A familiar account holds that the RAF won the 1966 review by defeating the Royal Navy's carrier programme. RAF historical studies compared carriers with medium bombers and favoured the air-service solution. A similar interwar argument over bombers and battleships met stronger resistance because the Royal Navy maintained a funded historical section able to answer on the same ground. That earlier dispute led to a meeting involving Admirals Ernle Chatfield and Reginald Henderson and minister Thomas Inskip. The account has no notes from the meeting, only later references, so its reported outcome remains tentative: the RAF was warned against repeating the exercise, and the Navy was apparently discouraged from gloating. Historical research here functioned as a weapon in force-structure debates rather than neutral background.
Notable Point · 34:43-36:24
Service historical research and the carrier argument
RAF studies favouring medium bombers over carriers are placed in a longer inter-service contest over how historical research shaped procurement arguments.