Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

BATTLE OF BRITAIN
fully conversant with the wily ways of the German enemy. In addition to a
career spent in fighters, he had worked at Bentley Priory as Dowding’s
chief of staff and fully understood what Dowding wanted. He also had a
solid grasp of the operations of the new sector control system based upon
radar. Park knew that this high-level radar reached out at 15,000 feet over
the enemy coast from Cherbourg to the mouth of the Rhine. But he was
also aware that this low-level radar had a range of only 25 miles and suffered
from surface clutter in some areas. It was thus quite possible for
enemy aircraft to sneak in underneath it and to evade the posts manned by
the Royal Observer Corps who were responsible for visual sightings.
Park commanded No. 11 Group with the bulk of his airfields sited
closely to the south of London, but with a few to the northeast. To his west
was No. 10 Group under the South African Air Vice-Marshal (AVM), Sir
Quentin Brand, with whom he had friendly relations, but to the north
across the Midlands was No. 12 Group commanded by AVM Trafford
Leigh-Mallory, no respector of either Park or Dowding. In the far north was
AVM Richard Saul, another New Zealander, guarding Scotland. Owing to
the very shortness of the warning time available to Park, being as close to
the enemy as he was, his tactics were necessarily different than those of
Leigh-Mallory whose headquarters was in the center of England. Dowding
himself ultimately came under some criticism for his dispositions, but he
could rightfully reply that he was suddenly faced with a totally unforeseen
situation after the fall of both Norway and France and that, moreover, the
RAF was woefully short of airfields. In 1934 the fighting area, as it was then
called, occupied seven of the fifty-two airfields in the service, and they
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Air Vice-Marshal Trafford
Leigh-Mallory, Commander
of No. 12 group.