Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams, KBE, CB, DSO

[spidge]

<!-- #BeginEditable "bodytext" -->Father of the RAAF.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr> <td height="12"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="paragragh_header" height="12"> Full story here. Sound a bit familiar!


Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams



Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams, KBE, CB, DSO

</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"> Richard Williams is the most significant figure in the history of the Royal Australian Air Force. On a calm morning at Point Cook, Victoria in November 1914, he completed three brief flying tests in a Bristol Boxkite, thus qualifying as the first military pilot trained in Australia. Eight years later he became the first Chief of the Air Staff, a post he held for most of the difficult inter-war years when the Air Force's continuing existence as an independent service was frequently under threat from the Army and Navy.
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That may have been cold comfort to Williams who in February 1939 was removed from office, ostensibly because of the allegedly high accident rate. A more likely reason for the dismissal was that, after almost 20 years of political in-fighting on behalf of his service, Dicky Williams had simply made too many enemies.
Air Vice-Marshal Williams spent most of World War II overseas, firstly in the United Kingdom and then as the Royal Australian Air Force's senior representative in Washington. He was retired against his wishes in 1946 by the Chifley Government, extraordinarily shabby treatment of a man who had contributed so much to his country. On leaving the Air Force he became Director-General of Civil Aviation. He published immensely interesting and invaluable (if understandably idiosyncratic) memoirs, These Are Facts, in 1977.
Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams, KBE, CB, DSO, died in 1980. He is properly remembered and honoured as the 'Father' of the Royal Australian Air Force.

[adrian roberts]

Sounds very familiar. There was a lot of politics over whether Portal or Newall should be CAS of the RAF in 1938-39; Dowding only just escaped enforced retirement at the same time, and then there was the politics surrounding his dismissal after the BofB