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Arthur Harris
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 "Butcher" or "Butch" Harris, 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 rather than precision targeting remained controversial owing to the large number of civilian casualties, destruction of civilian infrastructure and cultural landmarks 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.
Harris was born on 13 April 1892, at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where his parents were staying while his father George Steel Travers Harris, a government engineer in India, was on home leave. With his father in India most of the time, Harris grew up without a sense of solid roots and belonging; he spent much of his later childhood with the family of a Kent rector, the Reverend C E Graham-Jones, whom he later recalled fondly. 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".
A former Allhallows student, the actor Arthur Chudleigh, often visited the school and gave the boys free tickets to his shows. Harris received such a ticket in 1909, and went to see the play during his summer holidays. The lead character in the show was a Rhodesian farmer who returned to England to marry, but ultimately fell out with his pompous fiancée and married the more practical housemaid instead. The idea of a country where one was judged on ability rather than class was very inspiring to the adventurous Harris, who promptly told his father (who had just retired and returned to England) that he intended to emigrate to Southern Rhodesia instead of going back to Allhallows for the new term. Harris's father was disappointed, having had in mind a military or civil service career for his son, but reluctantly agreed.
In early 1910, 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. Harris earned his living over the next few years mining, coach-driving and farming. He 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. 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. Having acquired the skills necessary to ranch successfully in Rhodesia, Harris decided that he would start his own farm in the country as soon as Townsend returned. According to Probert, Harris by now regarded himself "primarily as a Rhodesian", a self-identification he retained for the rest of his life.
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Harris did not learn of it for nearly a month, being out in the bush at the time. Despite his previous reluctance to follow the path his father had had in mind for him in the army, and his desire to set up his own ranch in Rhodesia, Harris felt patriotically compelled to join the war effort. He 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. Having learnt to bugle at Allhallows, he successfully applied to be a bugler and was sworn in on 20 October 1914.
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Arthur Harris
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 "Butcher" or "Butch" Harris, 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 rather than precision targeting remained controversial owing to the large number of civilian casualties, destruction of civilian infrastructure and cultural landmarks 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.
Harris was born on 13 April 1892, at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where his parents were staying while his father George Steel Travers Harris, a government engineer in India, was on home leave. With his father in India most of the time, Harris grew up without a sense of solid roots and belonging; he spent much of his later childhood with the family of a Kent rector, the Reverend C E Graham-Jones, whom he later recalled fondly. 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".
A former Allhallows student, the actor Arthur Chudleigh, often visited the school and gave the boys free tickets to his shows. Harris received such a ticket in 1909, and went to see the play during his summer holidays. The lead character in the show was a Rhodesian farmer who returned to England to marry, but ultimately fell out with his pompous fiancée and married the more practical housemaid instead. The idea of a country where one was judged on ability rather than class was very inspiring to the adventurous Harris, who promptly told his father (who had just retired and returned to England) that he intended to emigrate to Southern Rhodesia instead of going back to Allhallows for the new term. Harris's father was disappointed, having had in mind a military or civil service career for his son, but reluctantly agreed.
In early 1910, 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. Harris earned his living over the next few years mining, coach-driving and farming. He 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. 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. Having acquired the skills necessary to ranch successfully in Rhodesia, Harris decided that he would start his own farm in the country as soon as Townsend returned. According to Probert, Harris by now regarded himself "primarily as a Rhodesian", a self-identification he retained for the rest of his life.
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Harris did not learn of it for nearly a month, being out in the bush at the time. Despite his previous reluctance to follow the path his father had had in mind for him in the army, and his desire to set up his own ranch in Rhodesia, Harris felt patriotically compelled to join the war effort. He 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. Having learnt to bugle at Allhallows, he successfully applied to be a bugler and was sworn in on 20 October 1914.