Air Commodore Sir Henry Nigel St Valery Norman, 2nd Baronet, was a consulting civil engineer and Royal Air Force officer during the first half of the 20th century.
12 Facts About Nigel Norman
1.
2.
Nigel Norman was the only child of journalist and travel writer Henry Norman, and novelist Menie Muriel Dowie.
3.
Nigel Norman later transferred to the Royal Corps of Signals.
4.
Nigel Norman later commanded No 110 Army Co-operation Wing based at RAF Ringway.
5.
In 1935, in partnership with architect Graham Dawbarn, Nigel Norman founded the consultancy firm of Nigel Norman and Dawbarn, responsible for designs of buildings and lay-outs of many municipal airports in the UK and overseas, including those at Gatwick, Birmingham, Ringway, Jersey, and Guernsey.
6.
In 1940, Nigel Norman commanded the Central Landing Establishment based at RAF Ringway.
7.
Nigel Norman controlled the air side of the first British paratroop raid on Italy shortly after it entered the war.
8.
Nigel Norman distinguished himself in Operation Biting, the raid by British parachute troops on the coast of northern France in March 1942, when the radio location post at Bruneval, 12 miles north of Le Havre, was destroyed.
9.
On 19 May 1943, Nigel Norman died in the post-crash fire when Lockheed Hudson IIIA FH168 that was to carry him to North Africa force-landed after takeoff from RAF St Eval.
10.
Nigel Norman was a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a member of the Aviation Committee of the London Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Council of the Air Registration Board, of which body he was chairman of the Design and Construction Panel.
11.
Nigel Norman's eldest of three sons was Mark Annesley, born on 8 February 1927, who succeeded him as third baronet.
12.
Mark Nigel Norman worked for Bristol Siddeley Engines as company secretary.