Pink's War Begins: Air Power Rises Alone
The RAF's first solo mission wasn't against enemy fighters — it was policing Mesopotamian tribes with a £2 million annual budget, one-tenth the cost of traditional ground forces. Wing Commander Richard Pink led eight aircraft squadrons to control modern-day Iraq through "air control," dropping leaflets warning villages before bombing them if they didn't comply with British rule. Pink's bombers replaced 60,000 soldiers. Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, championed this cheaper imperial strategy despite outcry over bombing civilians. The method worked so efficiently that Britain exported it across the empire, and other powers took notes. America's drone warfare in the same region a century later? Pink drew that blueprint.
March 9, 1925
101 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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