52 Facts About Arthur Harris

Arthur Harris joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment at the outbreak of the First World War and saw action in South Africa and South West Africa.

In 1915, Arthur Harris returned to England to fight in the European theatre of the war.

Arthur Harris joined the Royal Flying Corps, with which he remained until the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918.

Arthur Harris remained in the Air Force through the 1920s and 1930s, serving in India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Arthur Harris took command of No 5 Group RAF in England, and in February 1942 was appointed head of Bomber Command.

Arthur Harris retained that position for the rest of the war.

Arthur Harris was given the task of implementing Churchill's policy and supported the development of tactics and technology to perform the task more effectively.

Arthur 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.

Arthur Harris was born on 13 April 1892, at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where his parents were staying while his father George Steel Travers Arthur Harris, a government engineer in India, was on home leave.

Arthur Harris was educated at Allhallows School in Devon, while his two elder brothers were educated at the more prestigious Sherborne and Eton, respectively; according to biographer Henry Probert, this was because Sherborne and Eton were expensive and "there was not much money left for number three".

Arthur Harris received such a ticket in 1909, and went to see the play during his summer holidays.

Arthur Harris's father was disappointed, having had in mind a military or civil service career for his son, but reluctantly agreed.

In early 1910, Arthur Harris senior paid his son's passage on the SS Inanda to Beira in Mozambique, from where he travelled by rail to Umtali in Manicaland.

Arthur Harris earned his living over the next few years mining, coach-driving and farming.

Arthur Harris received a more permanent position in November 1913, when he was taken on by Crofton Townsend, a man from near Cork in Ireland who had moved to Rhodesia and founded Lowdale Farm near Mazoe in Mashonaland in 1903.

Arthur Harris quickly gained his employer's trust, and was made farm manager at Lowdale when Townsend went to visit England for a year in early 1914.

Arthur Harris quickly attempted to join the 1st Rhodesia Regiment, which had been raised by the British South Africa Company administration to help put down the Maritz Rebellion in South Africa, but he found that only two positions were available: as a machine-gunner or as a bugler.

Arthur Harris felt initially that he had done his part for the Empire, and went back to Rhodesia to resume work at Lowdale, but he and many of his former comrades soon reconsidered when it became clear that the war in Europe was going to last much longer than they had expected.

Arthur Harris arrived in October 1915, moved in with his parents in London and, after unsuccessfully attempting to find a position in first the cavalry, then the Royal Artillery, joined the Royal Flying Corps as a second lieutenant on probation on 6 November 1915.

Arthur Harris remained in the newly formed Royal Air Force following the end of the First World War, choosing an air force career over a return to Rhodesia because he and his first wife Barbara had just had their first child, and he did not think Barbara would enjoy being a Rhodesian farmer's wife.

Arthur Harris later served in different capacities in India, Mesopotamia and Persia.

Arthur Harris said of his service in India that he first became involved in bombing during the usual annual North West Frontier tribesmen trouble.

Arthur Harris was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 3 June 1927 and promoted to wing commander on 1 July 1927.

From 1927 to 1929, Arthur Harris attended the Army Staff College at Camberley, where he discovered that at the college the Army kept 200 horses for the officers' fox hunting.

Arthur Harris had a low opinion of the Navy; he commented that there were three things which should never be allowed on a well-run yacht, "a wheelbarrow, an umbrella and a naval officer".

Arthur Harris was promoted to group captain on 30 June 1933.

Arthur Harris was posted to the Middle East Command in Egypt, as a senior Air Staff Officer.

On 2 July 1937 Arthur Harris was promoted to air commodore and in 1938 he was put in command of No 4 Group.

Arthur Harris returned to Britain in September 1939 to take command of No 5 Group.

Arthur Harris was advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 11 June 1942.

Arthur Harris was promoted to temporary air marshal on 1 December 1942 and acting air chief marshal on 18 March 1943.

Arthur 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.

In October 1943, emboldened by his success in Hamburg and increasingly irritated with Churchill's hesitance to endorse his tactics wholeheartedly, Arthur Harris urged the government to be honest with the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign,.

Arthur Harris sought to duplicate the victory at Hamburg but Berlin proved to be a far more difficult target.

Arthur Harris was promoted to the substantive rank of air marshal on 1 January 1944 and awarded the Russian Order of Suvorov, First Class on 29 February 1944.

Arthur Harris received a new directive to ensure continuation of a broad strategic bombing programme as well as adequate bomber support for General Eisenhower's ground operations.

The historian Frederick Taylor argues that, because Arthur Harris lacked the necessary security clearance to know about Ultra, he had been given some information gleaned from Enigma but not informed of the source.

Arthur Harris tended to see the directives to bomb specific oil and munitions targets as a high level command "panacea" and a distraction from the real task of making the rubble bounce in every large German city.

Arthur Harris was promoted to the substantive rank of air chief marshal on 16 August 1944.

Arthur Harris's summation is rejected by Sebastian Cox, head of the Air Historical Branch.

The American official history notes that Arthur Harris was ordered to cease attacks on oil in November 1944, as the combined bombing had been so effective that none of the synthetic plants were operating effectively.

Arthur Harris was very encouraging of innovation but he resisted the creation of the Pathfinder Force and the development of precision strikes which had proven so effective in the Dambusters' raid.

Arthur Harris was awarded the American Legion of Merit on 30 January 1945.

Arthur Harris was awarded the Polish Order of Polonia Restituta First Class on 12 June 1945, advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 14 June 1945 and appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil on 13 November 1945.

Arthur Harris was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the United States on 14 June 1946 and promoted to Marshal of the Royal Air Force on 1 January 1946.

Arthur Harris retired on 15 September 1946 and wrote his story of Bomber Command's achievements in Bomber Offensive.

Huggins replied that he was sympathetic, but that none of these ideas was practical: Arthur Harris would be too old by the time a new Governor was needed; it might take years for Arthur Harris to enter Southern Rhodesian politics as he would first need to meet residency requirements, then cultivate support in a constituency; and Huggins felt he could not make promises about aviation posts with a general election coming up the following year.

Arthur Harris finally dropped his dream of a return to Rhodesia, deeming it unworkable, and in 1948 moved instead to South Africa, where he managed the South African Marine Corporation from 1946 to 1953.

In February 1953 Winston Churchill, now prime minister again, insisted that Arthur Harris accept a baronetcy and he became baronet.

In 1974 Arthur Harris appeared in the acclaimed documentary series The World At War produced by Thames Television and shown on ITV.

Arthur Harris divorced his first wife in 1935 and subsequently met Therese Hearne, then twenty, through a mutual friend, and they married in 1938.

Arthur Harris died on 5 April 1984, at his home in Goring.