1940 - 1945
Sir Arthur Harris • 1892 - 1984
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Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet GCB OBE AFC commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press and often within the RAF as "Butcher" Harris, was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command during the height of the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
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Harris joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1915, where he stayed until the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. Harris remained in the Air Force through the 1920's and 1930's, serving in India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere.
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At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Harris took command of No. 5 Group RAF in England, and in February 1942 was appointed head of Bomber Command. He retained that position for the rest of the war. In the same year, the British Cabinet agreed to the "area bombing" of German cities. Harris was given the task of implementing Churchill's policy and supported the development of tactics and technology to perform the task more effectively.
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Harris assisted British 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 and population, including the Bombing of Dresden.
Harris's continued preference for area bombing over precision targeting remains controversial, partly because many senior Allied air commanders thought it less effective and partly for the large number of civilian casualties and destruction the strategy caused in Continental Europe.
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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 (Operation Gomorrah), when he assured the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Charles Portal, that his force would be able "to produce in Germany by April 1st 1944 a state of devastation in which surrender is inevitable".
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Winston Churchill continued to regard the area bombing strategy with distaste and official public statements maintained that Bomber Command was attacking only 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 endorse his tactics wholeheartedly, Harris urged the government to be honest with the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign....
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The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction
of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.
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After the war Harris moved to South Africa, where he managed the South African Marine Corporation. In February 1953 Winston Churchill, 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 the Ferry House in Goring-on-Thames, located directly adjacent to the River Thames.
Photo: dadamax • Licensed for reuse under CC BY-SA 2.5
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, in 1992.
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It was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother who looked surprised when she was jeered by protesters, one of whom shouted...
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"Harris was a war criminal."
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An inscription on the statue reads:
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"The Nation owes them all an immense debt"
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Many ex Bomber Command aircrew were present including Leonard Cheshire who was to die only two months later and attended against the advice of his doctors, he said...
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"I would have gone even if I had to be carried
on a stretcher"
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The statue had to be kept under 24 hour guard for a period of months as it was often damaged by protesters and vandals.
Source: Wikipedia
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