chiefs of Staff committees, was one of the principal architects of the Allies' victory in Europe.

A dispatch rider at the start of the First World War, Portal was soon commissioned and then seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in which he served with distinction. He was commissioned into the newly formed RAF and by 1939 was the air council member in charge of personnel with the rank of air vicemarshal. In September 1939 he was promoted acting air marshal and in April 1940 was appointed CinC Bomber Command.

It was soon shown during the Norwegian and in the fighting which preceded the fall of France that without adequate fighter protection Portal's forces were of lime consequence by day. However, Churchill was much impressed by the energy with which Portal prepared against the impending German invasion of the UK and by the comparative effectiveness of night raids on German invasion ports and barge concentrations. The vigour with which the RAF struck back at German cities immediately bombs started falling on London also appealed to the prime minister, for though these sorties caused little damage -far less than was thought at the time-they did wonders for morale. They also goaded Hitler into diverting the Luftwaffe from attacking RAF airfields to bombing London, a critical turning-point in the battle of Britain.

From the start Portal urged that German industrial areas be attacked, not just selected factories or plants, for he knew such precision was, at that time, beyond the capabilities of his aircraft. However, this policy was not accepted until after he had succeeded Newall as chief of air staff in October 1940 with the rank of air chief marshal. Making this policy work was no simple matter and much of Portal's energies early on were directed to improving Electronic navigation systems and bombing aids, increasing the power of his bombs, and making early experiments in marking targets which led to the formation of the Pathfinder Force. When the Butt report of August 1941 showed just how ineffective RAF raids were, Portal proposed a wider use of Area bombing by night, and to implement his new directive in February 1942 he replaced Bomber Command's C-in-C, Air Chief Marshal Richard Peirse (1892-1970), with Harris. But he always appreciated the advantages of daylight precision bombing: was keen, once the USA came into the wan to establish in the UK an American bomber force that could implement it; and held steadily to the worth of such a force when Churchill, for one, was sceptical of its potential. Ironically, Portal held the view that the long range fighter, which eventually enabled the daylight bombers to be so effective, would always be outfought by its short range opponents.

Portal accompanied Churchill to nearly all the Grand Alliance conferences and was immediately accepted and respected by the Americans who appreciated his calm, measured approach. At the Casablanca conference in January 1943 he was selected by the Combined Chiefs of Staff to coordinate the strategic bomber forces of the two nations in a Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany. In April 1944 the two bomber forces were placed under Eisenhower's control for the Normandy landings that June (OVERLORD), but when they reverted to the Combined Chiefs in September, it was decided to concentrate them on precision targets, especially oil plants. However, Harris disagreed with this approach, preferring to pursue the area bombing of German cities. It was a wrangle which remained unresolved. Attacks on German cities continued, including Dresden, though precision raids did take precedence over them when operational conditions allowed. Only the cessation of hostilities avoided the dismissal of Harris or a great diminution in Portal's authority.

When not attending the Allied conferences Portal fought most of his war from Whitehall, and at the 2,000 or so Chiefs of Staff meetings he later calculated he attended. He did not concern himself with the day-to-day running of the RAF but with the strategic planning of the war. He made mistakes, particularly over Harris and with his initial opposition to long-range fighters, but his friendship with the UK's principal allies, and the confidence Churchill retained in him, were of overriding value to the war effort. He was promoted Marshal of the Royal Air Force in January 1944. Eisenhower later said that he regarded Portal as the greatest British war leader, 'greater even than Churchill'. Described as 'Cold, remote, enigmatic, but obviously of very high intelligence' Portal, who had been knighted in 1940, retired from the RAF in 1945 and the same year was created Baron Portal of Hungerford.

Richards, D., Portal of Hungerford (London, l977).

Courtesy of The Oxford Companion to WWII