Brian Burnett

Brian Burnett

Sir Brian Kenyon Burnett GCB DFC AFC (* 10. March 1913 in Hyderabad , India , then British India ; † 16th September 2011 ) was a British Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force (RAF), who as a young air force officer who Squash - and tennis championships of the RAF and played at Wimbledon, completed a long-distance record flight and later headed the Wimbledon Championships for ten years as long-time chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club .

Life

Study and training

Burnett grew up in Hyderabad, where his father was Rector of Nizam College, and after attending the Charterhouse School studied Modern Languages at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and the Wadham College of the University of Oxford . During his studies he won the college championships in squash and tennis twice and also represented the University of Oxford in hockey competitions. At the tennis competition against the University of Cambridge in 1933 he beat his older brother Douglas Burnett, who was studying there.

After he received flight training in the squadron of the University of Oxford, he joined in September 1934, the Royal Air Force and flew a Hawker Hart - warplane in the 18th  squadron . Even during his military training he played squash and tennis for the RAF and won the championships between England and Scotland in early 1937 , making him the first member of the RAF to win both competitions. After completing a special navigation course, Burnett was selected in December 1937 for the Long Range Development Unit (LRDU) of the RAF, the unit for long-range flight tests.

World record flight from Ismailia to Darwin

Burnett became known worldwide as when he 1938 Navigator and the second pilot of a Vickers Wellesley - Bombers a record non-stop flight of Ismailia in Egypt by Darwin in Australia flew. On October 24, 1938, four single-engine Vickers Wellesley aircraft of the LRDU reached Ismailia in preparation for the flight to Australia. Three of these bombers, including Burnett's plane, were selected for the record flight. The other crew included the first pilot, Lieutenant Aviation Andrew Combe and Sergeant Gray as the third pilot and radio operator. On the morning of November 5, 1938, the three planes set off for Darwin, with Burnett's plane having problems with the landing gear that could not be retracted. The crew only managed to retract the landing gear after an hour.

The flight route took the planes over the Persian Gulf , India and Singapore , before one of the bombers was forced to land over Timor due to lack of fuel. The two remaining aircraft reached Darwin with 90 liters of residual fuel, completed the non-stop flight of around 11,500 kilometers in around 48 hours and thus set a new world record. For this achievement Burnett was awarded the Air Force Cross with the other crews .

In 1939 he again won the RAF's individual tennis championship.

World War II and post-war period

When the Second World War broke out , Burnett was relocated to Reims , France with the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force , before returning to the headquarters of the 4th Bomber Group in England in 1940 . In order to gain operational experience, he was appointed flight commander of a squadron of Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers, and used them to attack the docking facilities in Kiel and Hamburg , before then bombing the two battleships of the Kriegsmarine Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau off Brest . As a commander, he proved particularly courageous several times and, for example, flew new attacks on the Hamburg docking facilities despite massive air defense .

After he was promoted to Wing Commander in May 1941 , he took over command of the 51st Air Squadron. In December 1941 he was honored with the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and commander of a flight navigation school in Canada .

In the first post-war years he again played tennis as the team captain of the RAF, which defeated the Army team , and also played not only at the Wimbledon Championships, but also in an English team that took part in tennis competitions in Germany.

After serving as a staff officer at the United Nations Military Staff Committee in New York City for three years, he became an officer on the United Nations Planning Staff at the Department of Defense, where he helped introduce the Marshall Plan and found NATO . He also won the RAF squash championships for the fifth time and again beat his older brother at military championships. In 1950 Burnett and his older brother were tennis champions with the RAF and the British Army.

In 1951 he returned to the RAF Bomber Command and became senior staff officer in the 3rd bomber group. During this time, the English Electric Canberra , a bomber from the first generation of jet aircraft , came into service, as well as the preparation for the introduction of the V bomber . In June 1954 he became the commander of the first RAF V-bomber base in Gaydon.

Promotion to Air Chief Marshal

His ascent within the RAF began at the latest when he was promoted to Air Commodore in June 1956 and appointed director of bomber operations in the Ministry of Aviation. In this function he observed the dropping of the first British hydrogen bomb on Christmas Island on November 8, 1957 and was also significantly involved in the planning of the bombing during the Suez Crisis . In the period that followed, he was in managerial positions at the headquarters of the bomber command and as a commanding officer of the 3rd bomber group, in which he also joined a four-engine Handley Page Victor bomber. In 1961 he became Commander of the Order of the Bath .

In 1964 he was appointed Vice Chief of the Air Staff . During this time there were numerous important developments in the capabilities and tasks of the RAF such as the planning for the introduction of a new generation of combat aircraft . Following the decision of Defense Secretary Denis Healey no longer to replace the Royal Navy's air transport aircraft, Burnett was entrusted with the task of developing a method for promoting the Navy with land-based air support. In 1965 he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and, associated with it, was raised to the personal nobility status as "Sir".

He then became in 1967 as Air Secretary responsible for career planning, promotions and appointments of officers of the RAF in the Ministry of Aviation. In addition, he became a Grand Officer of the Finnish Order of the White Rose in 1969 .

In May 1970 he was promoted to Air Chief Marshal and appointed Commander in Chief of the British Far East Command. In this role he was responsible for enforcing the Beira Patrol between East Africa , Australia and New Zealand . He assumed this command shortly before Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced the dissolution of Far East Command . His main task was to organize ANZUK, a small contingent of British, Australian and New Zealand troops, in cooperation with army units from Malaysia and Singapore . He was also the representative of Great Britain at SEATO conferences . At the same time he was raised to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

On October 29, 1971, the Far East Command was dissolved as part of a multinational parade before it was passed into retirement in March 1972 .

Chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club

In April 1972, he took over the role of chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, just a year after 81 players from the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) boycotted the Wimbledon Championships and the relationship between the players and the club remained tense were. After taking office, his calm, patient and tactful manner paved the way for a new beginning between the club and ATP. On the other hand, he was forced to increase the prize money in line with the trend that had started in the USA .

Because of his military training, he also tried to maintain respect between players and referees. When in 1977 the just seventeen year old John McEnroe played for the first time at Wimbledon, it was Burnett who put him in his place because of his extravagant outbursts of anger towards the referee. He was also opposed to any other use of the Royal Tribune when members of the royal family were absent.

After ten years as chairman of the club he resigned in March 1984 but remained active sportsman until the eightieth year Ski drove the golf with 88 and gave up tennis only after 94 years. He was also Vice President of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club until his death.

Publications

• A Pilot at Wimbledon: the memoirs of Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Kenyon Burnett , published Blenheim Press, 2009, ISBN 9781906302139

Web links

• THE TELEGRAPH: Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burnett (September 20, 2011)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ THE AELTC ( Memento from May 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Blenheim Press ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.