It Would Be Nice If this didn't turn into another "Did the Wright brothers invent the aeroplane?" thread.
It's pretty clear that there is a lot of collaborative history here, and lots of people were the first to get to a particular point, so one can only talk about a unique inventor if one cherry-picks the crucial point to suit a particular candidate.
It looks like von Ohain and Whittle were working independently, though Whittle was ahead. The report of von Ohain's comments on the Whittle patent, quoted in Wikipedia, show that even though he does seem to have become aware of Whittle's work earlier than he originally admitted, he had strongly developed ideas of his own already.
The other point is that a new development like this is not just a question of an inventor: there's the whole process of industrialization. Germany seems to have done better than the UK here. It sounds like Whittle's personality might have had some effect, but much more likely the contrast is between Whittle having NOT been born into the officer class, and so having a lot of headway to make up, whereas Ohain was von from the start, and had a smooth ride into academic employment at the U of Goettingen.
But Hooker's account of Whittle is very interesting, and different from the normal culture-hero myths. Any suggestions on good biographies of Whittle?