The year is 1936 and in anticipation of a brewing war in Europe as the Nazi regime gains military support Lord Hugh Dowding creates the first electronic and centralized air defense network in human history. Before the beginning of the Battle of Great Britain as Herman Goering’s Luftwaffe assembles the largest air offensive known to man, Lord Dowding has developed a solution! Early warning and fast deployment of small air wings to disrupt enemy formations will help defend British airfields, command centers, and civilian towns against massive German medium bombers and their escorting fighters.

But there are problems. The politics of government and the military begin battling one another instead of the enemy! Lord Dowding’s strategy is contested by Air Marshall Leigh Mallory whose strategy is to amass huge formations that take 45 minutes to assemble and by the time they arrive, the damage by German precision bombing has been done. By the time Mallory’s forces arrive over the target, the Germans are already headed back across the English Channel! The losses are unsustainable!

Lord Dowding has perfected modern air defenses and situational planning that will completely re-invent the concept of air defense for the future but he is opposed by those who have political ties and friends in the Parliament who will lend an ear even if it supports an inefficient and costly plan that benefits the enemy more than the defense of Great Britain! Group 11 sees the brunt of the fighting over the southern region and the city of London where Lord Dowding’s defense meets the German Luftwaffe every day and night. It is here that the British Hurricane and Spitfire combat aircraft breaking up Luftwaffe bombing formations and the ME-109 fighter escorts that they will dogfight at 30,000 feet above.

Commander Keith Park is major supporter of the Lord Hugh Dowding’s form of early detection and attack strategy while Air Marshall Leigh Mallory clings stubbornly to the “Big Wing” approach which he has to actually falsify air victories over in order to convince British upper command to remain in support of! The Nazi “Operation Eagle Attack” Herman Goering’s responsibility will actually fail and be abandoned by the time that Air Marshall Hugh Dowding is reassigned along with his supporting commander Keith Park. The tactics of Group 11 and Group 12 have broken the back of the German air offensive due to losses that the Luftwaffe can no longer afford to sustain! In the final day operation of German air operations, the Nazis lose 66 combat aircraft in a single day and this will sound the death knell of “Operation Eagle Strike”. Hitler will also choose to delay indefinitely the waiting amphibious invasion of the British Isles known as “Operation Sea Lion” as a result!

The true genius behind the successful defense of the UK against the German air offensive is Lord Hugh Dowding, but he will receive unceremonious and humiliating reassignment as will his supporting officer. Keith Park, when it was these two men whose leadership broke the back of Nazi invasion plans due to petty politics and the lies of the “Big Wing” proponents of Air Marshall Leigh Mallory! After the war had ended, German records of losses clashed with the artificially inflated figures of the German Luftwaffe losses. Mallory had lied to his superiors in closed sessions where neither Lord Dowding or Keith Park were allowed to attend and defend themselves!

In the years after WWII, Lord Hugh Dowding took a different and controversial direction. First of all, in agreement with General Douglas Mac Arthur, he stated that he anticipated that the next great global conflict would be with an extraterrestrial civilization! However, this wasn’t the end of the great air marshal’s convictions. Hugh Dowding would turn toward the paranormal believing that the spirits of British pilots during the WWII conflict were in contact with him and that he was communicating with them! Could this have occurred under the aegis of guilt he felt over commanding so many men who had given their lives in defense of their country?

After Lord Hugh Dowding’s death in 1970, a number of public seances were held by spiritualists attempting to connect with the spirit of the great aerial combat leader who had saved Great Britain in the desperate hours of the war in 1940. During one paranormal convention, according to Fate Magazine, the lighting failed and the host of the convention heard the voice of Hugh Dowding in the room and felt a firm handshake there in the darkness before the power had been restored! The outage was unexplained but not the spiritual presence of a man who had been there for his country!