Robert Saundby

Saundby during World War II

Sir Robert Henry Magnus Spencer Saundby KCB , KBE , MC , DFC , AFC DL (born April 26, 1896 in Birmingham , † September 25, 1971 in Burghclere , Hampshire ) was a British officer, most recently Air Marshal of the Royal Air Force . During World War II, he was, among other things, the "right hand man" of Arthur Harris as Senior Air Staff Officer or Deputy Air Officer Commanding of the RAF Bomber Command .

Life

Saundby, son of medicine professor Robert Saundby, left St Edward's School in his hometown in 1913 and initially took a job with the London and North Western Railway . Before the First World War a member of the Territorial Force , he was a member of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1914 as a simple soldier , in which he was promoted to officer in 1915. In January 1916 he was posted to the Royal Flying Corps and, after completing his flight training, became a flying officer in No. 24 Squadron on the Western Front equipped with Airco DH2 . He was involved in November 1916 in the battle in which Lanoe Hawker was shot down by Manfred von Richthofen . In February 1917, Saundby joined No. 41 Squadron of the RFC that flew on Royal Aircraft Factory FE8 . In the same year he moved to No. 37 (Home Defense) Squadron at the Orfordness Experimental Station of the RFC and was involved in the downing of the German naval airship L 48 in June , for which he received the Military Cross . It was his fifth victory in the air with which he the ace became. He ended the war as Captain and Flight Commander in No. 11th Training Squadron.

In 1919 Saundby attended a training course for flying boat pilots and the School of Naval Co-operation . In the same year he received the permanent rank of Flight Lieutenant in the RAF and was from 1920 to 1922 as an instructor in the No. 1 Flying Training Squadron. In early 1922 he came to No. 45 Squadron, which flew on Vickers Vernon and Vickers Vimy and was also deployed in Iraq. Here he met his future superior in the Bomber Command Arthur Harris (squadron commander ) for the first time, as well as Ralph Cochrane and Basil Embry . In 1925 he served for a while in Aden, where he won the Distinguished Flying Cross before returning to England as an instructor. In 1926 Saundby became a crush leader in No. 58 Squadron at RAF Worthy Down (again under Harris) and attended RAF Staff College in Andover the following year . From 1928 he served on the staff of the Wessex Bombing Area headquarters .

Saundby with Richard Peirse

Saundby studying cards with Harris and Ronald Graham

In June 1931, Saundby was transferred to the Air Staff's Directorate of Operations and Intelligence . In 1933 he completed the course at Imperial Defense College and then came to the board of directors of the RAF Staff College. He became Deputy Director of Operations in January 1937 and Deputy Director of Operational Requirements a year later . As Director of Operational Requirements (since December 1938) he started the Second World War. In April 1940 he became Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Operational Requirements and Tactics) and in November of that year Senior Air Staff Officer of Bomber Command , which was then commanded by Richard Peirse . From February 1942 Arthur Harris was his superior, whose area attack concept he unreservedly supported. Saundby, responsible for planning the bomber operations against Germany, kept a list or card index of cities in the German Reich in which he designated the targets with fish names ( fish codes ). So was Grayling ( "mullet") Nuremberg, Trout ( "Trout") for Cologne and Dace ( "white fish") for Hamburg. In July 1943, during the " Battle of Hamburg ", he became Harris' deputy as Deputy AOC-in-C of Bomber Command. In February 1944 he was promoted to Air Marshal.

In March 1946, Saundby retired for health reasons. He worked as a writer until his death in 1971 and was Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire from 1960 .

Memberships (selection)

• Royal Air Forces Association (Chairman)
• Air League of the British Empire
• Air Cadet Council
• British Legion
• Council of Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Association (Vice Chairman)
• Minister of Pensions' Central Advisory Committee
• Central Council for the Care of the Disabled (Chairman of the Executive Committee)
• Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire Naturalists' Trust

Saundby was also a keen angler and lepidopterist . He was a member of the Royal Entomological Society and the Piscatorial Society .

Fonts (selection)

• Air Bombardment - The Story of its Development (Chatto & Windus, London 1961)
• A Fly-Rod on Many Waters (Stanley Paul, London 1961)
• Early Aviation: Man Conquers the Air (Macdonald and Co., London 1971)

Saundby also wrote the foreword to David Irving's book The Destruction of Dresden (1963). There are also numerous articles in military journals as well as on natural history and fishing topics.

literature

• Martin Böhm: The Royal Air Force and the Air War 1922–1945. Personal, cognitive and conceptual continuities and developments. (= Diss. University of Potsdam), Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-78240-3 .
• Charles Carrington: Soldier at Bomber Command. Leo Cooper, London 1987.

Web links

Commons : Robert Saundby  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby on rafweb.org (English)