Lawrence Pendred

Air Marshal Sir Lawrence Fleming Pendred, KBE, CB, DFC, DL (5 May 1899 – 19 September 1986) was a Royal Air Force officer who became Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Flying Training Command from 1952 until his retirement in 1955.

RAF career

Educated at Epsom College, Pendred joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1917 towards the end of the First World War and served as a pilot with No. 2 Squadron.^[1] He specialised in intelligence and in 1930 he joined the Intelligence Staff at Headquarters RAF Transjordan and Palestine.^[1] He served in World War II on the air staff in the Deputy Directorate of Operations (Home) and then in the Directorate of Plans.^[1] He continued his war service as Chief Intelligence Officer at Headquarters RAF Bomber Command from 1941, as Director of Intelligence at the Air Ministry from 1942 and as Chief Intelligence Officer at Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Air Force from 1944.^[1] He spent the closing years of the War as Assistant Commandant at the RAF Staff College, Bulstrode Park and then as Air Officer Commanding No. 227 Group.^[1]

After the War he was appointed Director of Intelligence to Supreme Commander, South East Asia and then, from 1947, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Intelligence).^[1] He went on to be Commandant at the School of Land/Air Warfare in 1950 and Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Flying Training Command in 1952 before retiring in 1955.^[1] Under Pendred the standard training sequence for new pilots was the Provost and then the Vampire aircraft types.^[2]

In retirement he was President of the Old Epsomian Club.^[3]

References

Heads of RAF Intelligence
Medhurst 1941–1942 Inglis 1942–1945 Elmhirst 1945–1947 Pendred 1947–1950 Ogilvie-Forbes 1950–1952 Fressanges 1952–1954 MacDonald 1954–1958 Bufton 1958–1961 Foord-Kelcey 1961–1964 Maguire 1964–1965