Arthur Harris

Marshal of the Royal Air Force

Sir Arthur Harris

Bt, GCB, OBE, AFC
Marshal of the Royal Air Force; Sir Arthur Harris; Bt, GCB, OBE, AFC
	Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 24 April 1944
Birth name	Arthur Travers Harris
Nickname(s)	Bomber Harris
Born	13 April 1892; Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
Died	5 April 1984 (aged 91); Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army (1914–18); Royal Air Force (1918–46)
Years of service	1914–46
Rank	Marshal of the Royal Air Force
Commands held	Bomber Command (1942–45); No. 5 Group (1939–40); RAF Palestine and Transjordan (1938–39); No. 4 Group (1937–38); RAF Pembroke Dock (1933); No. 210 Squadron (1933); No. 58 Squadron (1925–27); No. 45 Squadron (1922–24); No. 31 Squadron (1921–22); No. 50 Squadron (1918–19); No. 44 Squadron (1918); No. 191 Squadron (1918)
Battles/wars	First World War; Arab revolt in Palestine; Second World War
Awards	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath; Officer of the Order of the British Empire; Air Force Cross; Mentioned in Despatches (2); Order of Suvorov, 1st Class (USSR); Distinguished Service Medal (United States); Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit (United States); Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Poland); Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross (Brazil); Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour (France); Croix de guerre (France) ;
Other work	Manager of the South African Marine Corporation

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, GCB, OBE, AFC (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press and often within the RAF as "Butch" Harris,^[a] was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) RAF Bomber Command during the height of the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Born in Gloucestershire, Harris emigrated to Rhodesia in 1910, aged 17. He 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, Harris returned to England to fight in the European theatre of the war. He joined the Royal Flying Corps, with which he remained until the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. 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, 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. 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 orders from the war cabinet to focus on area bombing over precision targeting remained controversial owing to the large number of civilian casualties and destruction the strategy caused in continental Europe.

After the war Harris moved to South Africa, where he managed the South African Marine Corporation. He was created a baronet in 1953. He died in England in 1984.

^ Havers 2003, p. 69. See also Ben Macintyre's review of Richard Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940–1945 (2014), in The New York Times Book Review, 23 March 2014, p. 16.

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[Butcher-1] Havers 2003, p. 69. See also Ben Macintyre's review of Richard Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940–1945 (2014), in The New York Times Book Review, 23 March 2014, p. 16.

[a]