Hugh Pughe Lloyd - RAF Career

RAF Career

Lloyd joined the Royal Engineers as a sapper in 1915 during World War I: he was wounded in action three times before enlisting as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and joining No 52 Squadron, flying the RE.8 on army co-operation missions. After the war, he remained with the RFC (which became the Royal Air Force in 1918) on a permanent commission.

In January 1939 he became Officer Commanding No. 9 Squadron, equipped with Wellingtons. Later in 1939, with World War II under way, he was promoted to Group Captain and given command of RAF Marham. His stay at RAF Marham was brief and in November 1939 he was appointed to the staff of No. 3 Group and, in May 1940, he became Senior Air Staff Officer at No. 2 Group. On 1 June 1941, he was appointed Air Officer Commanding in Malta, with the difficult task of protecting the island from German and Italian air attacks as well as attacking Axis shipping delivering supplies to Rommel's Afrika Korps in North Africa. He was assigned to RAF headquarters in the Middle East as Senior Air Staff Officer in 1942 and commanded the Northwest African Coastal Air Force and then the Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force in 1943. His role there was to carry out harrying of enemy transport by land and sea. In February 1945 he began planning and eventually took command of Tiger Force, 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.