TRIBUTE TO SIR KEITH PARK

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 6

TRIBUTE TO SIR KEITH PARK

“MAN WHOM HISTORY OVERLOOKED”

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, January 23. “The man whom history has overlooked” is the description given to Air Marshal Sir Keith Park by Noel Monks of the “Daily Mail” in his book, “Eye Witness.” the journal of a world correspondent which has just been published.

Describing a sea trip to the Middle East during World War 11, Monks says: “On board was Sir Keith Park, a lean, lanky New Zealander. “If it can be said that any one man won the Battle of Britain, then Park is that man, for as commanding officer of No. 11 Fighter Group, R.A.F., it was he who had to evolve the day-to-day tactics that beat the Luftwaffe over Southern England.

“He was going now to Malta to take charge of the fighter defences of that hard-pressed island, and his tactics there were to turn the tide as they did in Britain.

“Yet he was overlooked in the honours that were handed out after the Victory, as was another man who contributed so much to winning the Battle of the Atlantic, Admiral Sir Max Horton, Commander-in-Chief of Western Approaches.

How these men were omitted from the list of high honours bestowed on our fighting men at the war’s end puzzled me.

Sir Keith Park slipped quietly back to his native New Zealand after the war to become the representative of an aircraft company. Sir Max Horton, the man the Germans feared and hated most after Churcnill. died four years ago, a lonely and disappointed man.”