An air commander who made army cooperation central to Allied air power
Montgomery urged the War Office to retain him: “He is the only airman who is out to win the land battle and has no jealous reactions.”
Trafford Leigh-Mallory was a British air chief marshal whose command style grew from First World War experience in reconnaissance and cooperation with ground forces. During the Battle of Britain, he advocated large fighter formations against the quicker defensive methods of Hugh Dowding and Keith Park, and the dispute became entangled with changes in Fighter Command leadership. As commander-in-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force for Overlord, he coordinated the air plan to delay German reinforcements and disrupt transport, while accepting the grave civilian costs of attacks in France. After Normandy he was appointed to command air forces in Southeast Asia, but died with his wife in a plane crash in the French Alps.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1916Pilot, No. 7 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps
- 1917–1918Commanding officer, No. 8 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps
- 1937–1940Air Officer Commanding, No. 12 (Fighter) Group
- 1940–1942Air Officer Commanding, No. 11 (Fighter) Group
- 1942–1943Commander-in-Chief, RAF Fighter Command
- 1943–1944Commander-in-Chief, Allied Expeditionary Air Force, Overlord
- 1944Designated Air Commander-in-Chief, South East Asia Command
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarNo. 8 Squadron commanderHe commanded No. 8 Squadron, which directed tanks and artillery after the Battle of Cambrai.
- 1940.07–1941.05Battle of Britainadvocate of the Big Wing tacticAs commander of No. 12 Group, he argued that large formations could deliver a decisive blow against German bomber formations, disputing No. 11 Group's dispersed interceptions.
- 1941–1944The Second Front and the Normandy LandingsCommander of the Allied Expeditionary Air ForceHe oversaw the air forces supporting Operation Overlord.
Building the army cooperation doctrine, 1917–1937
Leigh-Mallory's identity as a commander took shape less in the Battle of Britain's Big Wing quarrel than in First World War army cooperation duties. His first combat command, from November 1917, was No. 8 Squadron; in the period after the Battle of Cambrai it directed tanks and artillery, and by the Armistice he had been mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Supporting ground formations from the air became the axis of his career for the next two decades.
After the war he weighed returning to the law, but with little prospect of a legal career he stayed in the newly created RAF. He passed through the RAF Staff College in 1925, took command of the School of Army Cooperation in 1927, and was posted to the Army Staff College at Camberley in 1930. By then he was regarded as a leading authority on army cooperation; he served in the Uganda Protectorate from late 1929 until December 1931, and in 1931 lectured at the Royal United Services Institute on air cooperation with mechanized forces. At Christmas 1935 he was posted as a staff officer to the RAF in Iraq, was promoted to air commodore on 1 January 1936, and in December 1937 took command of No. 12 Group, Fighter Command.
This was not merely a record of promotions. The problem of subordinating air power to the ground army's operational aims later underpinned his lobbying for a unified Allied air command, and General Bernard Montgomery's verdict that he was the only airman out to win the land battle. How far his interwar methods were tested and how they were judged vary by source, but his professional specialization in army cooperation ran through his whole career.