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As a kid in New Zealand Keith Park lived down the road from me. If I could live that time again I would have built up the confidence a 12 year old to go and knock on his door and thank him. OTOH I thought the world of Bader after reading "Reach for the Sky" but later in life when I discovered what he and Mallory had done to Dowding and Park, these 2 fell from grace for good. Self aggrandizement is not a virtue in any universe. Churchill was equally NOT amused with these 2. Well done Dowding and Park!

If Leigh Mallory and Bader had got their way, Fighter Command would have been wiped out in weeks and the battle lost. The only thing Bader cared about was his own reputation.

My grandfather was also a “Cranwell brat”. He never usually had a bad word to say about anyone, but my word he made up for that with his hatred of Bader.

Park sould be up there with Nelson and Wellington

As a former member of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force, and having been stationed at RAF Stanmore Park just down the road from RAF Bentley Priory for many years, I came to know quite a lot about the Battle of Britain and the part Dowding and Park played.
I think it was outrageous the way the pair of them were treated, by Leigh-Mallory and Bader, and more importantly, by the Air Ministry at the time.
Quite often when 11 Group fighters were scrambled, Park had requested 12 Group protect his airfields. Quite often this didn't happen. Enough said.
Dowding and Park were the polar opposite of the egotistical other two, and it's thanks to the former the Battle of Britain was won.

Met Bader twice as an adult instructor in the Air Cadets. He was a bit of a knob both times. Big wing, meh.
Oh and edit, been going to Duxford since about ten years old, when it was very patchy.

I met Bader a couple of times. I didn't like him much. I think Kenneth More painted a very flattering picture of him.
He was telling stories about flying and having listened to him, I told him about my father who had been a Sgt Pilot at which Bader cut his stories and made his exit!
I got the impression that if you had somthing he wanted he was pleasantness its self, once he had what he wanted he dropped you.
I'm so very glad that both Dowding and Park are beginning to getting the recognition they richly deserve - long over due.

If the pilots had a hard time trying to make the Vic 3 formations work, it stands to reason that trying to make a "big wing" work would be dam near impossible in aerial combat.

To quote the fantastic Lord Hardthrasher, “Leigh-Mallory was a total bell-end”. As well as ousting Dowding he also denied planes to Park in Malta….what they miss out here is that Park got spitfires on Malta by circumventing Leigh-Mallory and THEN used them in a big wing. Mallory also initially denied modern planes to 8th army. The man was like Bader…interested in his own sense of inflated self-importance and didn’t give a damn that there was a war to win.

I watched a YT video this morning,  Keith Park giving an interview in 1961. In it he said, when he got to Malta, he found the airfields being pounded while the defenders were trying to organise themselves into big wings. He said the first thing he did was adopt the tactics that had won BoB, and intercept the bombers, before they arrived. He said he followed the same practice in SE Asia.  I Don't think he ever applied the big wing theory.

A school friend of mine whose father was in the RAF during WW2 (shot down whilst bombing the Meuse Bridges) told me that his dad said that Bader was loathed by most of the people who came into contact with him.

I met Bader when I was a teenager,…. He was an arrogant sod, but he inspired me to get my pilot’s licence. I had two artificial legs. Years later, when I visited Britain, I flew my own aircraft out of Biggin Hill to Cologne.

12 Group are the reason Dowding can't have nice things. Additionally, Keith Park is to air war what Walter Model is to ground war. Park turns up and puts the fire out.

G'day,

I briefly met Bader, in 1982, at the last Schoefields Airshow, outside Sydney, Oz ; when I was thinking of him as Paul Brickhill's version of Heroic.

A few days later I mentioned the event at work, I was a Student Nurse at Concord Repat. Hospital, and one of my Patients "lit up" at hearing Bader's name ; he'd been a Wireless Operator on a Halifax, shot down over Italy (suddenly exploded enroute at night..., he suspected sabotage or a time-bomb - but methinks Schragemusik might be more likely ?).

Anyway, he told of being paraded at night in the snow, on "Appel" bring counted and re-counted, being beaten with Rifle-Butts while Bader was pandering to his own Ego...; off on a Frolic, attempging to escape via a plan of his own making, which had been considered by the Camp's X-Committee - and rejected (rightly enough) as being hopeless, because Bader could not walk far enough to make any of it worthwhile...

My informant told me that Bader was a renowned Fuckwit, and everyone in the Camp cheered and was mightily relieved when he was transferred to Colditz.

Which rather shattered a big bunch of post-Colonial neo-Imperial Illusions & Delusions under which I had grown up.

Just(ifiably ?) sayin'.

Such is life,

Have a good one...

Stay safe.

;-p

Ciao !

I knew a fella was in a POW camp with Bader. He said he was a nightmare as kept making pointless escape attempts so there were roll calls at all hours of the day and night. When he was eventually sent to Colditz the camp had a big party....Including the Germans!

If you listen to the pilots of 11 Group ( Sir Keith Park’s) when they attacked with just two or three squadrons it was “a target rich environment” where pretty much every plane was German. When the “Big Wing” arrived you needed to take great care not to shoot at your own side. The inevitable delay in mentally processing whether the other plane was friend or foe before firing actually made it harder to shoot them down and the crowded air space meant they often got in each others way ! The “Big Wing” played its major role on Sept 15th when the Luftwaffe bomber crews, having been told that the RAF was down to its last 50 fighters, and having already been thoroughly harried by 11 Group on their way to London suddenly saw the BIG WING of another 60 RAF fighters heading straight for them. The morale of those already demoralised Luftwaffe Bomber Crews on realising that Goering was completely misinformed and that RAF in fact appeared stronger than ever must have been totally gut wrenching for them. I can only imagine the cursing at their Officers when they finally made it back to their French airfields !!!!! BTW Sir Keith Park was overdue for retirement before the Battle of Britain and had his service extended  several times until the BoB was won. It may actually be quite fortunate that Sir Keith Park was sent to Malta ! I imagine if they had sent Leigh Mallory instead he would have probably fcuked that up as well and Malta was absolutely vital in the Mediterranean. Sir Keith Park performed in Malta as he had previously in the BoB the right man, in the right place at the right time. Sir Hugh and Sir Keith are both heroes of mine. 😃👍

What happened to Dowding and Park was a shameful episode.

I think for pilots who are out of ammo, or whose guns jammed, and who are trying to use their plane to ram a Luftwaffe plane out of the sky, wondering where the bloody hell 12 group are, the big wing probably overshadowed quite a lot at that moment.  And I think that’s entirely justified.

When I was a child I had cousins who lived at Sawston a few miles from Duxford. We watched them make part of the film the Battle of Britain from there and I remember seeing the planes from the film fly over the house.

It is fascinating that the "Flashman vs. Modernity" fight Andrew Gordon so memorably narrated occurring in the Edwardian Royal Navy was re-fought in the RAF a generation later. The internal war between the thrusting chaps with "connections"  who wanted to jolly well thrash Jerry in a fight and the professionals who take war seriously really is the recurring theme of 20th century British military history - "Sepoy" Slim being sacked in favour of guardsman Leese being another example of the unfashionable architect of victory being dumped when it was time for medals and kudos...