Show hail hai I 1 stuffy 9 as british savior chief of fighter command gave R A F its fire power LONDON when historians get around to writing the history of this war it may be that they will decide the man who saved great britain was not tiger gort or even winston churchill but a tall cadaverous scotsman called stuffy dowding he is the man who in the face of great opposition finally convinced the british air council to put eight synchronized machine guns on the british fighter plane maneuverability firing power speed is his motto he kept repeating it month after month until the air council finally gave in and the hurricane and spitfire were the result stuffy dowding also is responsible for the decision to place the cockpit on the hurricane behind the engine engin e where the pilot would have a maxi maximum I 1 of protection on his own initiative he worked with a firm of glass manufacturers for a year until they developed a pilots windshield that would shed machine gun bullets advantage over nazi it would be impossible to overestimate 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 more than anything else to the fact that the british have twice as many machine guns in each plane as their opponents it is not true to say british planes are superior in every way they are slower than the latest Messer and their ceiling is lower but as every german pilot who has come down here will tell you when the british let go with stuffy downings Dow dings eight machine guns no bomber pilot in the world can stay in formation air chief marshal sir hugh frugh caswall dowding now boss of britaina Brit ains fighter command is a thin inscrutable figure in blue as he sits at headquarters directing his fighter pilots by radio by a vast complicated telephone system he knows the position of every bomber over the country and it is his job to direct the defense to meet every maneuver of the raiders warns of air raids in addition it is his job to warn great urban centers when raiders approach the banshees howl at his command stuffy dowding flew with the royal flying corps in the world war and his only son is a pilot today he has served these last 28 years in india and the near east where for a time he had bad charge of the R A F and even today at 58 he still flies files his own plane noted for his unsmiling wit his knobby knees his stubborn scottish temper and h his is quick decision in battle stuffy is ii essentially a fliers biers flier the life of a military aviator he tells his men consists of hours of idleness punctuated by moments of tear fear in the service his junior officers idolize him when you comment on british success in the air they all say stuffy did it |