He was Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding. In retrospect, “Stuffy” Dowding—as anointed by his fliers—is seen as the true hero of the Battle of Britain, though his contemporaries were slow to realize it. One reason lay in the nature of the man. He was a difficult man to like. Ever since Trafalgar, Britons had expected their military heroes to be Nelsons, and Dowding was far from that. Tall, frail, and abstemious, he was a bird-watching widower whose career had suffered from tactlessness, unorthodox views, and a remarkable lack of social graces.
