Victor Beamish was the station commander at Kenley when he failed to return from a mission over France in 1942.
Hence RAF Kenley still has a Victor Beamish Ave to commemorate the outstanding leadership he always showed.
Unfortunately RAF Kenley is not quite the station it was in 1942 but still has 615 VGS and of course was a sector station in the B o B, with the Kenley wing being very active when fighter command started on offensive sweeps.
Beamish had already had an 'interesting' sweep in poor weather (they could not keep him on the ground) before he was lost, when he came across the Channel dash of the German Battleships amazing escape from Brest whilst on one of his poor weather Spitfire sweeps of which he was so fond of.
I think the words leadership and example are his legacy that Kenley still remembers.
When Pobjoy wandered into RAF Kenley in 1959 (to join the ATC) I well remember the main entrance road from the guard room to the display Spitfire marked with a varnished wooden sign with gold script to commemorate
VB and 65 years later his name lives on, as does Kenley itself, a real survivor. Cue Treads to show my Kenley B o B picture !!!