Editing Fleet Air Arm (section)

===Fleet Air Arm===
On 1 April 1924, the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Air Force was formed, encompassing those RAF units that normally embarked on aircraft carriers and fighting ships.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.seayourhistory.org.uk/content/view/454/613/|title=Interwar: Fleet Air Arm|work=Sea Your History|access-date=8 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160402094005/http://www.seayourhistory.org.uk/content/view/454/613|archive-date=2 April 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> The year was significant for British naval aviation as only weeks before the founding of the Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Navy had commissioned {{HMS|Hermes|95|6}}, the world's first ship to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier. Over the following months RAF Fleet Air Arm [[Fairey IIID]] reconnaissance biplanes operated off Hermes, conducting flying trials.

On 24 May 1939 the Fleet Air Arm was returned to Admiralty control<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fleetairarmoa.org/pages/fleet_air_arm_history/history.shtml |title=The History of the Fleet Air Arm Officers Association, FAAOA |work=fleetairarmoa.org |access-date=8 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418115613/http://www.fleetairarmoa.org/pages/fleet_air_arm_history/history.shtml |archive-date=18 April 2012 |url-status=live  }}</ref> under the "[[Sir Thomas Inskip|Inskip Award]]" (named after the [[Minister for Co-ordination of Defence]] overseeing the British re-armament programme) and renamed the Air Branch of the Royal Navy. At the onset of the Second World War, the Fleet Air Arm consisted of 20 squadrons with only 232 frontline aircraft, and 191 additional trainers. By the end of the war the strength of the Fleet Air Arm was 59 aircraft carriers, 3,700 aircraft, 72,000 officers and men and 56 Naval air stations.

[[File:An elephant pulling a Supermarine Walrus aircraft into position at a Fleet Air Arm station in India, June 1944. A24291.jpg|thumb|An elephant pulling a [[Supermarine Walrus]] aircraft into position at a Fleet Air Arm station in India (c. June 1944)]]

During the war, the FAA operated fighters, torpedo bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Following the [[Dunkirk evacuation]] and the commencement of the [[Battle of Britain]], the Royal Air Force soon found itself critically short of fighter pilots. In the summer of 1940, the RAF had just over 800 fighter pilots and as personnel shortages worsened; the RAF turned to the Admiralty to ask for help from the Fleet Air Arm. Fleet Air Arm crews under [[RAF Fighter Command]] were either seconded individually to RAF fighter squadrons or entire as with 804 and 808 Naval Air Squadrons. The former provided dockyard defence during the Battle of Britain with [[Gloster Gladiator|Sea Gladiators]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/RollofHonour/Battlehonour_crewlists/BattleofBritain_FAAaircrew_1940.html |title=Fleet Air Arm squadrons taking part in the Battle of Britain under RAF Fighter Command |work=Fleet Air Arm Archive 1939–1945 |access-date=8 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150625093132/http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/RollofHonour/Battlehonour_crewlists/BattleofBritain_FAAaircrew_1940.html |archive-date=25 June 2015 |url-status=usurped }}</ref>

In British home waters and out into the Atlantic Ocean, operations against Axis shipping and submarines in support of the RN were mounted by [[RAF Coastal Command]] with large patrol bombers, flying boats and land-based fighter-bombers. The [[aircraft carrier]] had replaced the [[battleship]] as the [[capital ship]] of the RN and its aircraft were now its principal offensive weapons. The top scoring [[Flying ace|fighter ace]] with 17 victories was Commander [[Stanley Orr]], the [[Royal Marines|Royal Marine]] ace was [[Ronald Cuthbert Hay]] with 13 victories. A number of Royal Marines were [[History of the Royal Marines#Second World War|FAA pilots]] during the war.

Notable Fleet Air Arm operations during the war included the [[Battle of Taranto]], the sinking of the [[German battleship Bismarck|''Bismarck'']], the attempt to prevent the [[Channel Dash]], [[Operation Tungsten]] against the [[German battleship Tirpitz|''Tirpitz'']] and [[Operation Meridian]] against oil plants in [[Sumatra]].