Basil embry

Basil Embry (far right) with members of his staff as commander of No. 2 Group in Brussels, around 1945

Sir Basil Edward Embry GCB , KBE , DSO & Three Bars , DFC , AFC (born February 28, 1902 in Longford , Gloucestershire , † December 7, 1977 in Boyup Brook , Western Australia ) was a British officer in the Royal Air Force , most recently Air Chief Marshal . Embry was among other things from 1949 to 1953 Commander in Chief of the RAF Fighter Command and then until 1956 Commander in Chief Allied Air Forces Central Europe of NATO .

Life

Embry was born the youngest of three children of the Anglican clergyman James Embry and his wife Florence Ada. He attended Bromsgrove School in Worcestershire and developed an early interest in aviation. He was inducted into the Royal Air Force as a pilot officer in March 1921 and trained in Netheravon . The following year he became a pilot in the No. 4 Squadron. In the same year he became No. 45 Squadron was transferred to Mesopotamia , where he remained deployed until 1927, from December 1925 to No. 30 Squadron. Embry flew Airco DH9 and Vickers Vernon aircraft and was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1926 . After returning to England, he attended the course for flight instructors at the Central Flying School and then became a Qualified Flying Instructor in No. 1 Flying Training Squadron. From 1929 he was a swarm leader at the Central Flying School for three years and also worked here as an aerobatic pilot. He was then added to the staff of No. 23 Group and attended the RAF Staff College in Andover from 1933 .

In early 1934, Embry was transferred to the North West Frontier Province of British India , where he served on the staff of No. 1 (Indian) Wing in Kohat . In March 1936 he became a member of the staff of the RAF India headquarters . From October 1937 he commanded No. 20 Squadron in Peshawar and won the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership of this unit in September 1938 . Two months later he was promoted to Wing Commander and was henceforth engaged in training Indian Air Force officers for the Indian Air Force . In early 1939 he returned to the mother country, where he took over the post of Deputy Director of Operations (Overseas) in the Air Ministry .

With the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939, Embry successfully campaigned for the transfer of an active front command and received the command of No. 107 Squadron, which was armed with Bristol Blenheim bombers . With this season Embry took part in the campaigns in Norway and France in 1940. He was an energetic squadron captain who always led his formation into battle himself. On May 12, 1940, to repel the German offensive, he led an attack on the bridges over the Albert Canal near Maastricht , in which seven Blenheims were lost. During this time he was awarded two repeat clasps for the DSO, having received the Distinguished Flying Cross in October 1939 . The end of May 1940, he was due to exhaustion and stress symptoms as a base commander of RAF West Raynham displaced and Group Captain transported, but was shot down by anti-aircraft fire during his last mission on May 26 and had parachuted behind German lines in Saint-Omer jump . His rear gunner was killed, and Embry and his navigator were captured. Embry managed to escape on the march to the prisoner of war assembly point. After more than two months of adventurous escape, which are described in the book Wingless Victory from 1950, he reached home again via Spain and Gibraltar . He was forced to go on vacation for the next two months.

In September 1940, Embry became a Senior Administration Staff Officer at No. 6 Group . After only three weeks he went as commander of the Night Fighter Wing ( night fighter ) to Rochford and participated in the defense of the flash part. In December 1940 the wing was disbanded and Embry took over as commander of RAF Wittering with the associated defense section. He continued to fly regular missions himself. In June 1941 he was named the King's Air ADC . From October 1941 to March 1942 Embry was in North Africa, where he worked as an advisor to the establishment of the Desert Air Force and inspected the air defense of Malta . Then he took over again RAF Wittering.

From November 1942 Embry served as a staff officer at the headquarters of the RAF Fighter Command , where he was responsible for night hunting. In early 1943 he received the post of Senior Air Staff Officer at No. 10 (Fighter) Group. At the end of May 1943, he then took over No. 2 (Bomber) Group , which was intended as a light bomber group for use with the RAF Second Tactical Air Force . At the same time he was appointed acting Air Vice-Marshal . An appointment as commander of the Pathfinder Force was also under discussion at the time, but this was prevented by Arthur Harris ' objection . With his group initially consisting of nine squadrons of different types of aircraft, he prepared in the following months for participation in Operation Overlord , which was planned for May 1944. He made himself personally familiar with all types of aircraft in his command and, for safety reasons, wore a false identification tag during missions . The mission statistics of his group, which was busy with preparatory tasks for the Normandy landing as well as crossbow missions, improved considerably in the time up to D-Day .

Embry successfully campaigned for the new Mosquito FB VI to be assigned to his group. During his time as commander of No. 2 Group he flew 19 missions, including the air raid on the Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus (October 31, 1944), the air raid on the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen (March 21, 1945) and the attack on the Gestapo headquarters in Odense (April 17, 1945) . His superiors forbade him to take part in Operation Jericho (February 18, 1944; led by Percy Pickard ). Embry is considered one of the most dynamic and inspiring RAF commanders of World War II. Highly valued by his crews, he made himself unpopular in Ministry circles for his disdain for any kind of bureaucracy.

After the end of the war, Embry was honored with numerous awards from his country and the Allies and was knighted. In October 1945 he became Director-General of Training and in January 1947 Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Training) . From 1946 he was chairman of the Royal Air Forces Escaping Society . In April 1949 he took over the command of the RAF Fighter Command as acting Air Marshal , which he held for four years. In 1952 he attended the funeral of George VI as a representative of the RAF . part. In July 1953 he became Commander in Chief of the NATO Command Allied Air Forces Central Europe (COMAIRCENT) and in December 1953 at the age of only 51 he was promoted to Air Chief Marshal. In January 1954 he presented a study on the air defense of Western Europe prepared on behalf of SACEUR , US General Alfred Gruenther , which anticipated many structural and organizational aspects that were later implemented. However, his all too open criticism of NATO partners and the organization of the alliance forces finally led to his early retirement in February 1956.

Embry emigrated with his family to New Zealand in 1956 , where he wrote his autobiography Mission Completed . He later settled in Western Australia , where he bought more than 500 hectares of land near Chowerup and operated mixed farming . In the late 1960s he moved to Cape Riche , where he also owned land and kept sheep. He became a member of the Farmers' Union of Western Australia and was elected chairman in 1971, which he remained until 1975 due to illness. He died in December 1977 at the age of 75, survived by his wife Hope, a daughter and three of his four sons.

literature

• Chaz Bowyer: Bomber Barons. William Kimber & Co., 1983, pp. 125-131.
• Anthony Richardson: Wingless Victory: The Story of Sir Basil Embry's Escape from Occupied France in the Summer of 1940. Odhams Press, 1950.

Web links

• Air Chief Marshal Sir Basil Embry on rafweb.org
• Lenore Layman: Embry, Sir Basil Edward (1902–1977) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 14. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1996, ISBN 0-522-84717-X (English).

predecessor	Office	successor
Sir William Elliot	Commander in Chief of the RAF Fighter Command 1949–1953	Sir Dermot Boyle
Lauris Norstad (CINCAIRCENT)	Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Air Forces Central Europe 1953–1956	Sir George Mills