Charles Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford

(1893-1971)

Royal Air Force air marshals

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Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford, KG, GCB, OM, DSO & Bar, MC (21 May 1893 – 22 April 1971) was a senior Royal Air Force officer. In the First World War he was a pilot, then a flight commander and then a squadron commander flying light bombers on the Western Front. In the early stages of the Second World War he was commander-in-chief of Bomber Command in which role he advocated strategic area bombing against German industrial areas, the same sort of targets that the Luftwaffe was already targeting in the United Kingdom. He was then Chief of the Air Staff during the rest of the War and in that role he fended off an attempt by the Royal Navy to take over RAF Coastal Command as well as an attempt by the British Army to establish their own Army Air Arm. He was also an advocate of the need for a renewed strategic bombing offensive. In retirement Portal was chairman of British Aluminium and unsuccessfully fought in the "Aluminium War" against a hostile takeover bid by Sir Ivan Stedeford's Tube Investments; he then became chairman of the British Aircraft Corporation.