Marshal of the Royal Air ForceMarshal of the Royal Air Force is the highest rank in the Royal Air Force. In peacetime it was granted to RAF officers in the appointment of Chief of the Defence Staff, and to retired Chiefs of the Air Staff, who were promoted to it on their last day of service. Promotions to the rank have ceased...
Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet GCBThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
OBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
AFCThe Air Force Cross is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the United Kingdom Armed Forces, and formerly also to officers of the other Commonwealth countries, for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying, though not in active operations against the enemy". A...
RAF (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as
"Bomber" Harris by the press, and often within the RAF as
"Butcher" Harris, was
Air Officer Commanding-in-ChiefAir Officer Commanding is a title given in the air forces of Commonwealth nations to an air officer who holds a command appointment. Thus, an air vice marshal might be the AOC 38 Group. An air officer heading a particularly large or important command may be called an Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief...
(AOC-in-C) of
RAF Bomber CommandRAF Bomber Command was the organisation that controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II, the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s was at the peak of its postwar power with the V bombers and a...
(from early 1943 holding the rank of
Air Chief MarshalAir Chief Marshal is a senior air officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force...
) during the latter half of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In 1942 the
CabinetIn the politics of the United Kingdom, the Cabinet is the collective decision-making body of Her Majesty's Government, composed of the Prime Minister and some 22 Cabinet Ministers, the most senior of government ministers.H.M...
agreed to the
area bombing of German citiesThe aerial bombing of cities began in 1911, developed through World War I, grew to a vast scale in World War II, and continues to the present day.-Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912:...
. Harris was tasked with implementing Churchill's policy and supported the development of tactics and technology to perform the task more effectively. Harris assisted
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
Chief of the Air Staff Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Portal in carrying out the United Kingdom's most devastating attacks against the German infrastructure at a time when Britain was limited in its resources and manpower.
Harris's preference for area bombing over precision targeting in the last year of the war remains controversial, partly because by this time many senior Allied air commanders thought it less effective and partly for the large number of civilian casualties and destruction this strategy caused in Continental Europe. While the
Butt ReportThe Butt Report was a report prepared during World War II which revealed the wide-spread failure of bombers to deliver their payloads to the correct target....
correctly notes, "of those aircraft recorded as attacking their target, only one in three got within five miles (eight kilometres)" in 1940 and 1941, by 1944, many technical and training improvements had been implemented, not least
H2S radarH2S was a radar system used in various British bomber aircraft from 1943 to the 1990s. It was designed to identify targets on the ground for night and all-weather bombing...
and the Pathfinder force. The argument Harris continued to adhere to an area bombing strategy due to the inaccuracy of his bomber force, despite the absence of evidence (or even attempts to gather any) of its effectiveness, is based on a misapprehension of the circumstances. He was not dissuaded from it by his seniors, Portal and Churchill, both of whom had access to better intelligence than Harris, nor were there serious misgivings about the campaign expressed by his seniors (or anyone in the Government) at the time.
Early years
Harris was born on 13 April 1892, at
CheltenhamCheltenham , or Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, England with a population of 110,013 at the 2001 census. The inhabitants are known as "Cheltonians". Its motto is: Salubritas et Eruditio ....
, where his parents were staying while his father was on home leave from the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at
Allhallows SchoolAllhallows College, previously known as Allhallows School, was an independent boys 'public school' in Devon, England, predominantly boarding....
in
DevonDevon is a large county in England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, although that is an unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county itself and often indicating a traditional or historical context. The county shares borders with Cornwall to the west and Dorset and Somerset to...
, while his brothers were educated at
SherborneSherborne School is a British independent school for boys, located in the town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset, England. It is one of the original member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference....
and
EtonEton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent boarding school for boys aged approx. 13 to 19. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
. At the age of 16, not considered academically gifted by his parents, he was given the choice of "either army or the colonies." He chose the colonies and went to
RhodesiaWhen the former colony of Northern Rhodesia changed its name to Zambia on independence in 1964, the colony of Southern Rhodesia changed its name to just plain 'Rhodesia'. The change had not yet been officialy ratified when Rhodesia declared itself independent on 11 November 1965...
(now
ZimbabweZimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers...
and
ZambiaThe Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is...
) in 1908, where over the next few years he flourished earning his living "gold mining, driving coaches [and] general farming".
First World War
In 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, Harris joined the
1st Rhodesian RegimentThe First Rhodesian Regiment was formed from the communities of Northern and Southern Rhodesia as part of the British Empire forces at the start of World War I.-External links:*...
as a bugler, and served with them in
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
and in the German colony of
South-West AfricaGerman South West Africa was a colony of Germany from 1884 until 1915, when it was taken over by South Africa and administered as South West Africa, finally becoming Namibia in 1990...
(now
NamibiaNamibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in Southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana and Zimbabwe to the east, and South Africa to the south and east...
). In 1915 he returned to England and joined the
Royal Flying CorpsThe Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery cooperation and photographic reconnaissance...
, serving with distinction on the
home frontHome front is the informal term commonly used to describe the civilian populace of the nation at war as an active support system of its military. In a domestic war-time discourse, a home front implies the imperative of effective militarisation of a society, and a necessity for social servitude to...
and in France during 1917 as a flight commander and ultimately CO of
No. 45 Squadron45 Squadron is a squadron of the Royal Air Force. -World War One:Formed during WWI at Gosport on 1 March 1916 as Number 45 Squadron, the unit was first equipped with Sopwith 1½ Strutters which it was to fly in the Scout role. Deployed to France in October of that year, the Squadron found itself...
, flying the
Sopwith 1½ StrutterThe Sopwith 1½ Strutter was a British one or two-seat biplane multi-role aircraft of the First World War. It is significant as the first British-designed two seater tractor fighter, and the first British aircraft to enter service with a synchronised machine gun...
and
Sopwith CamelThe Sopwith Camel was a British World War I single-seat fighter biplane introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It had a combination of a short-coupled fuselage, heavy, powerful rotary engine and concentrated fire from twin synchronized machine guns...
. Before he returned to England to command
No. 44 SquadronNo. 44 Squadron of the Royal Air Force is no longer operational. For most of its history it served as a heavy bomber squadron.-History:...
on Home Defence duties, Harris claimed five enemy aircraft destroyed and was awarded the Air Force Cross (AFC). He finished the war a major.
Inter-War years
After the war, Harris chose to remain in the newly formed
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's air force, the oldest independent air force in the world. Formed on 1 April 1918, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts.The RAF operates almost 1,109...
. In the RAF he served in different functions in India,
MesopotamiaIraq Command was the RAF-led inter-service command in charge of all British forces in Iraq in the 1920s and early 1930s, during the period of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia...
(now
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
and
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
), and Persia (now
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
). He said of his service in India that he first got involved in bombing in the usual annual North West Frontier tribesmen trouble. In Mesopotamia he commanded a
Vickers VernonThe Vickers Vernon was a British biplane cargo aircraft used by the Royal Air Force. It was the first dedicated troop transport of the RAF, entering service in 1921....
squadron. "We cut a hole in the nose and rigged up our own bomb racks and I turned those machines into the heaviest and best bombers in the command". Harris also contributed at this time to the development of bombing using delay-action bombs, which were then applied to keep down uprisings of the Mesopotamian tribes fighting against British occupation. With regard to this period, Harris is recorded as having remarked "the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand."
In 1924 Harris was posted to England to command the first post-war heavy bomber squadron (
No. 58- History :It was first formed at Cramlington, Northumberland, on 8 June, 1916 as a squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. It was last disbanded at RAF Wittering in June 1976 after serving as a ground-attack training unit flying Hawker Hunters since 1973....
). His commander in Iraq had been the future Chief of the Air Staff Sir
John SalmondMarshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Maitland Salmond GCB CMG CVO DSO and Bar RAF was a British military officer who rose to high rank in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I...
, who was also one of his commanders back in England. Together they developed "night training for night operations".
From 1927 to 1929, Harris attended the
Army Staff College-Origins:In 1799 Colonel John Gaspard Le Marchant, 7th Hussars, submitted a proposal to the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army for a Royal Military College in three departments...
at Camberley where he discovered that at the college the army kept 200 horses for the officers'
fox huntingFox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase, and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds, and a group of followers led by a master of foxhounds, who follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.Fox hunting originated in the United...
. At a time when all services were very short of equipment, the army high command - which was still dominated by cavalry officers - clearly had a different set of priorities from technocrats like Harris, who quipped that the army commanders would only be happy with the tank if it could learn to eat hay and defecate like a horse. He also had a low opinion of the
NavyThe Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces . From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early...
, he commented that there were three things which should never be allowed on a well run yacht "a wheel-barrow, an umbrella and a naval officer". Bernard Montgomery was one of the few army officers he met while at the college whom he liked; possibly because they shared certain underlying personality characteristics.
His next command was of a flying-boat squadron where he continued to develop night flying techniques. From 1934 to 1937 he was the Deputy Director of Plans in the Air Ministry. He was posted to the
Middle East CommandThe Middle East Command was a British Army Command established prior to the Second World War in Egypt. Its primary role was to command British land forces and co-ordinate with the relevant naval and air commands to defend British interests in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean region.The...
in Egypt, as a senior Air Staff Officer. In 1936 Harris commented on the Palestinian Arab revolt "one 250 lb. or 500 lb. bomb in each village that speaks out of turn" would satisfactorily solve the problem. In 1937 he was promoted to
Air CommodoreAir Commodore is an air officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force...
and in 1938 he was a put in command of No. 4 (Bomber) Group. After a purchasing mission to the USA, he was posted to Palestine and Trans-Jordan and as an Air Vice Marshal in 1939 he was Officer Commanding the RAF contingent in that area.
Second World War
Harris returned to England in September 1939 to take command of
No. 5 GroupNo. 5 Group was a Royal Air Force bomber group of the Second World War, led during the latter part by Sir Ralph Cochrane. Cochrane was an advocate of precision low-level marking, and lobbied heavily to be allowed to prove himself, and that 5 Group could attempt targets and techniques that 8 Group...
. In 1941 he was promoted to
Air MarshalAir Marshal is a 3 star air officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force. The rank is also used by the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence and it is sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries...
and
Commander-in-ChiefA commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the...
(C-in-C) of
Bomber CommandRAF Bomber Command was the organisation that controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II, the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s was at the peak of its postwar power with the V bombers and a...
in February 1942. At the time, Bomber Command was making a negligible contribution to the war effort. This was due to the fact the British had simply not explored the concept of offensive bombing and had in no way prepared for it. Consequently its aircraft - principally the
Fairey BattleThe Fairey Battle was a British single-engine light bomber built by the Fairey Aviation Company in the late 1930s for the Royal Air Force. The Battle was powered by the same Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that gave contemporary British fighters high performance; however, the Battle was weighed...
light bomber, Handley Page Hampden,
Vickers WellingtonThe Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R. K. Pierson. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a...
, and
Armstrong Whitworth WhitleyThe Armstrong Whitworth A.W.38 Whitley was one of three British twin-engine, front line medium bomber types in service with the Royal Air Force at the outbreak of the Second World War. It took part in the first RAF bombing raid on German territory, and remained an integral part of the early British...
medium bombers - were deficient, and crews lacked sufficient experience and the skill to navigate long distances, drop bombs accurately, and return to home fields.
Harris immediately set about rectifying deficiencies with great energy; he had studied new theories of offensive bombing developed by Germany in Spain and in the early years of WWII and was convinced of the effectiveness of a concentrated aggressive approach. He then re-evaluated Bomber Command's tactics and set about improving standards of instruction and training. His enterprise incorporated the efficient deployment of the
Short StirlingThe Short Stirling was the first four-engined British heavy bomber of the Second World War. The Stirling was designed and built by Short Brothers to an Air Ministry specification from 1936, and entered service in 1941...
, the introduction of the next powerful four-engined heavy bombers such as the
Handley Page HalifaxThe Handley Page Halifax was one of the British front-line, four-engine heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. A contemporary of the famous Avro Lancaster, the Halifax remained in service until the end of the war, performing a variety of duties in addition to bombing...
and
Avro LancasterThe Avro Lancaster was a British four-engined Second World War heavy bomber made initially by Avro for the Royal Air Force . It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF and squadrons from other...
, and later the twin-engined
de Havilland MosquitoThe de Havilland Mosquito was a British combat aircraft that excelled in versatility during the Second World War. Originally conceived as an unarmed fast bomber, the Mosquito adapted to many other roles in during the air war in both the Pacific theatre of Operations and the European theatre,...
light bomber. Also during this period, the roles of less-modern aircraft like the Wellington and
Bristol BlenheimThe Bristol Blenheim was a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company that was used extensively in the early days of the Second World War. It was later adapted into a successful long-range and night fighter...
and
BeaufortThe Bristol Type 152 Beaufort was a British large twin-engined torpedo bomber designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, and developed from the earlier Blenheim light bomber....
were reappraised.
Professor Frederick Lindemann (later ennobled as Lord Cherwell)Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell FRS PC CH was an English physicist who was an influential scientific adviser to the British government, particularly Winston Churchill...
, appointed the British government's leading scientific adviser with a seat in the Cabinet by his friend, Prime Minister
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
, in 1942 presented a
seminal paperFor the general tactic, see House demolitionOn 30 March 1942 Professor Frederick Lindemann, the British government's leading scientific adviser, sent to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill a memorandum which after it had become accepted by the Cabinet became known as the dehousing...
to Cabinet advocating the area bombing of German cities in a
strategic bombingStrategic bombing during World War II is a term which refers to all aerial bombardment of a strategic nature, which took place between 1939 and 1945, involving any nations engaged in World War II...
campaign. It was accepted by Cabinet and Harris was directed to carry out the task. It became an important part of the
total warTotal war is a conflict of unlimited scope in which a belligerent engages in a mobilization of all available resources at their disposal, whether human, industrial, agricultural, military, natural, technological, or otherwise, in order to entirely destroy or render beyond use their rival's capacity...
waged against Germany.
Lord Cherwell's
dehousing paperFor the general tactic, see House demolitionOn 30 March 1942 Professor Frederick Lindemann, the British government's leading scientific adviser, sent to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill a memorandum which after it had become accepted by the Cabinet became known as the dehousing...
put forward the theory of attacking major industrial centres in order to deliberately destroy as many homes and houses as possible. Working class housing areas were to be targeted because they had a higher density and firestorms were more likely. This would displace the German workforce and disrupt and reduce their ability to work. Calculations showed Bomber Command would be able to destroy the majority of German houses located in cities quite quickly. The plan was highly controversial even before it started, but the Cabinet thought bombing was the only option available to directly attack Germany (a major invasion of the continent was years away) and the Soviets were demanding that the Western Allies do something to relieve the pressure on the Eastern Front.
Harris said at the start of the bombing campaign that he was unleashing a whirlwind on Germany. In February 1945, Harris wrote "I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier". In his memoirs he writes "In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method".
At first, the effects were limited because of the small numbers of aircraft used and the lack of navigational aids that meant bombing was scattered and accuracy was poor. As production of better aircraft and electronic aids increased, Harris pressed for raids on a much larger scale, each to use 1,000 aeroplanes. In Operation Millennium Harris launched the first RAF "thousand bomber raid" against
CologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants...
on the night of 30 May/31 May 1942. This operation included the first use of a
bomber streamThe bomber stream was a tactic developed by the Royal Air Force Bomber Command to overwhelm the German aerial defences of the Kammhuber Line during World War II....
, which was a tactical innovation designed to overwhelm the German night-fighters of the
Kammhuber LineThe Kammhuber Line was the name given to the German night air defense system established in July 1940 by Colonel Josef Kammhuber.The first version of the Line consisted of a series of radar stations with overlapping coverage, layered three deep from Denmark to the middle of France, each covering a...
.
Harris was just one of an influential group of high ranking Allied air commanders who continued to believe that massive and sustained area bombing alone would force Germany to surrender. On a number of occasions he wrote to his superiors claiming the war would be over in a matter of months, first in August 1943 following the tremendous success of the Battle of Hamburg (codenamed Operation Gomorrah), and then again in January 1944. Winston Churchill continued to regard the area bombing strategy with distaste, and official public statements still maintained that Bomber Command was only attacking specific industrial and economic targets, with any civilian casualties or property damage being unintentional, but unavoidable. In October 1943, emboldened by his success in Hamburg and increasingly irritated with Churchill's hesitance to wholeheartedly endorse his tactics, he urged the government to be honest with the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign. To Harris, his complete success at Hamburg confirmed the validity and necessity of his methods, and he urged that:
Starting in November 1943, however, Bomber Command began what became known as the
Battle of BerlinThe Battle of Berlin was a British bombing campaign on Berlin from November 1943 to March 1944. The campaign period was not limited to attacks solely on Berlin, other German cities were attacked to prevent the concentration of defences in Berlin, and Bomber Command had other responsibilities and...
: a series of massive raids on
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
that lasted until March 1944. Harris sought to duplicate the victory at Hamburg, but Berlin proved to be a far more difficult nut to crack. Although severe general damage was inflicted, the city was much better prepared than Hamburg, and no firestorm was ever ignited. Anti-aircraft defenses were also extremely effective, and bomber losses were high; during this time the British lost 1,047 bombers, with a further 1,682 damaged, culminating in the disastrous raid on
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
on 30 March 1944, when 94 bombers were shot down and 71 damaged, out of 795 aircraft.
With the leadup to the
D-DayOperation Overlord was the code name for the invasion of western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation began on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy Landings when an airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault...
invasions in 1944, Harris was ordered to switch targets for the French rail network, a switch he protested because he felt it compromised the continuing pressure on German industry and it was using Bomber Command for a purpose it was not designed or suited for. By September the Allied forces were well inland, at the
Quebec ConferenceThe First Quebec Conference was a highly secret military conference held during World War II between the British, Canadian and United States governments. The conference was held in Quebec City, August 17, 1943 - August 24, 1943. It took place at the Citadelle and at the Château Frontenac. The...
it was agreed that the Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air Force (Portal), and the Commanding General, U.S. Army Air Forces (
ArnoldGeneral of the Army Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold was a five-star general officer holding the grades of General of the Army and later General of the Air Force. He is the only officer to ever hold a five-star grade in two different U.S. military services...
), should exercise control of all strategic bomber forces in Europe. Harris received a new directive to ensure continuation of a broad strategic bombing program as well as adequate bomber support for General Eisenhower's ground operations. The over-all mission of the strategic air forces remained "the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic systems and the direct support of Land and Naval forces". The several months of rest and refit had been useful to Bomber Command, and they were now able to put up well over 1,000 aircraft per raid.
After D-Day (6 June 1944), with the resumption of the strategic bomber campaign over Germany, Harris remained wedded to area bombardment. Historian
Frederick TaylorFrederick Taylor is a British historian and author of such works as Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 about the bombing of Dresden in World War II....
argues that, because Harris lacked the necessary security clearance to know about
ULTRAUltra was the name used by the British for intelligence resulting from decryption of encrypted German radio communications in World War II. The term eventually became the standard designation in both Britain and the United States for all intelligence from high-level cryptanalytic sources...
, he had been given some information gleaned from
ENIGMAAn Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. The first Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
, but not informed as to where it had come from. According to Taylor, this directly affected Harris's attitude concerning the effectiveness of the post-D-Day 1944 directives (orders) to target oil installations, as Harris did not know the Allied High Command was using high-level German sources to assess exactly how much Allied operations were impairing the German war effort. As a consequence Harris tended to see the directives to bomb specific oil and munitions targets as a high level command "panacea" (his word), and a distraction from the real task of making the rubble bounce in every large German city.
In
The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway, historian Alfred C. Mierzejewski argues that both area bombing and attacks against fuel plants were ineffective against Germany's coal- and rail-based economy, and that the bombing campaign only took a decisive turn in late 1944 when the allies switched to targeting rail-marshaling yards for the coal gateways of the Ruhr.
The most controversial raid of the war took place in the late evening of 13 February 1945. The
bombing of DresdenThe Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force between 13 February and 15 February 1945 remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War...
by the RAF and USAAF resulting in a lethal
firestormA firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires, forest fires, and wildfires. The Great Peshtigo Fire and the Ash Wednesday fires are two examples of...
which killed several tens of thousands of civilians. Raids such as that on
PforzheimDuring the latter stages of World War II, Pforzheim, a town in southwestern Germany, was bombed a number of times. The largest raid, and one of the most devastating area bombardments of the war was carried out by the Royal Air Force on the evening of February 23 1945...
late in the war as Germany was falling have been criticized for causing high civilian casualties for little apparent military value. The culmination of Bomber Command's offensive occurred in March 1945 when the RAF dropped the highest monthly weight of ordnance in the entire war. The last raid on Berlin took place on the night of 21/22 April, just before the Soviets entered the city centre. After that, most of the rest of the attacks made by the RAF were
tacticalIn military tactics, close air support is air action against hostile targets that requires detailed coordination and integration with ground forces. It is typically used to support ground troops, providing firepower at critical points....
missions. The last major strategic raid was the destruction of the oil refinery in
Tønsbergis a town and municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Tønsberg.The town of Tønsberg was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838...
in Southern Norway by 107 Lancasters on the night of 25/26 April.
Postwar
Within the post war British government, there was now some disquiet about the level of destruction created by the area bombing of German cities towards the end of the war. However, Harris was made
Marshal of the Royal Air ForceMarshal of the Royal Air Force is the highest rank in the Royal Air Force. In peacetime it was granted to RAF officers in the appointment of Chief of the Defence Staff, and to retired Chiefs of the Air Staff, who were promoted to it on their last day of service. Promotions to the rank have ceased...
in 1946 and was also made GCB. He retired on 15 September 1945. He wrote his story of Bomber Command's achievements in
Bomber Offensive. He was the sole commander-in-chief not made a
peerThe Peerage is a system of titles in the United Kingdom, which represents the upper ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system. The term is used both collectively to refer to the entire body of titles, and individually to refer to a specific title...
in 1946. Bomber Command's crews were denied a separate campaign medal (despite being eligible for the
Air Crew Europe StarThe Air Crew Europe Star was a campaign medal of the British Commonwealth, awarded for service in World War II. Specifically, the medal was awarded to Commonwealth aircrew who participated in operational flights over Europe, from UK bases....
and
France and Germany StarThe France and Germany Star was a campaign medal of the British Commonwealth, awarded for service in World War II.The medal was awarded for operational service in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Germany from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945...
) and, in protest at this establishment snub to his men, Harris refused a peerage. Disappointed by the criticisms of his methods, Harris moved to
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
in 1948, and was the manager of the South African Marine Corporation from 1946 to 1953.
In 1953
ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
, now Prime Minister again, insisted that Harris accept a baronetcy and he became Baronet. In the same year he returned to the UK and lived his remaining years in
Goring-on-ThamesGoring-on-Thames is a village and civil parish on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire.-Location:Goring is on the north bank of the River Thames, in the Goring Gap which separates the Berkshire Downs and the Chiltern Hills....
, in The Ferry House.
In 1974, Harris appeared in the 12th episode of the acclaimed Thames Television produced documentary series shown on ITV
The World At War (narrated by
Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
) entitled "Whirlwind: Bombing Germany (September 1939–April 1944)" in which he discusses at length the area bombing strategy that he had developed when
AOC-in-CAir Officer Commanding is a title given in the air forces of Commonwealth nations to an air officer who holds a command appointment. Thus, an air vice marshal might be the AOC 38 Group. An air officer heading a particularly large or important command may be called an Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief...
of Bomber Command.
Harris died 5 April 1984 at his home in Goring.
Legacy
Arthur Harris died on 5 April 1984, just eight days before his 92nd birthday. His only son died without an heir in 1996, at which date the Baronetcy of Chipping Wycombe became extinct.
In 1989, five years after Harris's death, a one-off feature-length drama about Harris's tenure as AOC-in-C of Bomber Command was broadcast under the title "
Bomber HarrisBomber Harris is a 1989 television drama based on the life of Arthur Harris. It was directed by Michael Darlow and written by Don Shaw.-Cast:*John Thaw - Arthur Travers Harris*Robert Hardy - Winston Churchill*Frederick Treves - Sir Charles Portal...
" on BBC Television, with
John ThawJohn Edward Thaw CBE was an English actor, who made his television début in the military police drama Redcap , and subsequently appeared in a range of television, stage and cinema roles, his most popular being police and legal dramas such as The Sweeney, Inspector Morse and Kavanagh QC.-Early...
portraying Harris in the title role.
Despite protests from Germany as well as some in Britain, the Bomber Harris Trust (an RAF veterans' organisation formed to defend the good name of their commander) erected a statue of him outside the RAF Church of St. Clement Danes,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
in 1992. It was unveiled by
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen MotherElizabeth Bowes-Lyon was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until 1952 as the wife of King George VI. After her husband's death, she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
who looked surprised when she was jeered by protesters. The line on the statue reads "The Nation owes them all an immense debt." The statue had to be kept under 24 hour guard for a period of months as it was often vandalised by protesters.
Further reading
Extensively discusses, in philosophical terms, Harris's rationale behind the area bombardment of German cities.
External links
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