Page 143 - They Also Served

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Patrick Huskinson 1915.
Patrick Huskinson was born on 17th March 1897 in Farndon, Nottinghamshire. Educated at Harrow School, he entered E Company at Sandhurst in 1915 and was commissioned into his father’s regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, on 20th October. Seconded to the RFC, he was selected for pilot training and posted to No.2 Squadron in France in April 1916, flying the BE2c.
A few weeks later, Huskinson was awarded the MC during the Battle of the Somme for showing conspicuous gallantry and skill, bombing a train and station at low level. After a period at a training establishment in the UK, he was posted to No.19 Squadron flying the SPAD scout aircraft. Between October 1917 and March 1918, he shot down eleven enemy aircraft and was awarded a bar to the MC. Spending the remainder of the war as an instructor at the newly formed Central Flying School, he elected to transfer to the RAF.
Specialising as an armaments officer between the wars, he was responsible for setting up the first specialised bombing ranges in the UK – some of which are still used today. After commanding bomber squadrons, he was promoted to group captain in in 1938 and became the RAF representative on the Ordnance Committee. When Winston Churchill became prime minister in 1940, he made Huskinson director of armament production with the rank of air commodore. One of his responsibilities was to vet the myriad of bizarre weapon designs received during the dark days following Dunkirk when the threat of invasion was very real. The proposal to drop rats with explosives tied to their tails over enemy formations was not taken up!
On the night of 15th April 1941, Huskinson and his wife were in their apartment in Knightsbridge when the building was hit by a German bomb. Blinded in both eyes by flying glass, he was invalided from the RAF. However, such was his value to the war effort that he was retained as president of the Air Armaments Board. His wife oversaw the conversion of a room in their house for him to work in, and the air ministry allocated him three assistants. Huskinson adapted remarkably quickly
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