Air vice-marshal

Bader was also, by this point, the loudest voice in the most contentious tactical debate of the entire campaign, what historians came to call the big-wing controversy.

Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park commanded 11 Group, covering London and the Southeast.

Park believed in scrambling small numbers of fighters immediately, intercepting German formations before they reached their targets.

Speed mattered.

Get airborne with what you have and get there first.

Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Lee Mallory commanded 12 Group to the north.

Lee Mallory with Bader as his most vocal advocate on the pilot side believed in assembling large wings of 50 or more aircraft before engaging.

Hit the Luftwaffe with concentrated force.

But even the guys in uniforms sitting across from ministers, they were sceptical.

You know, why do you say that, Air Vice-Marshal? Why aren't the submarines working properly, Admiral? And they're pretty belligerent about it.

So the idea that they wanted to get alternative views was not just... to go back to what I said before, a matter of kind of ideology about contestability, was also just, you know, do we really trust these guys? I think that remained, actually, until East Timor, the East Timor crisis of 1999, which did change views.

Because, you know, it was a very big day in the office.