The air commander who made strategic bombing central to total war
Arthur Harris was the Royal Air Force commander who led Bomber Command during the Second World War and made area bombing of German cities a central instrument of British strategy. He improved the operational scale and effectiveness of the campaign while remaining responsible for a method that killed civilians and destroyed urban life. Before the Normandy landings, Harris resisted diverting bombers from the pressure on German industry to the Transportation Plan, yet in March 1944 he ordered the initial attacks on French railway centres that put the plan into action. That tension exposed the conflict between an air force command defending its independent strategic campaign and the Allied demand for direct support to the invasion.
Career Timeline
- 1915–1918Royal Flying Corps pilot and flight commander
- 1918–1920Served in the RAF after its formation
- 1925–1927Commanding Officer, No. 58 Squadron
- 1937–1939Command of No. 4 Group and RAF forces in the Middle East
- 1939–1941Commander, No. 5 Group, then Deputy Chief of the Air Staff
- 1942–1945Commander-in-Chief, RAF Bomber Command
- 1953Created a baronet, retaining his Southern Rhodesian identity