“STUFFY” DOWDING SAVIOUR OF BRITAIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 5 December 1940, Page 2

“STUFFY” DOWDING SAVIOUR OF BRITAIN

IMPORTANT DECISIONS - j When historians get around to writ- I , ing the history of this war, it may be 1 i that they will decide the man who saved Great Britain was not “Tiger” , Gort or even Winston Churchill, but a 3 cadaverous Scotsman called “Stuffy” Dowding. I’* is the man who. in the face of great opposition, finally convinced the | British Air Council to put eight synchronised machine-guns on the British fighter plane. Manoeuvrability, firing s power, speed is his motto. He kept re_ _ peating it month after month until the Air Council finally gave in and the Hurricane and Spitfire were the result, i. “Stuffy” Dowding also is responsible for the decision to place the cockpit on the Hurricane behind the engine where the pilot would have a maximum of. protection. On his own initiative he worked with a firm of manufacturers for a year until they developed a pilot’s windshield that would shed machinegun bullets. It would be impossible to over-esti-mate the importance of these decisions in the Battle of Britain. The reported British three to one advantage over the Germans in daylight air battles is due _ j more than anything else to the fact 3 ! that the British have twice as many s ; machine-guns in each plane as their opj | ponents. It is not true to say British 1 j planes are superior in every way. They 5 i are slower than the latest Messersch- ; , mitts, a cl their ceiling is lower, but as ’ j every German pilot who has come t ; down here will tell you. when the Bri--2 tish let go with * “Stuffy” Dowding’s f eight machine-guns, no bomber pilot in ! the world can stay in formation. t Air Chief-Marshal Sir Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding. now boss of 3 j Britain’s* fighter command (he was set conded recently for special duty in the i United States), is a thin, inscrutable figure in blue as he sits at headquarters ; directing his fighter pilots by radio. He i ' has s-c-ved these last 28 years in India l| 'he Near East, where for a time he l! had charge of the R.A.F.. and even toi ady, at 58 he still flies his own plane. 1 Noted for his unsmiling wit. his knobby 5 knees, his stubborn Scottish temper, ) and hL quick decision in battle. 3 “Stuffy” is essentially a flier's fllier.— , (London correspondent of the “New I York Times”). : —-