"Never was so much owed by so many to so few."
That was the wartime speech given by British prime minister Winston Churchill on Aug. 20 in 1940. It referred to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force and other allied air crew who were fighting in the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe.
One of those “few” just so happens to have been born in Mount Kisco.
The names of John Kenneth Haviland and nine other Americans who joined the RAF during WWII are now emblazoned on a bronze plaque displayed at The Ambleside, an authentic English pub owned by British-born Drew Hodgson and his American wife, Leigh.
(The pair also own The Hamlet, a British goods shop, and plan to open a tea shop downtown as well.)
In September, the packed pub hosted the plaque unveiling, as well as speeches, proclamations, and presentations by local dignitaries, RAF officers, and members of the Daughters of the British Empire (DBE), dozens of whom had trekked to the village from five different states.
Haviland’s sons Peter, Laurence, and David and a grandson, Jonathan, were front and center. His daughter Susan, who lives in California, was unable to come. (His second daughter, Julia, had passed away in 2021.)
The powerhouse behind the event was James Normington of the British and Commonwealth Remembrance Project, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit.
He and his wife, Caitlin, brought along their two adorable red-haired children, Olivia and Joshua.
While welcoming the crowd, Drew Hodgson joked that when he learned that there was an RAF pilot who’d been born in Mount Kisco and who had taken part in such a crucial battle, he almost “fell off” his chair.
“I went 'That is amazing! We have to do something,'” he recalled.
Simon J. Nevin OBE, a deputy air attaché with the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., commandeered the mic next.
“It’s been unbelievable how the community and these different groups have come together to organize this,” he marveled.
Thanking all the allies who’d come to his country’s aid, “Nev” concluded that “if it wasn’t for the Battle of Britain, I think we’d be speaking a different language.”
Haviland was, he said, most definitely one of “the few” that Churchill had lionized in his landmark speech.
When the revered pilot died in 2002, it meant that there were “no more of these heroes left on this earth,” Nevin said.
Speaking on behalf of the DBE was Susan Gerrity of Pennsylvania, its honorary national president and co-organizer of the organization’s eastern district.
She told Halston Media later that the event was “very, very nice” and was a lot more than some were expecting.
“I thought we’d just be traipsing off to a cemetery,” she admitted.
Part of the BCRP’s mission is to locate, research, and care for the WWI and WWII graves of British and Commonwealth war dead buried across New England.
(Normington is a former Royal Air Force (RAF) Reserve officer and a financial advisor. In June, he was named a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).)
The project also coordinates international remembrance events and works with defense attaches to document historical contributions, including those of American pilots who flew with the RAF during the Battle of Britain.
Members of the DBE contingent were grateful for the opportunity to make connections and to share stories, including Gerrity’s about having a British mother whose family “got so fed up going to the air raid shelters during the Blitz that they just got under their kitchen tables.”
Lots of the children of WWII vets – including this reporter – will tell you how hard it was to get their parents to talk about the war.
Their willingness depended on the person, the audience, and the passage of time.
This “Silent Generation” culture prevailed post-WWII because dwelling on problems or showing emotional vulnerability was discouraged.
“It was a good time to be with family,” Peter said of the event, adding that the Havilands were “very honored that people took the time to put this together.”
SO ENGLAND MIGHT LIVE
The Battle of Britain officially took place in 1940 between July 10 when the Luftwaffe attacked shipping convoys in the English Channel and Oct. 31, the date which marks the end of the intense daylight bombing campaign.
On Sept. 15, the German air force — expecting the RAF to be worn down and near collapse — launched a massive attack on London. But the RAF's Fighter Command scrambled nearly all its planes and heavily defeated the German bombers, inflicting unsustainable losses on the Luftwaffe.
One of the “Yanks” who took part in that moment in history was John Kenneth “Ken” Haviland, who was born in Mount Kisco on Jan. 19, 1921, to John Haviland Sr., a U.S. Navy officer who died in 1925, and Phyllis Olive Brown, née Aldridge, a British citizen.
Haviland Jr. flew with No. 151 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Battle of Britain.
Only a handful of American pilots flew in the British RAF in the summer of 1940 after Nazi forces conquered Europe and were threatening Great Britain.
The RAF, the British Fleet Air Arm, and the Royal Canadian Air Force squadron were the first line of defense.
The RAF and allies were desperately fighting off German air attacks when pilots from many nations, including America, joined the fight.
According to the National Museum of the US Air Force, America’s neutrality laws made it illegal for Americans to fight for other countries. Volunteers, it said, were risking imprisonment and losing their citizenship.
The U.S. officially went to war in 1941. Congress pardoned all those affected in 1944.
The Haviland family goes way back in the neighboring town of New Castle.
After his father died, Haviland’s mother took the five-year-old back to Southampton, England, where he was given a good British education – including at the University of Nottingham and the University of London. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1939.
He is now memorialized – along with nine other Americans – on a bronze plaque on Ambleside’s façade.
They were William Fiske (Illinois), Carl Davis (Ohio), Philip Leckrone (Illinois), Vernon Keough (New Jersey), Eugene Tobin (Utah), Andrew Mamedoff (Connecticut), Alexander Zatonski (Pennsylvania), Arthur Donahue (Minnesota), and dePeyster Brown (Pennsylvania).
Olivia Normington spoke about Keough, who was affectionately called “Shorty,” because he was — at 4 feet 10 inches tall — the RAF’s smallest pilot.
Keough had to use two cushions in his Spitfire just to see out of the cockpit.
Haviland, who flew 50 combat missions over Germany, and Brown were the only two who survived the battle. Zatonski was reported missing.
The plaque reads: “In 1940, Great Britain faced her Darkest Hour. These American citizens came to her aid fighting valiantly in the Battle of Britain.”
Haviland joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and flew Hawker Hurricanes — single-seat monoplane fighter aircraft — with No. 151 Squadron starting in September 1940.
According to his family, he had several close calls.
The first happened just a day after he joined his squadron.
Haviland’s Hurricane collided with another aircraft during formation practice, which knocked out his engine. He glided it to a landing onto a field. The other pilot parachuted to safety.
In 1944, he was flying Mosquito IVs on radar surveillance flights over Germany. On returning from one of those missions, Haviland had to land in the dark because enemy aircraft had been reported in the area.
He lost control upon touchdown and the plane veered off to the side. Suddenly, Haviland noticed that it seemed “unusually dark” overhead.
Also, there was a “strange object” sticking in his canopy – the exhaust pipe of a Halifax bomber that had landed right on top of him.
The bomber pilot, who had lost his radio and was coming in in the dark at a steeper angle than the Mosquito, nearly crushed the smaller plane.
It was a “miracle” that Haviland survived, said his family.
In an example of typical British understatement, Haviland noted in his log book: ''Halifax landed on top of us. Bit of a mess.''
Haviland served through the rest of the war in bomber support, intruder operations, and as an instructor. He amassed a total flight time of 1,562 hours in 11 different aircraft types and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1945.
(In 1969, he was invited by RAF ace Peter Townsend to London to attend a command performance of the film "Battle of Britain" where he was formally presented to Queen Elizabeth.)
While attending gunnery school in Spitfire IPs at Sutton Bridge, Norfolk, Haviland married Eleanor Valerie Baker, who was also in uniform as a writer with the Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS).
The couple had five children: Susan, David, Peter, Laurence, and Julia.
The family moved to Montreal where Haviland worked in the aircraft structures and design industry. In 1949, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and accumulated a total of 133 hours with the rank of Flying Officer in T-6s and de Havilland Vampires.
They eventually immigrated to the United States.
In 1956, Haviland became a naturalized US citizen, having lost his dual nationality at the age of 23.
He went on to earn a Ph.D from MIT and spent 24 years as a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Virginia.
Haviland died on July 1, 2002, at the age of 81 in Charlottesville, Va. Eleanor died in 2006.
His name is also listed on a plaque in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the Mall and inscribed on the Battle of Britain Monument by the Thames River in London near Big Ben.
Mount Kisco Mayor J. Michael Cindrich presented the Havilands with a proclamation from the village and a copy of their father’s original birth certificate.
He declared Sept. 19, 2026, as John Kenneth Haviland Day and asked the people of Mount Kisco and Charlottesville, Va., to join him in “honoring a true American-born hero who defended the United Kingdom from the German Luftwaffe attacks during the Battle of Britain.”
Cindrich said later that he was “very proud” to have taken part in the ceremony.
“The Battle of Britain sent a message to the Germans, a resolve of unrelenting tenacity,” he said.
According to his son Peter, Haviland — having been raised as an Englishman — never lost his love of traditional British street and pub foods.
When the family lived in Virginia, Haviland was constantly on the hunt for restaurants with “the best” fish and chips.
(Lord Hardwicke’s in Charlottesville was a personal all-time favorite.)
Ambleside’s version — on offer in both cod AND haddock — is more than up to snuff.
“It’s delicious,” said Peter. “He would have loved it here.”
The American volunteers that flew with the RAF in the Battle are the subject of a book "The Few" by Alex Kershaw.
Read an expanded version of this story at MountKiscoBedfordTimes.com
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