Donald Randall Evans

Air Chief Marshal Sir Donald Randell Evans, (31 January 1912 – 9 April 1975) was a senior Royal Air Force commander who was an innovator in night fighting tactics in the Second World War and conducted the signals planning for the Sicily and Normandy invasions. Early life Born the son of Colonel Percy Evans, who had been Assistant Director Medical Services for the British Expeditionary Forces (1915–1917), Evans was educated at Wellington College before entering the RAF College Cranwell in 1930 where he won the Humanities Prize. Second World War Following service in the Middle East, Evans joined RAF Fighter Command where he was a signals officer at the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1941, he was given command of the Fighter Interception Unit at Ford and was responsible for introducing successful new tactics. He personally shot down two enemy fighters and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1942. At the age of thirty, he was promoted to group captain and went to Headquarters No. 11 (Fighter) Group in charge of night operations. In 1943, he was posted to the Mediterranean where he undertook the air side of signals planning for the Sicily invasion. Later he performed similar duties in the Allied Expeditionary Air Force for the Normandy landings. Post-war RAF career After the war he graduated from RAF Staff College, commanded the Telecommunications Flying Unit at Defford from 1946 to 1948 before being put in charge of plans at Headquarters RAF Fighter Command. He became Director of Operational Requirements at the Air Ministry in 1952. In 1957 to 1958 he was Senior Air Staff Officer, Fighter Command, and from 1959 to 1961 commandant of the School of Land-Air Warfare. He was promoted to air vice marshal and appointed Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff at the Ministry of Defence in 1961. An important step was his appointment as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff working party in the reorganisation of the Ministry of Defence in 1963. As The Times reported, "with an already established reputation as a progressive mind on joint planning he worked closely with the then Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Mountbatten to try to ensure that unification became a real integration of the policy making functions of the three services, a step resisted at that time by some less flexible senior officers."