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Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal
Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal (1893–1971). Portal came from a Berkshire gentry family of Huguenot ancestry. After Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, he joined the army at the outbreak of war in 1914 but in 1915 transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and flew more than 900 sorties before 1918. Promoted air marshal in 1939 he took over Bomber Command in 1940, but after six months became chief of the air staff, which he retained until the end of the war. Tall, hawk-like, and able, he protected Tedder and, like most people, found ‘Bomber’ Harris difficult to work with. After the war he served as controller of the atomic energy establishment at Harwell (1946–51) and as chairman of the British Aircraft Corporation (1960–8). Eisenhower thought Portal the finest of all the war leaders, ‘greater than Churchill’, and Churchill himself remarked that Portal ‘had everything’.
J. A. Cannon |
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Cite this article
JOHN CANNON. "Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN CANNON. "Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-PortalCharles1stVscntPrtl.html JOHN CANNON. "Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-PortalCharles1stVscntPrtl.html |
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Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal
Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal (1893–1971). Portal came from a gentry family of Huguenot ancestry. After Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, he joined the army in 1914 but in 1915 transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and flew more than 900 sorties before 1918. Promoted air marshal in 1939 he took over Bomber Command in 1940, but after six months became chief of the air staff, which he retained until the end of the war. Eisenhower thought Portal the finest of all the war leaders, ‘greater than Churchill’, and Churchill himself remarked that Portal ‘had everything’.
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Cite this article
JOHN CANNON. "Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal." A Dictionary of British History. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN CANNON. "Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal." A Dictionary of British History. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O43-PortalCharles1stVscntPrtl.html JOHN CANNON. "Portal, Charles, 1st Viscount Portal." A Dictionary of British History. 2004. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O43-PortalCharles1stVscntPrtl.html |
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