Keith Park
If you ascend the steps from The Mall to Carlton House Terrace and walk towards the Athenaeum Club you pass a statue.
I doubt if many stop – and less would know what its subject achieved – but it’s fair comment that, but for him, a swastika might have been flying from the august Athenaeum.
During WW2 Air Chief Marshall Sir Keith Park was head of the RAF’s Number 11 Group, charged with the defence of London and the south east.
With the BEF stranded at Dunkirk, Herman Goering persuaded Hitler that his Luftwaffe could do a faster job of finishing off Britain and preparing a German invasion than the Wehrmacht. Goering, a WW1 fighter pilot had been with Hitler since the Munich putsch of 1922.
Hitler, also mistrustful of the army and mindful that the Luftwaffe had flattened Warsaw and Rotterdam, duly sanctioned this strategy.
There were essentially three operational stages: the destruction of southern airfields such as Biggin Hill; the destruction of Britain’s northern and midland cities; and the Blitz upon London.
The German campaign failed largely due to three men.
The first was the
Air Marshall Hugh Dowding, who had coastal radar at his disposal which he masterminded and which provided Britain with a early warning system.
In any WW2 war film I love the scene of the RAF operations room in which some busty WRAF armed with a croupier’s rake pushes a “marker” signifying incoming German attack across the war table whilst intoning in a cut glass accent “Bandits at 2 o’clock over Dover …”
The intention of the final stage – the Blitz – was to break the morale of Britain but this never happened, largely because of the inspiring oratory of the second man – Winston Churchill.
However, it was the third man – Keith Park – who brilliantly organised the defence of London and the south east. One must not too overlook Bomber and costal command,the cracking of the Enigma code, Lord Beave brook stepping up aircraft production as Minister for Munitiobs, the American entry into the war and the heroic resistance of the Soviets
Park was a New Zealander who had fought at the Somme but later joined the Royal Flying Corps, working his way to the top of the RAF which replaced it
Like all best military commanders, he was in touch with his men and during the evacuation of Dunkirk he flew over the proceedings in his own Hurricane.
He had the ear of Churchill but his great RAF rival was Leigh Mallory, head of Number 12 Group, who believed in ‘Big Wing’ – the deployment of massed fighter squadrons. Park believed the tactic was too slow.
On 15th September 1940 the Luftwaffe launched their last attack. At the time the RAF were reduced to 200 fighter planes.
Winston Churchill visited Park in his RAF Uxbridge headquarters. The Luftwaffe came over in their drives but Park assured the Prime Minister that we were ready for them. And we were.
In one-to-one to combat the Spitfire often saw off the Messerschmidt. Hitler lost faith in Goering and thus Operation Sea Lion was abandoned in favour of the Russian Front.
The momentum of Blitzkrieg was halted. Disgracefully, Park was later replaced as head of Group 11 by Leigh Mallory.
Keith Park deserves a bit more recognition than a statue in St James.
