LONE WOLF BRITAIN’S NIGHT FIGHTER ‘ACE’
As the Luftwaffe moved away from mass daylight bombing operations against Britain during September 1940, the RAF faced a dilemma. Thus far it had scant night-fighting capabilities. Such assets that RAF Fighter Command had were virtually untested and untried, although there had been initial success with Airborne Interception radar (AI) mounted in Blenheim aircraft of the Fighter Interception Unit during July 1940. However the Luftwaffe recognised that cover of darkness provided better protection for its aircraft operating over Britain given the paucity of its night defences. Essentially such defences comprised antiaircraft artillery and barrage balloons.
Fighter defence, for the most part, comprised RAF day fighters sent aloft to search for enemy aircraft in what was mostly a futile and desperate exercise. But, if the secret weapon of Airborne Interception radar was to ultimately change Britain’s night-time air defence, there was yet a stopgap ‘secret weapon’ – the ‘Cat’s Eyes’ fighter pilot.
“HOW WE ALL CHEERED AS THE AIRSHIP SPLIT INTO TWO ANGRY RED BALLS OF FIRE AND FELL TO THE GROUND NORTH OF THE RIVER”
Most who have some knowledge of the 1939-45 air war will surely tell you, without hesitation, that ‘Cat’s Eyes’ was Group Captain John Cunningham. In that belief, they would only be partly correct. True, it was a moniker attached to Cunningham in light of his success as a night fighter. Cunningham himself later explained how it came
