By John McLean
The Sunday closest to 15th September is traditionally Battle of Britain Sunday. I remember as a child seeing men proudly wearing their medals to church on this sacred day as well as an elderly neighbour turning up there wearing a breastful of colourful medals – those earned by her two sons, both of whom were killed in Bomber Command within a very short time of each other.
Sunday, 15th September, 1940, was the turning point in the all-important Battle of Britain, which decided whether Tyranny or Freedom would prevail. In this battle of destiny for the human race the direction of the fighting was in the hands of the New Zealander, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Keith Park.
This remarkable man had been born in 1892 at Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula where his father, the Scots born James Park, was the director of the Thames School of Mines. In the First World War Keith Park joined the Army, serving at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. In 1917 he joined the infant Royal Flying Corps which, after the War, became part of the newly created Royal Air Force.
In early 1940 Air Vice-Marshal Park was appointed Air Officer Commanding (AOC) of No. 11 Group of Fighter Command – just in time for the forthcoming Battle of Britain. The area of No. 11 Group stretched from Southampton to Norwich, taking in all of south-east England, including London. This was the front line for the air battles in the greatest and most significant air conflict in history, which to-day is called the Battle of Britain.
In the words of Mr. Terry Smith, the British businessman who sponsored the erection of a statue of Sir Keith in London’s Waterloo Place: “It has been said that Fighter Command in 1940 was a weapon that Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding devised, Winston Churchill decided to use, and Sir Keith Park wielded in battle.” Destiny dealt each of these three men a particular hand that they played to perfection.
With France defeated the Nazis knew that they had to conquer Britain or lose the War and so it was that they devised Operation “Sea Lion”, the proposed invasion of England across the Channel. Napoleon had tried the same trick but he needed “a fair wind to England” to get across – a wind that the Royal Navy never gave him. Just as the pilots of Fighter Command would deny the Luftwaffe air superiority over the Channel, which they needed for a successful invasion.
Nevertheless German preparations continued after Dunkirk as they massed an invasion fleet in the Channel ports of Occupied France and Belgium for their great Operation Sea Lion. No. 11 Group was the main force to prevent all this.
Park controlled and managed squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricanes from his bomb proof operations room fifty feet underground in Uxbridge, outer London. However, like Wellington at Waterloo riding his horse up and down the front line, filling in gaps where necessary, Keith Park was also a hands-on commander, flying his own Hurricane to the various fighter aerodromes to understand the dynamics of the fighting and to get first-hand information about German planes, guns and tactics. Throughout the Battle of Britain he flew about 100 hours on these investigative missions. During the evacuation of Dunkirk he made flights over the French coast to gain first hand intelligence of the progress of the evacuation (338,226 British and French soldiers evacuated in nine days).
In his underground headquarters Park had a small group of about twenty highly skilled personnel (plus telephone assistants) – both men and women – who co-ordinated the radar findings as well as the spottings by the 50,000 plus Observer Corps with their field-glasses and portable telephones so as to find out the routes of the approaching German planes and their likely numbers. From all this information Park issued orders to his twenty-five squadrons when to take off and in what direction.
This underground control centre was about 60 feet across and had a gallery around its walls (the “Dress Circle”). Covering one entire wall was a huge blackboard, divided into six columns with electric bulbs, for the six Fighter Stations, each squadron having a sub-column of its own, and divided laterally into Standing By (2 minutes notice), Readiness (5 minutes), Available (20 minutes), and those that had taken off and those in action.
“Strategically brilliant, innovative and flexible, Park was always thinking three steps ahead, predicting what the enemy would do but ready to adjust a plan at a moment’s notice”, wrote the British journalist, Marcus Dunk, in the International Express of 16th October, 2007. Despite the immensity of the stakes, “he remained steadfast and a model of calm leadership”. (Ibid)
In the words of Winston Churchill in Volume II of his war memoirs (P. 293), writing of September, 1940, “Air Vice-Marshal Park had for six months commanded this Group (No. 11), on which our fate largely depended. From the beginning of Dunkirk all the daylight actions in the south of England had already been conducted by him”.
“The tall, lean New Zealander displayed the unusual combination of intense individual activity and initiative with a capacity for teamwork and co-ordination,” wrote the author, Eugene Grayland.
After the Fall of Fance it was Britain’s turn to face the Luftwaffe – alone with only its loyal Empire. The targets were Park’s fighter stations in south-east England as well as London. At a serious disadvantage in the number of planes vis-a-vis Germany, Park instructed his pilots to split their attacks, half going for the bombers and the other half attacking the escort. This tactic forced the enemy formations to fly tighter, thus presenting better targets.
The R.A.F. was heavily outnumbered and it was known that, however many planes the Luftwaffe sent across, there were many more in reserve in Germany and Occupied France. And so from the British point of view the whole thing was rather nail-biting.
15th September, 1940, was a particularly sunny Sunday and Churchill and his wife decided to visit Park’s headquarters at Uxbridge to see how things were going. In Sir Winston’s words: “I don’t know’, said Park, as we went down, ‘whether anything will happen to-day. At present all is quiet.’ However, after a quarter of an hour the raid-plotters began to move about. An attack of 40-plus was reported…Then in quick succession 20-plus, 40-plus signals were received, and in another ten minutes it was evident that a serious battle impended. On both sides the air began to fill. One after another signals came in, 40-plus, 60-plus; there was even an 80-plus….On the blackboard facing us the rising lights showed our fighter squadrons getting into the air….
Presently the red bulbs showed that the majority of our squadrons were engaged. A subdued hum arose from the floor, where the busy plotters pushed their discs to and fro in accordance with the swiftly changing situation. Air Vice-Marshal Park gave general directions for the disposition of his fighter force, which were translated into detailed orders to each Fighter Station…..
The Air Marshal himself walked up and down, watching with vigilant eye every move in the game and only occasionally intervening with some decisive order, usually to reinforce a threatened area. In a little while all our squadrons were fighting, and some had already begun to return for fuel. All were in the air. There was not one squadron left in reserve. At this moment Park spoke to Dowding at Stanmore, asking for three squadrons from No. 12 Group to be put at his disposal in case of another major attack while his squadrons were rearming and refuelling. This was done…..I became conscious of the anxiety of the Commander, who now stood still behind his subordinate’s chair. Hitherto I had watched in silence. I now asked, ‘What other reserves have we?’
‘There are none’, said Air Vice-Marshal Park. In an account which he wrote about it afterwards he said that at this I ‘looked grave’. Well I might. What losses should we not suffer if our refuelling planes were caught on the ground by further raids of 40-plus or 50-plus. The odds were great; our margins small; the stakes infinite.
Another five minutes passed and most of our squadrons had now descended to refuel. Then it appeared that the enemy were going home. The shifting of the discs on the table below showed a continuous eastward movement of German bombers and fighters. No new attack appeared. In another ten minutes the action was ended. ‘We are very glad you have seen this’, said Park. ‘Of course, during the last twenty minutes we were so choked with information that we couldn’t handle it. This shows you the limitation of our present resources. They have been strained far beyond their limits to-day’.”
Post-war information showed that on this vital day – the “crux of the Battle of Britain” as Churchill called it – 56 German planes were shot down while we lost 28. It was not a great number of enemy losses but it was enough to change the direction and ultimate outcome of the War as two days later, on 17 September, Hitler decided to postpone Operation Sea Lion indefinitely. Then on 12 October the invasion was formally called off until the following spring. Then, in July, 1941, it was postponed again by Hitler until the spring of 1942. On 13 February, 1942, Hitler agreed to a complete stand-down. In Churchill’s words, “Thus perished Operation Sea Lion. And September 15th may stand as the date of its demise.”
“It is clear that, more than any other individual, Park saved London and saved Britain,” said Terry Smith. The words on the statue in Waterloo Place describe him as “Defender of London”.
Of all the Prime Ministers since Churchill, Boris Johnson is the one with the best grasp of history. This is what he said at the time of the unveiling of Park’s statue in 2009: “In helping to save Britain he helped to save Europe from tyranny, and in helping to save our nation’s capital, he saved the love of democracy – the generosity, the tolerance….that gives London its character and makes it the greatest city on earth.”
Lord Tedder, a colleague of Park’s and later Chief of Air Staff in Britain, said, “If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he [Park] did. I do not believe it is realised how much that one man, with his leadership, his calm judgement and his skill, did to save not only this country but the world”.
At the end of 1940 Park was relieved of his command. Although this is capable of misinterpretation the truth is that he, like any other commander placed in that position, had been under too much pressure for too long and he needed something of a rest. He was put in control of Training Command, and then in July, 1942, was made A.O.C. Malta and then Allied Air Commander South-East Asia where he assisted Mountbatten in taking the Japanese surrender in Singapore. He returned to New Zealand where he died in 1975.
There have been other notable New Zealanders – one a double V.C., one four times Wimbledon Men’s Singles Champion, one alleged to be the first to fly a plane, and one who climbed Mount Everest. But in the unique role that he played in world history Keith Park stands head and shoulders above them all. And 15th September, 1940, was his greatest moment. His conduct of the battle on that day prevented Operation Sea Lion and the triumph of Nazism.
