I borrowed this book from the library a few weeks ago. It contains the musings of the author (Abigail Thomas) who turned 80 during the immediate post-I borrowed this book from the library a few weeks ago. It contains the musings of the author (Abigail Thomas) who turned 80 during the immediate post-COVID era in New York State. Thomas comes across as someone who has come to terms with the age she has reached and with life itself, making the most of what the world around her has to offer. ...more
The Dowding Papers is a slim memoir that its author (Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding) had penned during the mid-1950s that had only been published in 2The Dowding Papers is a slim memoir that its author (Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding) had penned during the mid-1950s that had only been published in 2020.
Dowding (1882-1970) had a long extensive military career that began in 1900 when he went into the Army, served with an artillery unit in Gibraltar, Ceylon, and India for a decade, and then returned to England in 1910, where he had earned admittance into staff college at Camberley.
It was while at Camberley that Dowding discovered aviation and became enthralled with it. So much so that he managed to gain admittance into a civilian flight school. According to Dowding, "... any officer chosen for the Royal Flying Corps [RFC] could learn to fly with a civilian firm at his own expense, the Government refunding the cost, up to £75, where he had got his 'ticket.' A civilian ticket was an essential prerequisite for entry to the Central Flying School at Upavon." He received his pilot's license on December 20, 1913.
By the following spring, Dowding had completed his 3 month training course at the Central Flying School. With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Dowding went to war as a full-fledged officer with the RFC. He saw action in France in 1915 and 1916 as a squadron commander before being sent home to the UK, where he served with various training units for the remainder of the war.
Dowding goes on to shed some light on the various roles of command he carried out in the interwar years in places as diverse as Iraq and Palestine before being named the C-in-C of RAF Fighter Command in 1936 through which he secured his place in history in helping to shepherd RAF Fighter Command in its successful defense of the UK against the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.
Once the UK had staved off the threat of invasion from Nazi Germany in late 1940, Dowding was eased out of his command and sent on a mission with other RAF officers to the United States. He would retire from the RAF in 1942, remarry (his first wife had died in 1918, leaving him with a son, Derek, who would himself join the RAF and see action as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain), become a vegetarian, and pursue his interests in spiritualism.
Dowding comes across in the memoir as a somewhat brusque, though clear-minded, conscientious man unafraid to speak truth to power, come what may. Clearly, some of his superiors didn't appreciate that, which explains why Dowding was eased out of his leadership position in RAF Fighter Command after helping save the UK from invasion....more
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