John Slessor - Post-war Career

Post-war Career

Slessor was promoted air chief marshal on 1 January 1946. He remained in the post of Air Member for Personnel until the end of 1947, when he succeeded General Sir William Slim as Commandant of the Imperial Defence College, at the urging of the-then Chief of the Air Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Tedder. Slessor had been dubious about accepting the position, and sought assurances from Tedder that he would be next in line for the Chief of the Air Staff post, particularly in light of Tedder's preference for Air Chief Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane to succeed him. Meanwhile Slessor also became Principal Air Aide-de-Camp on 1 July 1948. In the event, Slessor took over from Tedder as Chief of the Air Staff on 1 January 1950, and chose Cochrane as his Vice Chief of the Air Staff. Having been appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath on 10 June 1948, he was promoted Marshal of the Royal Air Force on 8 June 1950. In late 1951, Slessor reluctantly became involved in the Australian Government's quest for a suitable RAF officer to serve as Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Australian Air Force. He eventually selected Air Marshal Sir Donald Hardman as the "outstanding candidate" for the Australian post, trying to avoid what he called "the follies of some years ago", referring to Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett's controversial tenure as Chief of the Air Staff in Australia on secondment from Britain in the early years of World War II.

As leader of the RAF, Slessor coined the term 'V-Force' to denote the its planned trio of strategic jet bombers: the Vickers Valiant, Handley Page Victor, and Avro Vulcan, and contributed to the more expensive but safer decision to build all three designs. He played a key role in promoting nuclear weapons as an effective instrument of deterrence in early Cold War British strategy. In 1952, the RAF argued that, because bombers were such an important deterrent, conventional forces could be drastically reduced at a time when the Government was seeking significant public expenditure savings. Slessor believed it unlikely that the United Kingdom would be able to meet a communist offensive without resorting to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. He became one of the key propagandists of the 'Great Deterrent' (which he employed as the title of a book he wrote after he retired) on both sides of the Atlantic. Slessor's tour as Chief of the Air Staff was dominated by the Korean War.