Hugh Pughe Lloyd

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Pughe Lloyd, GBE, KCB, MC, DFC (12 December 1894 – 14 July 1981) was a senior Royal Air Force commander.

Sir Hugh Lloyd
Air Vice Marshal Lloyd, AOC Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Forces, stands beside the Bristol Beaufighter in which he flew to Britain, 18 March 1944
Born(1894-12-12)12 December 1894
Leigh, Worcestershire
Died14 July 1981(1981-07-14) (aged 86)
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army (1915–18)
Royal Air Force (1918–53)
Years of service1915–1953
RankAir Chief Marshal
Commands heldBomber Command (1950–53)
Far East Air Force (1947–49)
Tiger Force (1945)
Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force (1943–44)
Northwest African Coastal Air Force (1943)
No. 201 Group RAF (1942)
AHQ Malta (1941–42)
RAF Marham (1939)
No. 9 Squadron RAF (1939)
Battles/warsFirst World War
Second World War
AwardsKnight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath
Military Cross
Distinguished Flying Cross
Mentioned in Despatches
Officer of the Legion of Honour (France)
Croix de Guerre (France)
Officer of the Legion of Merit (United States)

RAF career

Lloyd joined the Royal Engineers as a sapper in 1915 during the First World War:[1] he was wounded in action three times before enlisting as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and joining No. 52 Squadron,[1] flying the RE.8 on army co-operation missions. After the war, he remained with the recently formed Royal Air Force on a permanent commission.[1]

In January 1939 Lloyd became Officer Commanding No. 9 Squadron,[1] equipped with Wellingtons. Later in 1939, with the Second World War under way, he was promoted to group captain and given command of RAF Marham.[1] His stay at RAF Marham was brief and in November he was appointed to the staff of No. 3 Group and, in May 1940, he became Senior Air Staff Officer at No. 2 Group.[1]

On 1 June 1941, Lloyd was appointed Air Officer Commanding in Malta,[1] with the difficult task of protecting the island from German and Italian air attacks as well as attacking Axis shipping delivering supplies to Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in North Africa. However, his lack of knowledge of fighter tactics and the dominance of the Messerschmitt Bf 109F against the outdated Hawker Hurricane, prolonged the Siege of Malta. When Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring was appointed to lead the Axis air-offensive from December 1940, RAF Command at last reacted. After installing a fighter control room similar to those in the United Kingdom, from April 1942 they assigned the island two squadrons of Supermarine Spitfires totaling 47 aircraft, which led later that year to the Allies moving to an offensive campaign.

Lloyd was assigned to RAF headquarters in the Middle East as Senior Air Staff Officer in 1942 and commanded the Northwest African Coastal Air Force[2] and then the Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force in 1943.[1] His role there was to carry out harrying of enemy transport by land and sea.[3] In November 1944 he was appointed commander designate of Tiger Force,[1] a Commonwealth heavy bomber force which was intended to join the air offensive against Japan but was disbanded shortly after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki effectively ended the war.[4]

Postwar years

After two years as senior instructor at the Imperial Defence College, Lloyd was made Air Officer Commanding Air Command Far East, later retitled Far East Air Force.[1] He was made Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bomber Command in February 1950 before he retired in June 1953.[1]

Lloyd was President of the London Welsh Trust, which runs the London Welsh Centre, from 1962 until 1964.[5]

References

Further reading

  • Lloyd, Sir Hugh, Briefed to attack: Malta's Part in African Victory (Hodder & Stoughton, 1949) (which inspired the film Malta Story)
Military offices
Preceded by
Sir George Pirie
AOC-in-C Air Command Far East
Redesignated AOC-in-C Far East Air Force from 1 June 1949 onwards

1947–1949
Succeeded by
Sir Francis Fogarty
Preceded by
Sir Aubrey Ellwood
Commander-in-Chief Bomber Command
1950–1953
Succeeded by
Sir George Mills
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