Hazelton Nicholl

Air Vice Marshal Sir Hazelton Robson Nicholl KBE CB (14 January 1882 – 14 August 1956) was a Royal Air Force officer who became Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at Middle East Command.

RAF career

Nicholl served as a private soldier in the London Scottish Volunteers in the Second Boer War and then transferred to the South Rhodesia Volunteers in 1903. He was commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps Special Reserve in 1915 during World War I and served as a pilot with No. 8 Squadron before instructing at the Central Flying School and then becoming Officer Commanding No. 84 Squadron and subsequently Officer Commanding No. 110 Squadron on the Western Front.

After the War he became a Staff Officer at the Air Ministry before being appointed Officer Commanding No. 70 Squadron in 1926. He was made Deputy Director of Training and then Deputy Director of Personal Services before becoming Deputy Director of Manning at the Air Ministry in 1931. He went on to be Station Commander at RAF Calshot in 1932, Air Officer Commanding No. 23 Group in 1933 and Air Officer Commanding Central Area in 1934. After that he was made a Member of the Air Board of the Royal Australian Air Force in 1935, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at Middle East Command in 1938 and Air Officer for Administration at Headquarters Fighter Command in 1939, the post he held in the early years of World War II. He retired in 1942.