He subsequently came into conflict with proponents of the Big Wing tactic, most notably Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Douglas Bader, which along with the inadaquacies of RAF's night-time defence during the Blitz led to his eventual downfall.

[6] After returning to the United Kingdom, he attended the Army Staff College 1912 before being promoted to captain on 18 August 1913 and being posted with the Royal Garrison Artillery on the Isle of Wight later that year.

[9] After the Battle of the Somme, Dowding clashed with General Hugh Trenchard, the commander of the RFC, over the need to give pilots some rest and recuperation.

One of his first responsibilities in this post was the approval of the granting of a certificate of airworthiness to the R101 airship shortly before it set off on its ill-fated voyage to India; he later said "I think I was wrong not to insist on much more extensive trials and tests" and that his decision had been based on optimistic technical advice.

[18] Dowding's time in this office coincided with a period of rapid development in aircraft design and a growing fear that another major war was on the horizon.

[24] By the time the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was finally launched in the autumn of 1939 after Mackenzie King gave his consent, it was far too late for Dowding.

[27] At a meeting with the Air Ministry when told that bullet-proof windows were too expensive, Dowding replied: "If Chicago gangsters can have bulletproof glass in their cars I can't see any reason why my pilots cannot have the same".

[11] In 1940, Dowding, nicknamed "Stuffy" by his men for his alleged lack of humour,[32] proved unwilling to sacrifice aircraft and pilots in the attempt to aid Allied troops during the Battle of France.

He, along with his immediate superior Sir Cyril Newall, then Chief of the Air Staff, resisted repeated requests from Winston Churchill to weaken the home defence by sending precious squadrons to France.

Too often he resorted to caustic comments when a kind word of advice would have produced the same or better results...Dowding was indifferent to the boardroom politics of higher office, impatient and abrasive to men who failed to understand his reasoning".

[35] On 16 May 1940, Churchill held a summit In Paris with the French Premier Paul Reynaud, and telephoned London afterwards to ask for six more fighter squadrons to be sent to France.

[36] Deighton wrote that this statement was "nonsense" as Dowding in a letter to Churchill dated 15 May 1940 had expressed grave concerns about the ability of Fighter Command to hold out against the Luftwaffe with only thirty-six squadrons..[36] When the Allied resistance in France collapsed, he worked closely with Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, the commander of 11 Fighter Group, in organising cover for the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk.

[11] Beyond the critical importance of the overall system of integrated air defence which he had developed for Fighter Command, his major contribution was to marshal resources behind the scenes (including replacement aircraft and air crew) and to maintain a significant fighter reserve, while leaving his subordinate commanders' hands largely free to run the battle in detail.

[11] The first phrase of the Battle of Britain, namely Luftwaffe attacks on British shipping in the English Channel were what Deighton called a classic "heads I win, tails you lose" gambit.

[38] Because of a shortage of pilots, Dowding only committed the minimal number of fighters during what the Germans called the Kanalkampf (Channel battle), which led to increased shipping losses in July-August 1940.

[38] An additional concern for Dowding was that the planes of Fighter Command had no dinghies or sea dye while Britain at this point lacked an air-sea rescue organisation, so that any pilot shot down over the Channel were more likely than not to be lost.

[50] It was during the summer of 1940 that Dowding first learned of the Knickebein (literally "dog-leg") radio beam system, which guided Luftwaffe bombers to their targets during the night.

[59] Churchill's speech on the radio that evening claimed: "Aided by Czech and Polish squadrons and using only a small proportion of their total strength, the Royal Air Force cut to rags and tatters separate waves of murderous assault upon the civil population of their native land".

[62] Dowding's subsequent downfall has been attributed by some to his single-mindedness and perceived lack of diplomacy and political savoir faire in dealing with intra-RAF challenges and intrigues, most obviously the still, even now, hotly debated Big Wing controversy in which a number of senior and active service officers had argued in favour of large set-piece air battles with the Luftwaffe as an alternative to Dowding's successful Fabian strategy.

[63] Another reason often cited for his removal, but characterised by some contemporary commentators more as a pretext, was the difficulty of countering German nighttime bombing raids on British cities.

He suggests that if Dowding had been left to follow his own path, the ultimately effective British response to night bombing (which depended completely on developments in air-borne radar) would have come somewhat sooner.

However, there was great political and public pressure during the Blitz for something to be done, and Fighter Command's existing resources without, as yet, airborne radar, proved woefully inadequate.

A committee of enquiry chaired by Sir John Salmond produced a long list of recommendations to improve night air defence; when Dowding approved only some of them, his erstwhile supporters, Lord Beaverbrook and Churchill, decided that it was time for him to step down.

[68] Both Trafford Leigh-Mallory and the fighter ace Douglas Bader argued at the meeting that the Big Wing tactics were superior to those practiced by Dowding and Park, who were effectively treated as if they had lost the Battle of Britain.

Churchill tried to soften the blow by putting him in charge of the British Air Mission to the United States, responsible for the procurement of new aircraft types.

[11] After leaving Fighter Command, Dowding was sent on special duty to the United States for the Ministry of Aircraft Production, but there he made himself unpopular with his outspokenness.

[11] He approved Robert Wright's book Dowding and the Battle of Britain, which argued that a conspiracy of Big Wing proponents, including Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Douglas Bader, had engineered his sacking from Fighter Command.

His body was cremated and his ashes were placed below the Battle of Britain Memorial Window in the Royal Air Force chapel in Westminster Abbey.

His wise and prudent judgement and leadership helped to ensure victory against overwhelming odds and thus prevented the loss of the Battle of Britain and probably the whole war.

[86]Other monuments to Dowding can be found in Station Park in Moffat, the town of his birth,[87] and in Calverley Gardens in Tunbridge Wells where he died.