The Big Wing, also known as a Balbo, was an air fighting tactic proposed during the Battle of Britain by 12 Group commander Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Acting Squadron Leader Douglas Bader. In essence, the tactic involved meeting incoming Luftwaffe bombing raids in strength with a wing-sized formation of three to five squadrons. In the Battle, this tactic was employed by the Duxford Wing, under Bader's command.
The name "Balbo" refers to Italo Balbo, an Italian air force officer famous for leading large formations of aircraft on long distance flights before the war.
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Famous quotes containing the words big and/or wing:
“We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encroaching horizon,
Is wooed into the cyclops eye
Of a tarn.”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
“the uncomfortable angels that rot
On the slabs, a wing chipped here, an arm there:
The brute curiosity of an angels stare
Turns you, like them, to stone....”
—Allen Tate (18991979)