There are plenty of other candidates, and the answer to the question is, of course, beyond our reach. It is a fact, though, that a fair number of the survivors rose high. To give just three examples from business, Barrie Heath and “Cocky” Dundas both became company chairmen and were knighted. William Walker is perhaps best remembered now for his urbane presence among the last survivors and his late emergence as a published poet, but he chaired the brewer, Ind Coope.
Then there were the three among the Few who became Chiefs of the Air Staff and Marshals of the Royal Air Force, two of them also going on to be Chiefs of the Defence Staff.
John Grandy commanded No 249 Squadron in the Battle and was CAS from 1967 to 1971. Tom Neil, a Pilot Officer under Grandy in 1940, wrote of him that: “By his own admission, he was not the world’s best fighter pilot”, but he was a person “of considerable charm and a most capable administrator”. Neil also had Grandy “rising apparently without effort over the years”.
The issues Grandy had to deal with as CAS included the final stages of withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and the Far East, finding economies (perhaps that applies to every CAS) and the transfer of the nuclear deterrent role to the Navy.
Sir Andrew Humphrey held the RAF’s highest appointment from 1974 to 1976 before becoming Chief of the Defence Staff. After only months in that post he died at the age of 56 of pneumonia. His contribution to the Battle of Britain had been as a Spitfire pilot with No 266 Squadron.
For the historian Air Commodore Henry Probert, Andrew Humphrey was “a chief whose great abilities as a leader and an advocate of air power were matched by superb skill as a pilot”.
Humphrey’s successor as CAS (1976-77) was Sir Neil Cameron. He had flown Hurricanes in 1940 with Nos 1 and 17 Squadrons and he was the only one of the three future chiefs to be an NCO pilot in the Battle.
Group Captain Patrick Tootal, secretary of the Memorial Trust, served under Neil Cameron. Patrick’s recollection is: ”Neil Cameron was a wonderful man, clever, articulate and a born leader. To watch him engage with junior ranks on AOC’s inspections was a joy as he could put them at ease. He was a workaholic.
“He was a great believer in ensuring that all RAF officers were well versed in RAF history and defence issues. He instituted when he was Air Member Personnel the Director of Defence Studies. He maintained that the RAF could only survive and hold its own with the sister services with well-educated officers. He once said to me: ‘I am not too worried if a certain officer was a good squadron commander, I need an officer who can hold his own in Whitehall’.”
Cameron became Chief of the Defence Staff. After stepping away from service life he was principal of King’s College, London. Another appointment was as chairman of the trustees of the RAF Museum.
Once Neil Cameron ceased to be CAS the post was held by officers too young to have flown in the Battle of Britain.
Geoff Simpson, FRHistS
