Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur William Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder, was a Scottish senior Royal Air Force commander. He was a pilot and squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and he went on to serve as a senior officer in the Royal Air Force during the inter-war years when he served in Turkey, Great Britain and the Far East.
Tedder on the Italian coast in December 1943.
Tedder sitting at his desk at Air House, his official residence in Cairo, while serving as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Middle East Forces.
A convalescent Winston Churchill meets the outgoing and incoming Supreme Commanders in the Mediterranean, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to Churchill's right, and Henry Maitland Wilson, to his left. Behind them stand (from left to right), John Whiteley, Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, Brigadier G. S. Thompson, Admiral Sir John Cunningham, unknown, Sir Harold Alexander, Captain M. L. Power, Humfrey Gale, Leslie Hollis, and Eisenhower's chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith.
Supreme Command, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), London, 1 February 1944, Tedder sits to the right of Eisenhower as Deputy supreme commander
Marshal of the Royal Air Force
Marshal of the Royal Air Force (MRAF) is the highest rank in the Royal Air Force (RAF). In peacetime it was granted to RAF officers in the appointment of Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), and to retired Chiefs of the Air Staff (CAS), who were promoted to it on their last day of service. While surviving Marshals of the RAF retain the rank for life, the highest rank to which officers on active service are promoted is now air chief marshal. Although general promotions to Marshal of the Royal Air Force have been discontinued since the British defence cuts of the 1990s, further promotions to the rank may still be made in wartime, for members of the Royal Family and certain very senior RAF air officers in peacetime at the discretion of the monarch; all such promotions in peacetime are only honorary, however. In 2012, the then Prince of Wales was promoted to the rank in recognition of his support for his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in her capacity as head of the armed forces (commander-in-chief), while in 2014 Lord Stirrup, who had served as Chief of the Air Staff and Chief of the Defence Staff for over seven years, was also promoted.
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Hugh Trenchard.
King George V in the uniform of a Marshal of the RAF
Image: Sir Hugh Trenchard (cropped)
Image: Sir John Salmond in 1925