Sir Keith Park has been “massively” underrecognised, says Terry Smith, who is heading the campaign for a permanent memorial to the unsung hero of the Battle of Britain.

Park helped to develop the strategy that held off the Germans and was the key figure who implemented the plan on the ground.

Park, who was played by Trevor Howard in the 1969 film Battle of Britain, controlled 11 Group, Fighter Command, covering London and the South East, which bore the brunt of the fighting.

Lord Tedder, the Chief of the Air Staff, said after the war: “If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did. I don’t believe it is realised how much one man, with his leadership, his calm judgment and his skill, did to save not only this country, but the world.”

But to this day, Park is little known to the wider public.

Mr Smith says there are several reasons for this. An understated and rather solitary New Zealander, he had little talent for the political in-fighting that helps to cement reputations. He was also more involved with operations than strategy.

“But it was a strategy that required iron discpline to succeed,” says Mr Smith.

“It is the same in business as in war. No matter how good your strategy, you have to have someone on the ground who does it. And that was Park.”

Mr Smith says that Park’s decisions have been tested in wargames and that it is very difficult to fault any of them.

The campaign has received extraordinary support, including from the unlikely political pairing of Tony Benn and Lord Tebbit, who last week wrote a joint article calling for a statue to be erected on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square for six months and a permanent memorial near by in Waterloo Place.

At the moment, the only official memorials to Park in Britain are two roads bearing his name.

In November 1940, Park and his boss, Sir Hugh Dowding, were sacked as a result of the notorious Big Wing controversy. Park’s rival Leigh-Mallory, together with Douglas Bader, advocated a different strategy based on mass attacks.

They won the day and although the strategy proved fatally flawed, Park’s reputation never fully recovered.