Page 92 - They Also Served

the rigours of night navigation and bombing. However, the air ministry wanted the maximum number of crews available for operations, so Ludlow-Hewitt was deemed to be too cautious and replaced by Charles Portal.
Ludlow-Hewitt continued to serve, however, for the remainder of the war as inspector- general of the RAF, visiting airfields around the world until November 1945, by which time he was 61. He died on 15th August 1973 having recently had his left arm, injured in the Great War, amputated. His decisions, in particular regarding the OTUs, were quickly vindicated after his dismissal. Portal’s successor Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris wrote in 1945: ‘Without this policy of Ludlow’s, the dog would have eaten its own tail to hurting point within a few weeks, and would have been a dead dog, beyond all hope of recovery, in a few months. Ludlow-Hewitt saved the situation – and the war – at his own expense’.
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