RAAF Command was the main operational arm of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. The command was formed in September 1942 and by April 1943 comprised 27 squadrons, including units from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as Australia. Coming under the operational authority of Allied Air Forces Headquarters in the South West Pacific Area, RAAF Command exercised control of its units through geographically based area commands in Australia and, later, New Guinea, as well as large mobile formations including the Australian First Tactical Air Force. The command reached a strength of 41 squadrons in October 1944. From the time of its establishment, until its disbandment in September 1945, it was led by Air Vice Marshal Bill Bostock.
History
Establishment and control
Allied Air Forces (AAF) Headquarters was established under General Douglas Macarthur's South West Pacific Area (SWPA) command on 20 April 1942. All Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flying units in the theatre, except training squadrons, were assigned to the control of the AAF commander, Lieutenant General George Brett, along with all United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force (NEI) units. The RAAF's operational headquarters, including all geographically based area commands, fighter sectors, and combat air bases, were also subordinate to AAF Headquarters. On 3 September 1942, the new AAF commander, Major General George Kenney, formed the bulk of his USAAF squadrons into the Fifth Air Force. He then formed the majority of RAAF units, as well as the 49th Fighter Group USAAF, into another organisation, initially known as Coastal Defence Command, with his chief of staff, Air Vice Marshal William (Bill) Bostock, as air officer commanding. The establishment of Coastal Defence Command was officially announced on 8 September 1942; the new formation was renamed RAAF Command three days later, as Bostock felt that the previous name did not do it justice. The only Australian air combat units in the SWPA not under RAAF Command were those based in New Guinea as No. 9 Operational Group RAAF, which was controlled by Fifth Air Force.
RAAF Command was charged with defending Australia, except in the north-east, protecting the sea lanes to New Guinea, and conducting operations against Japanese shipping, airfields and other installations in the Dutch East Indies. Its role was thus "mainly defensive" at the outset, with the expectation that "in the event of developments in the North and North-West of Australia, this would be altered". Bostock was to exercise control of air operations through the RAAF area command system, comprising North-Western, Western, Southern, Eastern, and North-Eastern Area Commands. While the arrangements effectively gave him operational command of the RAAF in the South West Pacific, administrative control of the units was retained by Air Force Headquarters, Melbourne, and the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal George Jones. Bostock was thus in the position of having to serve two masters, reporting to Kenney for tasking but to Jones for supplies and equipment. Despite the Australian Chiefs of Staff Committee recommending "unified operational and administrative control" of the Air Force, the division of command was permitted to continue, and was a source of "acute personal tension" between the RAAF's two most senior officers for the remainder of the war. Jones had opposed the creation of RAAF Command as a separate organisation to Air Force Headquarters, and only formally recognised it as an RAAF unit headquarters in March 1943, eight months after it had been established.