Due to bad weather, the 2022 Lord Dowding Memorial Service was held indoors at St. Andrews Church, Moffat. The 602 Squadron Museum Association were in attendance to show support.
An Inspired Leader
As Air Officer Commander-In-Chief of Fighter Command, Dowding warned against sending the country’s last reserves of aircraft to France in 1940. Writing to the Air Ministry he said:
” I believe that if an adequate fighter force is kept in this country, if the fleet remains in being, and if home forces are suitably equipped to resist invasion, we should be able to carry on the war single handed for some time, if not indefinitely. But if the Home Defence Force if drained away in desperate attempts to remedy the situation in France, defeat in France will involve the final, complete and irredeemable defeat of this country. ” – Lord Dowding, 1940