The command continued until November 1943, when it was disbanded and the RAF fighter force was split into two categories, defence and attack.

ADGB was renamed Fighter Command in October 1944 and continued to provide defensive patrols around Britain.

60 Group RAF was established within Fighter Command to control Chain Home radar detection and tracking units.

[3] During the late 1930s Fighter Command expanded greatly and replaced its obsolete biplane squadrons – generally outfitted with Bristol Bulldog, Gloster Gauntlet and Hawker Fury biplane fighters leading up to, and through the period of its founding – with the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire.

Fighter Command was tested during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 when the German Luftwaffe launched an offensive aimed at attaining air superiority over the Channel and the UK as a prerequisite to the launch of a seaborne invasion force (codenamed Operation Sea Lion).

In the end, the Germans failed to attain air superiority, although the RAF had been eating severely into its reserves during the battle, as had the Luftwaffe.

[5] The advantages enjoyed by Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain were reversed, the short range of the Spitfire becoming a tactical disadvantage and British pilots became prisoners of war if shot down.

[6] As 1941 ended, the appearance of the new Focke-Wulf Fw 190, considerably superior to the Spitfire Mk V, put the British fighters at a worse disadvantage.

Fighter Command night defences improved considerably in the new year; the Bristol Beaufighter supplanted the Bristol Blenheim as the principal night fighter, equipped with improved aircraft interception radar, and became increasingly effective in ground-controlled interception (GCI).

The Spitfire's chronic lack of operational range – not unlike the Bf 109E's dilemma during the Battle of Britain – meant such protection was limited to the Channel and the European coast.

In 1944 ADGB made the greatest effort in its history during Operation Overlord, the invasion of France which began on 6 June.

Later that year, the final test of ADGB (renamed Fighter Command in October 1944) in the war occurred against the V-1 flying bomb during Operation Crossbow.

[20] As a direct result of its efforts during the Battle of Britain the Observer Corps was granted the title Royal by King George VI and became a uniformed volunteer branch of the RAF from April 1941 for the remainder of its existence as the Royal Observer Corps (ROC).

[21] The corps continued as a civilian organisation but wearing a Royal Air Force uniform and administered by Fighter Command.

[23] In the aftermath of World War II, the role of Fighter Command was still to protect the UK from air attack.

1 Wing, arrived at RAF North Luffenham in late 1951 to bolster NATO's strength, and was in a position to assist Fighter Command until it relocated to bases in France and West Germany in 1954–55.

Consequently, in the 1957 Defence White Paper, the Sandys review declared that manned aircraft were obsolescent and would soon become obsolete.

[27] The ADR itself stretched some hundreds of miles to the north, west and south of the country and almost to the continental coastline in the east.