1957-09-28 — Page 6

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1957,

Why do they

who saved

snub the man-

Britain?-

man

Used by the Germans. The rounds went through them like a knife through butter.

"Dowding" then sold: 'Right. Now fire at the armour in the aircraft,!

ננת

extreelitary in-

"The result WRA surprising victory over the Luftwaffe was than their .303

machino, guns, alinokt beyond belief. The other victories possible.

The Air Maistry decided on the bulge." And so to the year of victory 5inch Browning But Dowding What itself. Generously in 1945 the was not satisfied. He asked for eldent. And how it lights up the Hugh Dowding was a glory was shared round among tests an captured Messer Dowding mystery. For Dowding: The battle-winners. Five war schmitt. The men at the top sald not only argued with the faceless kaders became Knights of the more tests were untieressary Garter.

THEY came in their hundreds that Sunday. The year, silent grey-faced

Dorniers. the Heinkeis, the Messerschmitt walked anxiously across a field won--the victory that made all But what should they have? armour showed only deals and

in the Midlands. A group of High over the empty beaches of Margate and scientists were with him. Broadstairs, over Gravesend, over the cross and dome of St Paul's itself. They came trailing thin the first offcial test of radar. feathers of vapour across our autumn skies.

It was September 16. Just 17 years ago.

Do you remember that day? In the whole Battle of Britain it was the decisive moment. High above Our heads, in a box of air 80 miles long, was fought out ong of the most crucial battles in the history of mankind.

Though 17 years have parsed,

I ask a question: it really 100 late to honour the man who won the battle?

Do you remember that man? His name was Dowding. Chi-f of Fighter Command. "Stuffy Hugh Dowding the mannered man

face.

with the tired

ad

For four years Dowding been planning for that battle.

He began almost from scratch, He He selected the men. trained them. He saw that they the had the right machines,

the right gurs in their wings, right alchelds, the right system of those fantastic cars which we call radar,

THE SACK

TF Dowding had failed in any of the things, the Invasion after (which ler called of that September Sunday) wild

Darknee have been a reality. would have fallen, perhaps or

ever.

But Dowding did not tail, ftis ul forcalght won the Battle Britain as sule os Nelson won Trafalgar.

When Nelson died a grateful

his Parliament voted

descen-

dants £5,000 a year.

c:f

What was Dowding given? Put the truth bluntly; As Soun as he had won the Battle Britain he was given the sack. He lost his job at Fighter Com- mand. A year later he W39 placed on the retired is. Two years after that he was given abarony. That was all.

Why was Dowding treated so canly? For years the mystery has remained. But now Basil Collier's

by PERCY HOWARD

hiography of Dowding is pub- shed. I believe that the onover is given et last.

Clarice rapidly over the story, Turn back in 1912. Dowling had his mind on the wer ahead. He was an Army officer, but while it was still dark each maming he drove out privately to Brooklands to learn Indy.

Any cause for dissatisfaction with Dowding there?

For his role in distant their experts had already tried of power at the top. When they were wrong, he ecmmitted Burma Lord Louis Mountbatten out the Browning on annour of the graver sin of always being of was made a viscount and then the correct thickness.

right.

Any cause for dissatisfaction there?

Finally term to the sequel Baldwin, 10 the month Dunkirk.

of

Dowding, with the battle almost on him, had one demand: planes, planes, planes. Writes Coller:-

to re-

the country's fale was likely to turn largely on ability 10 manufacture Hurricanes and Spitfires fast enough place losses incurred in the last three weeks of May and pre- vide against those certain to be suffered in the coming battle.

He continues:--

"In the hour of need, the oir

Jactorica did wonders craft Dowding bad no doubt where Chur- the creat day. Winston Even then chill's speeches galvanised the nation to unheard of efforts, but the man who took the tide of fortune at the flood and used it to drive the wheels of the air- craft factories was Max Beaver- brook. In turn smiling like Cheshire eat and frowning like

the Sperates,

indomitable Move on to 1930. Everyone master-foreman of the aircraft was disenssing whether Brilain industry was 13 Dowding should go on competing in the revelation." Schneider seaplane race. Dowding, now In charge RAF research, said No. said the money should be spent on producing the two fastest possible andplanes which could be landed on existing airfields The result of that recommend tion-De Spitfire and the Hurricane,

But

of He

HIS WAY

an carl. Five other war lenders A kist, having appealed How that must have rankled. were made vierounts with him. directly to Beaverbrook Dowding How relieved the Establishment

But for

Dowding, the man got his explured Meureradimitt, men must have been when they we the key battle, there Writes Collier:-

were able to bundle Dowding Who Were no more honours. He

out of the way. was not oven allowed an air- man's highest rank.

RIGHT AGAIN

TODAY there are 11 Marshals

of the Royal Air Force. In retirement they receive £2,300 year. They include Sir Arthur Harris and Sir John Slessor. They even include Lord Douglas of Kirtleside. But they do not Include Hugh Dowding.

Why then has Dowding been overlooked? Let

examine Collier's narrative again.

Take the days when the Splt- fire and furricane had still not been designed.

And

The trial was held at Orford- ness. No ano from the Air Ministry attended it.

Dowding was in the right. Bul Is it too inte for the nation in "The first test was made with- put itself in the right too? Is It cut the fuselage. A burnt was really Too late to show Bur fired at plates of armour said to gratitude to the man who led be similar in all respects to those The Few?

NOW HE GOES SKATING

ARTHUR BRENARD

you drive out near Tunbridge Wells you wli see on top of a wooded 11111 the modest home where Lord Dowding lives.

It is surrounded by the prin vitlas of a modern housing estate.

And overhead howling Jet fighters

the from famous Kent airfields re- mind him of the Fighter Command he once led and of the battle we won.

What sort of life does he lead, 17 years after the momentous fight which he described to mo 18 period of almost Intoler- able strain"? This man of

The experts wanted our future Aghters to be biplanes. Dowding insisted mcooplanes.

on Dowding was right.

Then A committee discussed

for a equipment

those planes. Dowding asked for bullet-proof glass. When there were titterS de- and knowing smiles, he monded: "It Chicago gangstera can have bullet-proof gloss for DEAVERBROOK handed Dow- the windows of their motor-cars. ding the planes. But there why can't pilots have it for their were people wailing to, snotch windscreens?" Once more them away again. The politicians Dowding was right. of France, then near defeat. They Next came the question of demanded Hurricane squadrons, afrifelds. The Air Ministry The British Cabinet agreed to men were dead-ret against send them.

runways because they Then Dowding demanded couldn't be camouflaged. Dow- audience. Desperately, be ding fought for the all-weather Jore the baize-covered table tarmac instead of grass. At last And of course he NOW then to 1935; the year in the Cabinet room, he insisted he got it. No

that without those Hurricanes was right again. when the election featured Stanley Baldwin pulling he had finished he threw down the guns,

posters Brilain herself must fall. When

Fasily come the debate about 66/THE Leader of the tils pipe and droning shout the pencil he was holding-as

Few"

been has When the Germans began t- peace. On a cold day early that if to say: "If I don't have my ting rear armour plating on their written by Basil Collier, the

way, I give up."

fighters, everyone knew that official historian Dowding had his way: la e the Spitorea and Hurricanes Battle of Britain. hot, cloudless weeks ahead his would now need heavier weapons

Any raise for dissatisfaction

there?

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75 never wastes a monent. About twice a week he gots to London-cometimes by rain, more often at the wheel of his car,

He attends debates in the House of Lords on subjects which Interest him. ་་ prefer to avold controver- slal air matters.")

If he feels he needs exercise ho drives himself to Richmond and jalus the crowds of teenagers on the fec.rink.

"At my age," he told me, "Ice skating is the perfect exercise because you can

op when you have Enough."

had

SO SOON FORGOT

THE

The partnership prospered und the weapons-the. Spitfires and Hurricanes--were ready for the warriors,

of

the

"Others might cast doulst on Beaverbrook's methods. Others might complain that 1le tells how the com, was won at the cost of reford- mander of Britain's air ing bomber and training pro-

defences, having saved the Erantunes.

"in Dowding's Judgment

country from German in these objections had ille forre vasion, Was rewarded not Fighters were the stuff of with the victor's faurels but victory: Beaverbook provided

them, Ja bunch of violets.

bullying, wheedling. charming with his soft Canadian voice and terrifying

The prophet with the threat of his dis-

Or Dowding.

pleasure manufacturers and Basil Collier Cilleials to the end that the writes: "The highest rank shield upheld by Dowding

Yet, before the battle began,

Cold passion

attainable in the Armed Forces, should not fall," ja peerage, and perhaps the Garter, perhaps even the gift this shield was to be snatched of a fine estate and a handsoine from Dowding's hand. France settlement-these would score was falung and the British Ly have seemed too lavish....In Army was struggling homeward the outcome he received none from the battlefeld, At this

буде decided a moment it of these rewards except

commit fighter squadrons, then barony."

awaiting the inevitable Battle Dowding was nobody's idea of Britain, to the Battle ot of a victorious

commander. France, which was already lost. Collier speaks of his "almost monish austerity" and his "ale of withdrawal from the gross concerns of sensual men." Dowding, he says, might have been mistaken for "a country gentleman of studious and alightly eccentric habit"

Yet Dowding.

Dowding protested with cold prophet of high-speed air passion. And Dowding won. The fighting. For six years he had fatal ebbing of strength was headed the RAF's research stopped and this, as he said. and development, For four "converted a desperate into a years before the great bailla serious situation." began he had been fashioning the superb weapon that Fighter Caminuad.

was

the

was

The home defence force was down to 36 squadrons-10 squadrons below the minimum strength needed to defend Britain.

But the shield was ready,

Then came the battle. Dowding and his pilola changed the course of history.

It had not been easy. There

But there were no plaudits had been quarrels with the Air for Dowding. The Air Counci Ministry when, われ Dowdini hustled him off the stage and said, he waDS threatened with

rang down the curtain. The " whole shopful of bowler new Chief of the Air Stan, Air huts."

Marshal Portal, offered nothing Friends tried to help.

His ally

Lord Beaverbrook instigated a mission to America. The Prime Minister gave him A When the testing time came, Dowdnig found an ally and desk job in the Air Ministry. friend in

created refused-a

Dowding WAB offered-but the newly

Colonial governor- Minister of Aircraft Production, ship.

Lord Beaverbrook.

Beaverbrook.

His victory won, the victor Of him. Collier writes: "Out- was. redundant.

There was a wardly there WIS

three little barony for him,

years resemblance between the toil, later, but no more, unforthelming Wykehamist, Why? frugal in habit, grave of mien,

This

biography gives no Innately distrustful of poll satisfactory explanation. Tho ticians. and the diminutive, man who can explain became big-hearted but unpredictable Chief of the Air Staff when the japostle of Empire Free Trade Battle of Britain had been won. His was the most direct respon- sibility in the rewarding of "The par had much in Dowding. common. Both wore distrust- But perhaps Marshal of the ful of orthodox solutions. Royal Air Force the First Neither respected persons, Viscount Portal of Hungerford They shared an Impish delight as he now is--may one day In unconventional approaches, explain his part in this most

their problems. They extraordinary event. shared, too, a fondness for But the rockening may be capping Iblicat quiolations., that others had sought and And both, in their different found the power-but they, had ways, were intensely patriolle." left Dowding with the glory.

by TOM POCOCK

Lord Dowding with his wife, When he married her six vears ago she was the widoto of a Royal Air Force

offices killed in the war.

CUMMINGS ON

HOLIDAY.

No. 2

OF: How to Bear the Franc

(0)

Take everything you could possibly need (in- cluding a filing cabinet for the travel documents).

Never eat in the hotel dining room, but have cheap plcnics in your room.

Check your financial situation at the end of levery day,

*Two half portions of amelette (simple) and

half bottle of Vichy water

By all means have a meal at Maxims-but choose thriftily.

Cummings

But the best way to beat the franc is to cross the Southern frontier.