Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Pughe Lloyd

Research by Laurence Rostron

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Pughe Lloyd GBE, KCB, MC, DFC. – Commander in Chief of Bomber Command, February 1950 until retiring in June 1953.

The Thatched House in Church Lane, Lacey Green, was built in 1938/9 but before the new owners could move in it was requisitioned by the War Office for use by Royal Air Force officers based at Bomber Command at RAF High Wycombe (Walters Ash). The first occupants were (then) Group Captain Hugh Lloyd with his wife Kathleen and their daughter Patricia

The family lived in The Thatched House for the duration of the war although, after the first year or so, Hugh Lloyd must have been an occasional visitor as his subsequent appointments were based outside the UK.

However, his life story is very interesting:

“Lloyd joined the Royal Engineers as a sapper in 1915 during World War I: he was wounded in action three times before enlisting as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and joining No 52 Squadron, flying the RE.8 on army co-operation missions. After the war, he remained with the RFC (which became the Royal Air Force in 1918) on a permanent commission.

In January 1939 he became Officer Commanding No. 9 Squadron, equipped with Wellingtons. Later in 1939, with World War II under way, he was promoted to Group Captain and given command of RAF Marham. His stay at RAF Marham was brief and in November 1939 he was appointed to the staff of No. 3 Group and, in May 1940, he became Senior Air Staff Officer at No. 2 Group.

On 1 June 1941, he was appointed Air Officer Commanding in Malta and in 1942 he was assigned to RAF headquarters in the Middle East as Senior Air Staff Officer and commanded the Northwest African Coastal Air Force and then the Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force in 1943. His role there was to carry out harrying of enemy transport by land and sea. In November 1944 he was appointed commander designate of Tiger Force, a Commonwealth heavy bomber force which was intended to join the air offensive against Japan but was disbanded shortly after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki effectively ended the war.”

Air Vice Marshall Lloyd standing beside a Bristol Beaufighter in which he flew to Britain in March 1944

“After the war he spent two years as senior instructor at the Imperial Defence College and then he was made Air Officer Commanding Air Command Far East, later retitled Far East Air Force. He was made Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bomber Command (Walters Ash) in February 1950 before he retired in June 1953.”

^{EXTRACT FROM WIKIPEDIA}

Soon after his retirement in 1953 he purchased 26 acres of land at Peterley Manor Farm near Great Missenden and he set up a successful pig farm. In the early days it is thought that the family lived in a cottage on the site whilst a new farm house was being built. This was extended later and the photograph shows it in 1983.

He died in 1981 and he is buried at St. Michael and All Angels Church in Hughenden. His wife had predeceased him in 1975 but they were re-united in death.