Squadron Leader William Anthony Kevin Igoe, FRAES, CE (17 April 1911 – 15 November 1993) was an Irish-born Royal Air Force officer who was senior controller for No.
He went on to play squash at the highest level, and his career as an amateur golfer reached its apex with winning the Gleneagles Hotel Foursomes Tournament in 1959, in which most of the country's biggest names participated that year.
His high placing in aeronautical engineering exams offered a career in the Royal Air Force, then expanding to meet the threat of European fascism.
After qualifying as a fighter pilot and Flying Boat Captain, he served at RAF Wittering, with 29 (F) Squadron ADGB (Air Defence of Great Britain) in Egypt in 1935.
When World War 2 broke out the following year he reported to his old station Biggin Hill, where, with his recent active flying experience, he was invaluable as a controller.
Coming on duty at 7 a.m. on 12 February 1942, he noticed aircraft movements seaward of the French port of Brest that the previous controller had dismissed as air-sea rescue, but that he deduced must have been escorting capital ships because of their speed.
What he had seen was what British forces were expecting, the break out of a powerful German flotilla which included the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen from Brest, where they had been under heavy attack by Coastal and Bomber Command.