Hubert Raymond Allen

Later in the war he became Air Advisor to the 1st Airborne Division and then Tactics and Gunnery Officer to No. 12 Group.

His nickname, "Dizzy", reflected his ability to escape a tight situation by executing an aerobatic flat-spin. He was shot down and wounded on a number of occasions, once by the well-known Luftwaffe ace Werner Molders and again as a result of an air-to-air collision with another RAF pilot. In 1978, Allen recorded his experiences as a combat pilot for a BBC programme in which he expressed high praise for his fellow pilots and ground staff but was critical of the radar controllers and the higher echelons of the RAF. His attitude towards those pilots who refused combat was harshly uncompromising, though such feelings were not uncommon at this time. After the Battle of Britain, he became No. 66 Squadron's commander squadron commander at age 21, succeeding Athol Forbes, with whom he later collaborated in writing, Ten Fighter Boys: 66 Squadron RAF, a collection of first hand accounts of participants originally published in the middle of the war (1942). Allen described his time with No. 66 Squadron in Fighter Squadron 1940–1942.

Allen's The Legacy of Lord Trenchard questioned the need for an independent RAF and the rectitude of Air Staff policies before and during the Second World War. The provocatively titled Who Won the Battle of Britain (first published in 1974) followed shortly afterwards with a critique of RAF structure, leadership and doctrine before and during the air campaigns of 1940. Controversially, Allen stated that RAF Fighter Command's 11 Group was a defeated force at the time the invasion was most likely to have been launched. Allen argued that the Luftwaffe did not lose the Battle of Britain air campaigns – reasoning that the Luftwaffe's damaging attacks on airfields containing vital sector stations gave them air superiority during the critical period of late August to early September preceding the change of focus to the bombing of London after which it dropped thousands of tons of bombs with negligible losses. But the Luftwaffe did not win it either as it lacked the training and equipment and therefore the potential to sink enough of the Royal Navy's warships, especially the large capital ships.

Francis Mason criticised Allen's Who Won the Battle of Britain for displaying 'a bland ignorance of aircraft design' regarding the problems of fitting heavy calibre 0.5' machine guns to a Spitfire and 'ignoring the atmosphere of national parsimony in which successive air ministers and air staff members fought to provide any air defence at all.' Mason implied that Allen's criticism of the recently deceased Fighter Command chief, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, who could no longer defend himself, was distasteful. Allen did indeed criticise Dowding's conduct of the battle, particularly for allowing the brunt of the fighting to fall upon the embattled 11 Group, but had also argued that Dowding's earlier achievements had been ignored in the failure to make him a Marshal of the Royal Air Force upon retirement. Dowding was sympathetically portrayed in the 1969 blockbuster feature film, Battle of Britain, and died in 1970. He was widely regarded as a national hero, and was officially acknowledged by the erection of his statue at the RAF Chapel, St Clement Dane a few years later. Public criticism of Dowding was controversial during the 1970s, although Laddie Lucas and Douglas Bader also considered Dowding to have deployed a 'parochial' defence that prevented the full resources of Fighter Command being used.

He retired in January 1965, later stating that his reason for leaving the RAF prematurely was concern over an RAF plan in the mid-1960s "to snatch the Fleet Air Arm from the Navy. I knew from my study of military strategy that the demise of the Fleet Air Arm would render ineffective the Navy's role in preserving the sea communications on which Britain utterly depends."

He planned the RAF's coronation flypast over the Queen's balcony at Buckingham Palace in 1953. During the later Queen's Coronation Review, he arranged for 168 aircraft of varying types to fly over the Queen at RAF Odiham in a series of coordinated formations despite appalling weather conditions. As wing commander, he was Personal Staff Officer to the Chief of Staff, Allied Air Forces Central Europe and after his retirement a member of the Corps of Queen's Messengers, a Foreign and Commonwealth Office courier service for the delivery of important diplomatic documents around the world.

Allen's views were given prominent coverage in the Times during the 44th and 48th Battle of Britain anniversaries. Publicising these opinions in such a prominent way did not endear Allen to former RAF colleagues or to the general public. Even his obituary writer considered Allen's views 'eccentric', not appearing to understand why previous editors took them as seriously as they did.

Allen's case for the primacy of sea power in 1940 is not unique. Derek Robinson and Geoff Hewitt have argued similarly, seeing the Royal Navy as the main invasion deterrent in 1940. However, neither criticised the RAF's leadership and strategy as emphatically as Allen. Some air historians have argued that Fighter Command's 11 Group was "perilously close to collapse" owing to the loss of experienced pilots and damage to command and control infrastructure during the critical period. 11 Group's continuing effectiveness was particularly important because the beaches upon which the Germans planned to land were within their operational area.

Anthony Cumming judged that the immense superiority of the Royal Navy in home waters together with the anti-maritime limitations of the Luftwaffe were the main reasons for the Third Reich effectively abandoning Operation Sea Lion in 1940. In 1958, Duncan Grinnell-Milne submitted his case on behalf of the Royal Navy and in 1960 was further supported by Captain Stephen Roskill, the British Official Naval Historian for the Second World War. Integrating elements of air and sea aspects, Telford Taylor put forward a thorough study of the question a few years later. In more recent years Cumming's The Royal Navy and the Battle of Britain has supported the primacy of seapower argument and James Holland's The Battle of Britain has included a detailed account of the struggle at sea along with accounts of air combat. Both show that sailors, soldiers and airmen were actively engaged in fighting the Germans during the Battle of Britain if the battle is defined to include events prior to the main air fighting such as the Norway campaign and the Dunkirk evacuation – Operation Dynamo. Even with a Luftwaffe victory in the air, neither Holland nor Cumming believes it likely that Operation Sea Lion would have succeeded if launched.

Allen was commissioned into the Royal Air Force in 1939, the outbreak of war curtailing life as an undergraduate at Cardiff University where he was reading Economics. After training, he joined No. 66 Squadron RAF in mid-April 1940. Originally part of Fighter Command's No. 12 Group covering the Midlands and East Anglia, No. 66 Squadron took part in the air battles over the Dunkirk evacuation. During the Battle of Britain, the squadron joined No. 11 Group at Kenley for a week and later served at Gravesend, West Malling and Biggin Hill. Allen had seven confirmed kills and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Sir John Slessor, a former RAF Director of Plans, 1937–1940, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force, claimed Allen's Times article on Lord Hugh Trenchard, 'Father of the RAF' contained 'multiple mis-statements' but did not attempt to detail what these were. Slessor had a long and close relationship with Trenchard and his biographer commented that 'In his [Slessor's] years at the Air Ministry he now became one of the most passionate disciples of Lord Trenchard and his theories of strategic air power as a war-winning weapon'.

Hubert Raymond Allen, DFC (19 March 1919 – 31 May 1987) was a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer and commentator on defence matters. He fought during the Battle of Britain and was a flying ace of the Second World War, scoring 8 victories. Following his retirement from the RAF as a wing commander in 1965, Allen wrote several controversial books and articles on air power. He criticised RAF Air Staff policies before and during the Second World War. In contrast to the conventional narrative account, he maintained that during the Battle of Britain naval rather than air power was the crucial factor. His opinions clashed with mainstream opinion of the RAF's role, and with the views of many air historians, but his viewpoint received some support and significant attention.