The Ron Penhall Collection

The Second World War K.B.E., C.B. group of fourteen awarded to Air Vice-Marshal Sir Victor Tait, Royal Air Force, late Canadian Army and Royal Flying Corps, who as Director-General of Signals (Intelligence) and Director of Radio/Radar Direction Finding played a crucial role in many wartime operations, from the Bruneval and Dieppe raids of 1942 to the Normandy landings in 1944: it was he who persuaded Churchill of the importance of countering the enemy’s Freya system

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, K.B.E. (Military) Knight Commander’s 2nd type set of insignia, comprising neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, and breast star, silver, with gilt and enamel centre, in its Garrard, London case of issue; The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, C.B. (Military) Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Garrard, London case of issue; 1914-15 Star (5470 Spr. V. H. Tait, Can. Eng.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. V. H. Tait); 1939-45 Star; Defence and War Medals; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Egyptian Order of the Nile, Commander’s neck badge, silver, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Lattes, Cairo case of issue; U.S.A. Legion of Merit, Commander’s neck badge, gilt and enamels, the suspension loop numbered ‘710’, in its case of issue; U.S.A., Legion of Merit, Officer’s breast badge, gilt and enamel, in its case of issue, enamel work very slightly chipped in places, generally good very fine and better (14) £1800-2200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Ron Penhall Collection.

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K.B.E. London Gazette 19 September 1944:

‘In recognition of services in planning the landings in Normandy.’

C.B. London Gazette 2 June 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘For services as Deputy-Director of Signals (Intelligence), Air Ministry, from April 1939; Director of Radio, Air Ministry, from May 1941; Director-General of Signals, Air Ministry, from August 1942; and special duty in America, October 1942.’

American Legion of Merit (Commander). The official White House citation states:

‘Air Vice-Marshal Sir Victor Tait, C.B., O.B.E., Royal Air Force, performed exceptionally meritorious service from July 1942 to May 1945, as Director-General of Signals in the British Air Ministry. He was responsible for the operational employment by the Royal Air Force of all types of radar, radar counter-measures and communications equipment. He was especially effective in promoting Allied co-operation with the Eighth Air Force. Through his early appreciation of the possibilities of electronic devices and his co-operative efforts, Air Vice-Marshal Tait contributed immeasurably to the field of scientific research and development and the success of Allied Aerial Warfare.’

Victor Hubert Tait was born in Winnipeg in July 1892 and completed his education at Manitoba University prior to enlisting in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force in September 1914. Embarked for England, he went out to France with the Canadian Engineers in February 1915, where he served for several months, but in January 1916, having attended an O.T.C. at Shorncliffe, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 8th (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment. In the following year, however, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was granted a permanent commission in the Royal Air Force at the end of the War.

Although by trade a pilot, his chosen profession was the then new science of radar and air navigation and, having helped ‘deal with a brief post-war trouble spot in Gallipoli’, he returned to the R.A.F. Signals Branch at the Air Ministry. Here, over the next decade, he was instrumental in setting in motion many of the navigational aids and air defence systems that proved so valuable on the renewal of hostilities, vitally, too, in time for the creation of Fighter Command.

Tait was next posted to the R.A.F’s Middle East Headquarters at Cairo, where he was advanced to Squadron Leader in July 1930. Three years later he was seconded to the Egyptian Army Air Force, which corps he nurtured for six years, becoming the Egyptian Government’s adviser on military aviation - and a Commander of the Order of the Nile. Having been advanced to Wing Commander in July 1936, he was also awarded the O.B.E. (London Gazette 9 June 1938 refers).

Recalled to the Air Ministry shortly before the renewal of hostilities in 1939, he was appointed a Deputy-Director of Signals (Intelligence) and, from May 1941, the R.A.F’s first Director of Radio/Radar Direction Finding - in August 1942 he was elevated to the post of Director-General in the former office, and he remained similarly employed for the rest of the War. He had, meanwhile, been advanced to Group Captain, and became an Air Commodore in July 1941. Tait subsequently played a critical role in countering enemy radar systems, in addition to developing blind bombing aids, which latter contribution enabled Bomber Command - and the Eighth U.S. Air Force - to mount much larger initiatives and increase the chance of getting home, regardless of weather conditions. Yet it was probably for his determination in persuading Churchill - during the course of several meetings - about the importance of countering the enemy’s Freya system that he will best be remembered, especially since he had to fight against the opinions of other learned scientists.

Much of the Allies’ knowledge of enemy radar was made possible by the raids on Bruneval and Dieppe in 1942, both of which were accompanied by R.A.F. radar specialists who were able to dismantle and remove (or interfere with) vital enemy equipment - Sergeant C. W. H. Cox at Bruneval and Flight Sergeant J. M. “Jack” Nissenthall at Dieppe (or the nearby village of Pourville to be more precise). And both of these men were personally interviewed by Tait prior to being selected for their highly hazardous assignments. Cox was famously persuaded to take on his task by Sir Victor’s forceful words, “If you are half the chap I think you are, you will jump at it!”; while Nissenthall found him to be ‘a lean man with a thin face and piercing eyes’, but a ‘pleasant fellow’ who gave him a cordial welcome. The latter’s excellent memoir, Winning The Radar War, contains extensive mention of Tait, and, as it happens, rather neatly summarises his activities post- Dieppe, and in the lead-up to Normandy, after he had been recruited by Professor R. V. Jones (afterwards author of Secret War) to join a special Air Ministry team at A.E.A.F. H.Q., Bentley Priory:

‘From August 1942, when the Dieppe raid took place, Victor Tait, as head of R.A.F. 60 Group Communications, built up an encyclopedic knowledge of German radio and radar organization. He already had in his Stanmore headquarters a linear British military grid map covering the entire United Kingdom, on which the identity and location of every one of our installations was plotted. On a European extension of the U.K. grid map, German stations were pinpointed whenever they were identified. By the beginning of 1944, almost a thousand sites and installations had been located. Of these, more than seventy precision stations were strung out along the coast of Europe as part of the main German defensive-warning screen. Tait’s main preoccupation from August 1943 on was to develop deception devices and systems that would confuse the enemy on D-Day. He succeeded magnificently.’

Tait was knighted for his part in the Normandy operations, Nissenthal largely attributing the Allies’ element of surprise on D-Day to Tait’s strict control of secrecy and his ‘conditioning’ of the enemy’s early-warning radar systems. He had, meanwhile, been advanced to Air Vice-Marshal in 1942, and appointed C.B. in 1943.

Having retired from the Royal Air Force in 1945, Tait went on to pursue an important career in civil aviation, was an Operations Director at B.O.A.C. until 1956 and latterly a Director of Ultra Electronics. He was also President of the British Ice Hockey Association for much of this period, having been a member of the British Olympics Team in Switzerland back in 1928. Sir Victor, ‘a quiet-spoken, dynamic man with a strong aptitude for logical scientific analysis’, died in November 1988.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s warrants for the K.B.E., dated 19 September 1944, and O.B.E., dated 9 June 1938; two warrants appertaining to his Egyptian Order of the Nile; official certificates for his American Legion of Merit, Commander and Officer grades, both accompanied by White House citations signed by Truman; his commission warrant for the rank of Flying Officer, dated 2 August 1919; his Winter Olympics (Ice-Hockey) certificates for 1928 (2), with related team photograph; F.S.F. Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Service to Aviation Safety, dated 7 May 1969; and a pre-war portrait photograph as ‘Tait Bey’ from his days in the Egyptian Air Force.