The RAF is born. The Royal Air Force (RAF) was born from the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Service. At the beginning of the First World War, England had suffered several bombing raids, and German aces, such as Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron,” dominated the skies unchallenged. But by the end of the war, the RAF had achieved air supremacy on the Western Front. Twenty years later, the RAF’s courage and skill would be reaffirmed during the Battle of Britain, when its forces, outnumbered by the Germans, managed to foil Hitler’s invasion of Great Britain.
