Derek Hodgkinson
Encyclopedia
Air Chief Marshal
Sir William Derek Hodgkinson, KCB
, DFC
, AFC
(27 December 1917 – 29 January 2010), commonly known as Sir Derek Hodgkinson, was a bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force
during World War II
, who was shot down and spent time in Stalag Luft III
as "Big S", responsible for the security of the escape committee.
, Cheshire
and educated in Repton
, Hodginson took a short service commission with the RAF in 1936, first flying the Avro Anson
multi-role aircraft for RAF Coastal Command
and then the American-built Hudson medium-level bomber
with No. 220 Squadron RAF
.
from Heligoland Bight
to Stavanger
, which included patrols during the Dunkirk evacuation. Hodgkinson was awarded the DFC for shooting down a Heinkel HE115 float plane. He then became an instructor with the Operational Training Unit (OTU), where in 1942, as a Squadron Leader
, Hodkinson was selected to form part of "Bomber" Harris's 1,000 bomber raids over Germany
.
The city of Bremen
was attacked on the night of June 25 and Hodkinson's Hudson was shot down by a night fighter on the return trip over the Dutch
coast. The crew, except Hodgkinson and his navigator were killed. Wounded, Hodgkinson was taken to a hospital as a prisoner of war.
He was later transferred to Stalag Luft III, where he was made responsible for security under the leader of the escape committee "Big X". Stalag Luft III was made famous by the daring mass breakout through tunnels depicted in the film The Great Escape
. After several unsuccessful escape attempts, the camp was evacuated ahead of the Russian advance of January 1945 and the prisoners marched 50 miles (80.5 km) through severe winter weather to the naval PoW camp near Bremen. They were again transferred to Hamburg
where they were liberated by the British
in April 1945.
and then joined the Directing Staff at the Australian Joint Anti-Submarine School before becoming Officer Commanding No. 240 Squadron
in 1957. He was appointed Station Commander at RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall
in 1958 before joining the staff of Lord Louis Mountbatten, then Chief of the Defence Staff
, in 1961. Following this, he attended the Imperial Defence College and then became Commandant at the RAF Staff College in 1965 before becoming Assistant Chief of the Air Staff
responsible for operational requirements, the role that made him famous for a report detailing the career structure for RAF officers and recommending a meritocracy over the existing class structure, in 1966. Hodgkinson also had a leading role in the development of modern front-line aircraft and equipment, most notably the Panavia Tornado
. He went on to be Senior Air Staff Officer at Headquarters Training Command
in 1969 and was then appointed as Commander-in-Chief Near East Air Force
(including responsibility for British Forces Cyprus
and Administration of the Sovereign Base Areas
) in 1970 before finishing his career as Air Secretary
in 1973 responsible for overseeing cutbacks caused by the withdrawal from the Far East
and the Persian Gulf
in the 1970s. He retired in May 1976.
Air Chief Marshal
Air chief marshal is a senior 4-star air-officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force...
Sir William Derek Hodgkinson, KCB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
, DFC
Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)
The Distinguished Flying Cross is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force and other services, and formerly to officers of other Commonwealth countries, for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying in active operations against...
, AFC
Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)
The Air Force Cross is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the United Kingdom Armed Forces, and formerly also to officers of the other Commonwealth countries, for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying, though not in active operations against the enemy"...
(27 December 1917 – 29 January 2010), commonly known as Sir Derek Hodgkinson, was a bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, who was shot down and spent time in Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...
as "Big S", responsible for the security of the escape committee.
Early life
Born near PrestburyPrestbury, Cheshire
Prestbury is a village, civil parish and ecclesiastical parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. Prestbury is a long, narrow parish covering 1,165 hectares to the west of the Peak Park foothills and to the east of the sandstone ridge which is...
, Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
and educated in Repton
Repton
Repton is a village and civil parish on the edge of the River Trent floodplain in South Derbyshire, about north of Swadlincote. Repton is close to the county boundary with neighbouring Staffordshire and about northeast of Burton upon Trent.-History:...
, Hodginson took a short service commission with the RAF in 1936, first flying the Avro Anson
Avro Anson
The Avro Anson is a British twin-engine, multi-role aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force, Fleet Air Arm and numerous other air forces prior to, during, and after the Second World War. Named for British Admiral George Anson, it was originally designed for maritime reconnaissance, but was...
multi-role aircraft for RAF Coastal Command
RAF Coastal Command
RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force . Founded in 1936, it was the RAF's premier maritime arm, after the Royal Navy's secondment of the Fleet Air Arm in 1937. Naval aviation was neglected in the inter-war period, 1919–1939, and as a consequence the service did not receive...
and then the American-built Hudson medium-level bomber
Lockheed Hudson
The Lockheed Hudson was an American-built light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built initially for the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and primarily operated by the RAF thereafter...
with No. 220 Squadron RAF
No. 220 Squadron RAF
No. 220 Squadron of the Royal Air Force was originally founded in 1918 and disbanded in 1963 after four separate periods of service. The squadron saw service in both the First and Second World Wars, as a naval patrol unit, and finally as part of Britain's strategic nuclear deterrent.-First World...
.
World War II
When war was declared, Hodgkinson was responsible for patrolling the English ChannelEnglish Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
from Heligoland Bight
Heligoland Bight
The Heligoland Bight, also known as Helgoland Bight, is a bay which forms the southern part of the German Bight, itself a bay of the North Sea, located at the mouth of the Elbe river...
to Stavanger
Stavanger
Stavanger is a city and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.Stavanger municipality has a population of 126,469. There are 197,852 people living in the Stavanger conurbation, making Stavanger the fourth largest city, but the third largest urban area, in Norway...
, which included patrols during the Dunkirk evacuation. Hodgkinson was awarded the DFC for shooting down a Heinkel HE115 float plane. He then became an instructor with the Operational Training Unit (OTU), where in 1942, as a Squadron Leader
Squadron Leader
Squadron Leader is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is also sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries which have a non-English air force-specific rank structure. In these...
, Hodkinson was selected to form part of "Bomber" Harris's 1,000 bomber raids over Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
The city of Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
was attacked on the night of June 25 and Hodkinson's Hudson was shot down by a night fighter on the return trip over the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
coast. The crew, except Hodgkinson and his navigator were killed. Wounded, Hodgkinson was taken to a hospital as a prisoner of war.
He was later transferred to Stalag Luft III, where he was made responsible for security under the leader of the escape committee "Big X". Stalag Luft III was made famous by the daring mass breakout through tunnels depicted in the film The Great Escape
The Great Escape (film)
The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough...
. After several unsuccessful escape attempts, the camp was evacuated ahead of the Russian advance of January 1945 and the prisoners marched 50 miles (80.5 km) through severe winter weather to the naval PoW camp near Bremen. They were again transferred to Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
where they were liberated by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in April 1945.
Post-war service
After the war, Hodgkinson was appointed Officer Commanding No. 210 SquadronNo. 210 Squadron RAF
No. 210 Squadron was a Royal Air Force unit established in World War I. Disbanded and reformed a number of times in the ensuing years, it operated as a fighter squadron during World War I and as a maritime patrol squadron during the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Cold War before it was...
and then joined the Directing Staff at the Australian Joint Anti-Submarine School before becoming Officer Commanding No. 240 Squadron
No. 240 Squadron RAF
No. 240 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force flying boat and seaplane squadron during World War I, World War II and up to 1959. It was then reformed as a strategic missile squadron, serving thus till 1963.-Formation and World War I:No...
in 1957. He was appointed Station Commander at RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
in 1958 before joining the staff of Lord Louis Mountbatten, then Chief of the Defence Staff
Chief of the Defence Staff (United Kingdom)
The Chief of the Defence Staff is the professional head of the British Armed Forces, a senior official within the Ministry of Defence, and the most senior uniformed military adviser to the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister...
, in 1961. Following this, he attended the Imperial Defence College and then became Commandant at the RAF Staff College in 1965 before becoming Assistant Chief of the Air Staff
Assistant Chief of the Air Staff
The Assistant Chief of the Air Staff is a senior appointment in the Royal Air Force. The incumbent is in practical terms the deputy to the head of the RAF, the Chief of the Air Staff....
responsible for operational requirements, the role that made him famous for a report detailing the career structure for RAF officers and recommending a meritocracy over the existing class structure, in 1966. Hodgkinson also had a leading role in the development of modern front-line aircraft and equipment, most notably the Panavia Tornado
Panavia Tornado
The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing combat aircraft, which was jointly developed and manufactured by the United Kingdom, West Germany and Italy...
. He went on to be Senior Air Staff Officer at Headquarters Training Command
RAF Training Command
Training Command was the RAF's command responsible for flying and ground training from 1936 to 1940 and again from 1968 to 1977.-History:Training Command was formed from Inland Area on 1 May 1936 and absorbed into RAF Support Command on 13 June 1977...
in 1969 and was then appointed as Commander-in-Chief Near East Air Force
Near East Air Force (Royal Air Force)
The former Royal Air Force Near East Air Force, more simply known as RAF Near East Air Force, was the Command organisation that controlled all Royal Air Force assets in the Western Mediterranean .-History:...
(including responsibility for British Forces Cyprus
British Forces Cyprus
British Forces Cyprus is the name given to the British Armed Forces stationed in the UK sovereign base areas of Dhekelia and Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus...
and Administration of the Sovereign Base Areas
Sovereign Base Areas
The Sovereign Base Areas are military bases located on territory in which the United Kingdom is sovereign, but which are separated from the ordinary British territory....
) in 1970 before finishing his career as Air Secretary
Air Secretary
The Air Secretary is the Royal Air Force appointment of which the incumbent is responsible for policy direction on personnel management for members of the RAF. From 1978 to 1983 the Air Secretary was more often referred to as Air Officer Commanding Royal Air Force Personnel Management Centre. It is...
in 1973 responsible for overseeing cutbacks caused by the withdrawal from the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
and the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
in the 1970s. He retired in May 1976.