Architect of integrated radar air defence
“If Chicago gangsters can have bulletproof glass in their cars, I can't see any reason why my pilots cannot have the same.”
Hugh Dowding was a British air officer who recognized early that fighter defence required more than aircraft alone. At RAF Fighter Command he integrated radar, observers, raid plotting, and radio control into a system that enabled a smaller force to respond to German attacks. His careful husbanding of pilots and reserves sustained Britain’s defence during the Battle of Britain, but conflicts over tactics and night defence contributed to his replacement soon afterward.
Also known as: Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1900Officer, Royal Garrison Artillery
- 1914Pilot and flight commander, Royal Flying Corps
- 1915Commanding officer, No. 16 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps
- 1929Air Officer Commanding, Fighting Area, Air Defence of Great Britain
- 1930Air Member for Supply and Research, Air Council
- 1936Air Officer Commanding, RAF Fighter Command
- 1940Commanded Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain
- 1943Created Baron Dowding
Related historical events
Dismissal from Fighter Command and postwar life
On 24 November 1940 Dowding unwillingly relinquished command of Fighter Command and was replaced by Sholto Douglas, an advocate of the Big Wing tactic. Churchill tried to soften the blow by placing him in charge of the British Air Mission to the United States, responsible for procuring new aircraft types. In November 1941 publication of his book Twelve Legions of Angels was suppressed, the British government judging that it contained information the Germans might use; the book finally appeared in 1946, soon after the war ended.
After leaving Fighter Command, Dowding was sent to the United States on special duty for the Ministry of Aircraft Production, where his outspokenness made him unpopular; on his return he headed a study of RAF manpower economies. He retired from the Royal Air Force in July 1942 and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dowding of Bentley Priory on 2 June 1943. Later in life he became increasingly bitter, believing the RAF had treated him unjustly, and he approved Robert Wright's book arguing that a conspiracy of Big Wing proponents had engineered his removal. The RAF passed him over for promotion to Marshal of the Royal Air Force. In 1951 he laid the foundation stone of the Chapel of St George at Biggin Hill in memory of fallen airmen.
In retirement Dowding became an active writer and speaker on spiritualism, producing a first book in 1943 and several more; rejecting conventional Christianity, he joined the Theosophical Society, which advocated reincarnation. He became a vegetarian on the basis of his theosophist and spiritualist beliefs and made several appeals in the House of Lords for the humane killing of animals intended for food. An anti-vivisectionist, he died at his home in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on 15 February 1970; his body was cremated and the ashes placed beneath the Battle of Britain Memorial Window in the RAF chapel at Westminster Abbey. His son Derek inherited the title.