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Directions: Mount Kisco, NY is quite easy to reach via the Harlem line out of Grand Central Terminal. The Metro North train journey takes under an hour. The Ambleside Pub is a three-minute walk from the train station.
Celebrating along with members of the Haviland family will be RAF Group Captain Simon Nevin from the British Embassy in Washington, J. Michael Cindrich, Mayor of Mount Kisco, and James Normington MBE, former Royal Air Force Reserve who in 2020 initiated the British & Commonwealth Remembrance Project.
John Kenneth Haviland (Ken) was born in Mt. Kisco, NY on January 19,1921. His mother moved him to England after his father’s death in 1925
Ken enter flight training with the RAF Volunteer reserve, flying Miles Magisters. Called up on the 1st September 1939, he amassed a total flight time with the RAF of 1,562 hours in eleven different aircraft types and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
In 1967, Ken accepted an appointment as Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia where he spent 24 years at the University. He retired in June 1991 with the rank of Professor Emeritus in Aerospace Engineering.
Ken was the last living American to have fought in the RAF during the Battle of Britain, and his name was listed on a plaque in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the Mall and inscribed on a memorial monument on the Thames River bank in London near Big Ben.
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