BBC News (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2146171.stm) have a good and quite fitting obituary to this great man. However, they say that John Cunningham was the first man to shoot down an enemy plane using radar. C F Rawsley, John Cunningham’s radar operator, wrote in his book ‘Night Fighter’ that the first pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft (a Dornier 17) after a radar-controlled interception was, on 22 July 1940, a Flying Officer G Ashfield while flying a Blenheim from the experimental Fighter Interception Unit at Ford in Sussex. John Cunningham shot down his first enemy aircraft (a Junkers 88) after a radar-controlled interception on 20 November 1940, becoming the first pilot on a normal operational squadron to use radar to shoot down an enemy aircraft. While not the first to successfully use radar, John Cunningham was certainly a pioneer, and C F Rawnsley tells of his inspired leadership in bringing radar to operational effectiveness.