Sir Arthur Harris
“They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
On April 13, 1892 Arthur Travers Harris was born to George Harris, a colonial official serving in British India. His father was not a major figure in his life, and he was denied the private education of his two older siblings due to financial troubles in the family. In 1910 he left home and moved to Rhodesia, and when World War One broke out in 1914 he enlisted with the local Rhodesian military unit as a bugler. He served with the First Rhodesian Regiment throughout the campaign in south west Africa, until the unit was disbanded at its conclusion in the summer of 1915.
Following this he came to the conclusion that he was honor bound to continue with the fight against Germany, but that the war in Europe was of greater importance than in Africa. Harris returned to England and joined the Royal Flying Corps in October of 1915, flying fighters over the Western Front and achieving Ace status.
Despite intending to Return to Rhodesia, Harris remained in the newly formed Royal Air Force after the Great War came to a close. During service around the Empire in the interwar years Harris experimented with aerial bombing and became increasingly convinced of its value in modern warfare. He was an early proponent of area bombing, and was eventually placed in command of the RAF’s first post war heavy bomber squadron.
He would then attend Staff Officer School, where he developed a distaste for both the British Army and Royal Navy, and afterward continue as an officer in the RAF, pushing for the adoption of a heavy bomber and for an emphasis on night operations.
A Short Stirling heavy bomber being loaded with ordinance for a night raid - Original color photo
After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Harris took command of a bomber unit in England, as was named Deputy Chief of the Air Staff in late 1940. After a report was made shedding light on the failings of Bomber Command in actually hitting its targets, the Harris was appointed Chief of Bomber Command in the ensuing shakeup in 1942.
Harris was ordered to commence an area bombing offensive against Germany, putting to use the strategies he had been developing in the interwar period to bring aerial total war to Germany.
“The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
As more aircraft became available Harris increased the size of his raid, until Bomber Command was routinely sending 1,000 aircraft against each target. Massive firestorms became a normal effect of British night raids on Germany, as massive formations attacked cities with incendiary ordinance. Harris was convinced that the war would be won through air power alone, as the Germans would be forced to surrender as their capacity to make war as well as the morale of their citizens would be completely destroyed.
Harris made good use of observations he had made during the German Blitz on London in 1940, staggering his formations to allow the firestorms to spread before adding more incendiaries to the fire. Despite the success in destroying German cities, the actual effect on German industry was significantly less than hoped. A temporary switch to oil production centers had good results, but Harris was not to be discouraged, and switched back to cities at the earliest opportunity.
Lancasters over a burning German city
At the Yalta Conference Churchill requested that Harris shift his focus to Eastern German cities, so as to disrupt the flow of men and materiel to the Eastern Front. In response, Harris turned his attention on one of the few mostly untouched German cities remaining.
In this instance, the plan worked exactly as planned: a massive firestorm, supported by favorable wind conditions. The near total destruction of the city and the death of up to 25,000 people, mostly civilians. The reasons for this attack are still a topic of discussion among historians today, as is the morality of the attack. The RAF briefing on the raid refered to the industrial importance of Dresden, as well as the desire to provide the incoming Soviet ground forces with a demonstration of “what Bomber Command can do.”
The ruins of Dresden after the bombing in early 1945
Bundesarchiv, via Wikimedia
Harris retired a year after the end of the war, with the post-war administration eager to distance themselves from the more distasteful aspects of the war. He later wrote his memoirs, Bomber Offensive, in which he remained unrepentant regarding his leadership of Bomber Command. He never returned to Rhodesia, and died in England on April 5, 1984.
He left behind a controversial legacy both at home and abroad, with some, including his former air crews, considering him a good commander who was responsible for weakening the Germans war making capabilities. Others, however, view him as a war criminal due to his focus on civilian targets. His legacy remains one of the most controversial of the Allied leaders of the Second World War.
