Arthur Travers Harris

EARLY CAREER

Arthur Travers Harris, the son of an Indian Civil Service officer, was born in Cheltenham at 3 Queens Parade, on 13th April, 1892. He was educated at a public school in Dorset. When he was 16 he moved to Rhodesia where he tried his luck at gold mining, driving horses, cattle breeding and tobacco planting. When the First World War broke out he joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment as a bugler and fought in the successful campaign to capture German South West Africa from the German Army.

Dissatisfied, Harris returned to England in 1915 and joined the Royal Flying Corps to train as a pilot. The following year he qualified as a fighter pilot and joined the 44 Squadron in France. Harris also helped organize the defence against the Zeppelin Air Raids in 1916 before taking command of the 44 Squadron and training it for night fighting. In 1919, Harris became a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force.

Harris with RAF pilots

After the war he chose to remain in the newly formed Royal Air Force. In the RAF he served in different functions in India, Mesopotamia (now Iraq and Syria), and Persia (now Iran). In 1933, Harris was appointed as Deputy Director of Plans in the Air Ministry - a post he held until 1937. By September 1939, Harris was an Air Vice Marshall. His initial role in the war was spent in America where he purchased planes for Britain's war effort. When he returned to Britain he served under Charles Portal, the head of Bomber Command.

"BOMBER" HARRIS

In February 1942, Harris replaced J. E. Baldwin as head of RAF Bomber Command. Up to then, Bomber Command had not been overly successful - its long range sorties had been suspended because of inaccurate night raids and heavy losses of crew and planes in day-time raids. Under Harris's leadership the policy of area bombing, which was advocated by government's leading scientific adviser, professor Lindemann, and accepted by the Cabinet, was developed. Harris fought against all attempts to persuade him to switch to precision bombing and for a while resisted the formation of the Pathfinder Force in 1942. He 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 Cologne on the night of May 3031, 1942. This operation included the first use of a bomber stream, which was a tactical innovation designed to overwhelm the German night-fighters of the Kammhuber Line.

Harris's Memorial in London

Harris argued that the main objectives of night-time blanket bombing of urban areas was to undermine the morale of the civilian population and attacks were launched on Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Dresden and other German cities. The most controversial RAF raid of the war took place in the late evening of February 13, 1945 with the bombing of the city of Dresden resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed several tens of thousands of civilians. 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 bombing raids made by the RAF were tactical support roles. The last major strategic raid was the destruction of the oil refinery in Tønsberg in Southern Norway by 107 Lancasters on the night of 26 April. The air campaign killed an estimated 600,000 civilians and destroyed or seriously damaged some six million homes. It was a highly dangerous strategy and during the war Bomber Command had 57,143 men killed.

POST-WAR PERIOD

Harris was made Marshal of the Royal Air Force in 1945. In 1946, he retired from the RAF and from 1946 to 1953 embarked on a successful business career in South Africa to be the manager of the South African Marine Corporation. He published his war memoirs, Bomber Command, in 1947. Later he returned to Britain where he was made 1st Baronet of Chipping Wycombe. He lived his remaining years in Goring-on-Thames, in Ferry Cottage, where he died on April 5, 1984. Just before his death, in 1982 Harris came to Cheltenham to unveil a plaque at his birthplace at 3 Queens Parade. In 1992, eight years after his death, a monument was erected in central London, stirring up the debate about 'Bomber' Harris and his role in the war effort.