RAF Coastal Command

Royal Air Force Coastal Command
RAF Coastal Command crest
Active	14 July 1936 – 27 November 1969
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Air Force
Role	Anti-submarine warfare Commerce raiding Aerial reconnaissance Air-sea rescue Weather reconnaissance
Part of	Royal Air Force
Headquarters	Northwood
Motto(s)	Constant Endeavour
Engagements	World War II and Cold War

RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). Founded in 1936, it became the RAF's only maritime arm when the Fleet Air Arm was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1937. Naval aviation had been neglected in the inter-war period, due to the RAF having control of the aircraft flying from Royal Navy carriers. As a consequence Coastal Command did not receive the resources it needed to develop properly or efficiently. This continued until the outbreak of the Second World War, during which it came to prominence. But owing to the Air Ministry's concentration on RAF Fighter Command and RAF Bomber Command, Coastal Command was often referred to as the "Cinderella Service", a phrase first used by the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time A V Alexander.

Coastal Commands's primary task became the protection of Allied convoys from attacks by the German Kriegsmarine's U-boats, groups of which were known as "wolfpacks". It also protected Allied shipping from aerial attacks by the Luftwaffe. The main operations of Coastal Command were defensive, defending supply lines in the various theatres of war, most notably the Mediterranean, Middle East and African, and the battle of the Atlantic. It also had an offensive capacity. In the Mediterranean theatre and the Baltic sea it attacked German shipping carrying war materials from Italy to North Africa and from Scandinavia to Germany. By 1943 Coastal Command finally received sufficient Very Long Range [VLR] aircraft it needed and its operations proved decisive in the victory over the U-boats. These aircraft were Consolidated B-24 Liberators and, from early 1943, these, and other Coastal Command aircraft, were fitted with Mark III ASV [air-to-surface vessel] centimetric radar, the latest depth charges, including homing torpedoes, officially classed as Mark 24 mines [nicknamed 'Wandering Annie' or 'Wandering Willie'] and even rockets.