The Defender of London

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Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park by Les Johnson, 2010
Waterloo Place
London, September 2014

“In 2008, London financier Terry Smith and others initiated an international campaign to erect a permanent statue of Park on the Fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, in recognition of his work as commander of No. 11 Group during the Battle of Britain. London Mayor Boris Johnson is on record as saying that devoting the plinth permanently to Park, while certainly a thing worth doing, might not be easy to accomplish because of potential planning difficulties. On 8 May 2009 Westminster City Council agreed to erect a 2.78 m (9 ft) statue in Waterloo Place. A temporary 5 m (16.4 ft) statue was unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square on 4 November 2009. The fibre glass sculpture was in place for six months, until it was temporarily moved to the Royal Air Force Museum in London in May 2010. Finally, a permanent bronze version of the sculpture was installed at Waterloo Place and unveiled there in front of the Athenaeum Club on 15 September 2010, Battle of Britain Day, during the 70th anniversary commemorations of the Battle. Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, said that Park was ‘a man without whom the history of the Battle of Britain could have been disastrously different. He was a man who never failed at any task he was given.’” (Keith Park, Wikipedia)