Charles Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford, KG, GCB, OM, DSO & Bar, MC, DL (21 May 1893 – 22 April 1971) was a senior Royal Air Force officer. He served as a bomber pilot in the First World War, and rose to become first a flight commander and then a squadron commander, flying light bombers on the Western Front.

In the early stages of the Second World War he was commander-in-chief of Bomber Command. He was an advocate of strategic area bombing against German industrial areas, and viewed it as a war winning strategy. In October 1940 he was made Chief of the Air Staff, and remained in this post for the rest of the war. During his time as Chief he continuously supported the strategic bombing offensive against Germany, and advocated the formation of the Pathfinder Force, critical to improving the destructive force of Bomber Command. He fended off attempts by the Royal Navy to take command over RAF Coastal Command, and resisted attempts by the British Army to establish their own Army Air Arm. Portal retired from the RAF following the end of the war. He served as Controller of Production (Atomic Energy) at the Ministry of Supply for six years. Portal was then made chairman of British Aluminium. He was unsuccessful in fending off a hostile takeover of British Aluminum by Sir Ivan Stedeford's Tube Investments, in what was known as the "Aluminium War". Afterward he served as chairman of the British Aircraft Corporation.

Portal was born at Eddington House, Hungerford, Berkshire, the son of Edward Robert Portal and his wife Ellinor Kate (née Hill). His younger brother Admiral Sir Reginald Portal (1894–1983) joined the Royal Navy and also had a distinguished career. The Portals had Huguenot origins, having arrived in England in the 17th century. He was related to the goldsmith and dramatist Abraham Portal, and more distantly so to Wyndham Portal, 1st Viscount Portal.

Charles Portal, or "Peter" as he was nicknamed, was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford. Portal had intended to become a barrister but he did not finish his degree and he left undergraduate life to enlist as a private soldier in 1914.

At the beginning of the First World War, Portal joined the British Army and served as a dispatch rider in the motorcycle section of the Royal Engineers on the Western Front. Portal was made a corporal very soon after joining the Army and he was commissioned as a second lieutenant only weeks later. Around the same time, Portal was commended in Sir John French's first despatch of September 1914. In December 1914, Portal was given command of all riders in the 1st Corps Headquarters Signals Company.

In July 1915, with the need for dispatch riders decreasing, Portal transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). He served first as an observer and then, from November 1915, as a flying officer. He graduated as a pilot in April 1916, and joined No. 60 Squadron flying Morane monoplanes on the Western Front. He became a flight commander with No. 3 Squadron flying BE2c aircraft on the Western Front on 16 July 1916. Portal was promoted to temporary major in June 1917 and given command of No. 16 Squadron flying RE8 aircraft on the Western Front at the same time. He was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel on 17 June 1918 and given command of No. 24 (Training) Wing at RAF Grantham in August 1918. Portal was awarded the Military Cross in January 1917, the citation for which reads:

For conspicuous gallantry in action. He has done excellent artillery work in the air, often in bad weather and at low altitudes; he has always set his flight the best of examples. On one occasion he shot down a hostile machine.

He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 18 July 1917 and a Bar to his DSO on 18 July 1918. The DSO's citation reads: