Lawrence Pattinson
Sir Lawrence Arthur Pattinson, was a Royal Air Force officer who became Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Flying Training Command from 1940 to 1941.RAF career
Educated at Cambridge University, Pattinson was commissioned into the 5th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry in 1914 at the start of the First World War. He subsequently transferred to the Royal Fusiliers and then to the Royal Flying Corps and became Officer Commanding No. 57 Squadron on the Western Front in 1916. In March 1918 he became Officer Commanding No. 99 Squadron and later that year he took command of the 41st Wing.
Between the wars Pattinson was Station Commander at RAF Andover and then, from 1930, Deputy Director of Organisation at the Air Ministry. He went on to be Air Officer Commanding the Armament Group in 1934 and Air Officer Commanding No. 23 Group in 1937. He served in the Second World War as Air Officer Commanding Flying Training Command and then as Head of the RAF Training Mission to the Chinese Air Force before retiring in 1945. In recognition of his contribution to the development of the Chinese Air Force, in 1943 General Chiang Kai-shek gave him a black and gold lacquerware vase which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
