Battle of Britain

A vivid memory of school days is of a warm summer term afternoon playing House Thirds cricket on a rough pitch on the edge of Terrace when a sound familiar from films rent the peaceful afternoon air. The Battle of Britain flight came low over the school, turning overhead and heading off. A little while later they came back and a third time! I suppose there must have been an air show at Stanstead or Duxford and were using Haileybury as a land-mark.

The 10th of July was afterwards arbitrarily chosen by Sir Hugh Dowding as the opening day of what became known as the Battle of Britain, so the seventieth anniversary of that long, hot, desperate Summer is marked now. Duxford was the HQ of 12 Group, commanded by Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory (M 1906), covering the area North of London. Sir Hugh Park's 11 Group covering London and the South East bore the brunt of the Battle, and relations between Leigh-Mallory and Park were soured by the former's advocacy with Douglas Bader of the tactic known as the 'Big Wing', massing fighters in large numbers. The Big Wing seemed to reduce casualties, but Park complained that the formations were often late to arrive and in the wrong place when they did.

Leigh-Mallory won the arguments at the time, but the verdict of history has been less swift to agree with him. Although the centre of a feud with other senior air commanders, Leigh-Mallory was noted for his knowledge of the army and specialism in co-ordinating ground and air forces, a skill which was instrumental in winning him appointment as Air Officer Commanding the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, the most senior air officer for D Day and the Battle of Normandy.

Leigh-Mallory was killed when his plane crashed in late 1944, one of the most senior British officers to be killed in the war.

Meeting in February 1944 of the commanders of the Allied Expeditionary Force, London, February 1944. Front row, left to right: Arthur Tedder (deputy commander), Dwight D. Eisenhower (supreme commander), Bernard Montgomery (Twenty-first Army Group). Back row, left to right: Omar Bradley (U.S. First Army), Bertram Ramsay (Allied Naval Expeditionary Force), Trafford Leigh-Mallory (Allied Expeditionary Air Forces), and Walter Bedell Smith (chief of staff).