of a perfect killer, where a smooth transition can be made between the motives that drive a boy to 'play hard' at school and then to 'fight hard' against the King's enemies". Biographer Chaz Bowyer considered that "to label Albert Ball a 'killer' would be to do him a grave injustice", as his "sensitive nature suffered in immediate retrospect whenever he succeeded in combat". Post-war legacy After the war the British discovered Ball's grave, which had been behind enemy lines, in the Annoeullin Cemetery. In December 1918, personnel of No. 207 Squadron RAF erected a new cross in place of the one left by the Germans. The Imperial War Graves Commission (now Commonwealth War Graves Commission) were working at the time to consolidate the British war graves into fewer cemeteries; 23 British bodies in graves in the location where Ball was buried were moved to the Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery, but at his father's request Ball's grave was allowed to remain. Albert Sr. paid for a private memorial to be erected over Ball's grave, No. 643, in what later became the Annoeullin Communal Cemetery and German Extension. Ball's is the only British grave from the First World War in this extension, the rest being German. Ball's father also bought the French field where his son had died and erected a memorial stone on the crash site. Memorials to Ball in his native Nottingham include a monument and statue in the grounds of Nottingham Castle. The monument, which was commissioned by the city council and funded by public subscription, consists of a bronze group on a carved pedestal of Portland stone and granite. The bronze group, by the sculptor Henry Poole, shows a life-size figure of Ball with an allegorical female figure at his shoulder. The monument was unveiled on 8 September 1921 by Air Marshal Trenchard, with military honours including a flypast by a squadron of RAF aircraft. In 1929 the bronze model for Ball's statue was presented by his father to the National Portrait Gallery in London, where it is on display. In further remembrance of his son, Albert Ball, Sr. commissioned the building of the Albert Ball Memorial Homes in Lenton to house the families of local servicemen killed in action. The Lenton War Memorial, located in front of the homes, includes Ball's name and was also paid for by the Ball family. The homes were Grade-II listed