Читать книгу Engineering Hitler's Downfall - Gwilym Roberts - Страница 60

Following the development of radar, Air Chief Marshall Hugh ‘Stuffy’ Dowding designed an integrated air defence system of Ground-Controlled Interception (GCI). Known as the Dowding system, it constituted: a number of radar stations; the Observer Corps’, human observers; raid plotters at Fighter Command’s headquarters at Bentley Priory (a converted country house near Stanmore, north London), and at various Group headquarters; and control of aircraft by radio. The land-based components were integrated by dedicated phone and teleprinter links buried sufficiently deep enough to provide protection against bombing.

In the operations room at Bentley Priory sat Dowding and Air Vice Marshal Keith (later Sir Keith) Park, a New Zealander who was the commander of No. 11 Group and as such responsible for Fighter Command’s operations in southern England. Also there were Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Pile, commander of the Army’s Anti-Aircraft Command; the commandant of the Observer Corps; and liaison officers from the RAF’s Bomber and Coastal Commands, the Royal Navy, Ministry of Home Security, and the Civil Defence Association. The number of German planes brought down by anti-aircraft fire was small, however, compared to those shot down by the RAF.