Injured during the Battle of the Ancre in November 1916, after his recovery he spent the remainder of the war at sea with various vessels of the Royal Navy.

In the interwar period, he volunteered to serve as a pilot with the Fleet Air Arm and flew torpedo bombers off aircraft carriers.

Alfred Basil Woodhall was born on 9 January 1897 in Kirkby-in-Furness, in the United Kingdom, and was educated at Bolton Grammar School.

Following the outbreak of the First World War, he found passage back to the United Kingdom as part of the crew of a ship.

When the war ended, he was serving on the battleship HMS Agincourt, commanding one of its gun turrets, and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered on 21 November 1918.

[1][4] Remaining in the Royal Marines after the war, Woodhall subsequently served in the Far East, aboard HMS Hawkins, which was the flagship of the China Station at the time.

During his time with the FAA, Woodhall executed over 100 landings without ending up in the safety equipment used to prevent aircraft from running off the flight deck and into the sea.

[7] Informed that he was to be returned to the Royal Marines on account of being too old for flying duties, Woodhall sought a permanent commission with the RAF.

He commanded the latter, equipped with Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers and based on HMS Eagle, during postings in Hong Kong and Singapore.

[1][12] A supporter of Squadron Leader Douglas Bader's Big Wing formation, in early November Woodhall was interviewed by Harold Balfour, the Under-Secretary of State for Air.

Balfour's resulting memorandum was critical of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding's leadership of Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain; Dowding considered moving Bader on, but the Chief of Air Staff, Charles Portal, specifically directed that he and Woodhall were not to be punished for expressing their views to Balfour.

[15] Later in the year, he was appointed an Officer in the Order of the British Empire, the formal announcement made in The London Gazette on 17 March 1941 noting that this was "in recognition of distinguished services rendered in operational commands of the Royal Air Force".

By this time, Fighter Command had switched to offensive operations and were regularly sending the Tangmere Wing to occupied Europe, on bomber escort duties.

He immediately established a basic reserve of fighters to be deployed at regular intervals between the RAF squadrons on the island and instructed that sorties would only be allowed if a minimum of four aircraft were able to take off.

[1][12] As he did during the Battle of Britain, Woodhall, using information from observers and radar plots, would direct the RAF pilots towards the incoming bombers, endeavouring to place the fighters in the best position to engage them.

603 Squadron, later wrote of the boost in morale and confidence to hear Woodhall's directions as the RAF pilots flew to intercept the incoming bombing raids.