Reflections on Air Chief Marshal "Butch" Harris
No one was more closely associated with the RAF's bomber offensive than Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris. He is still widely known as "Bomber Harris" and he headed Bomber Command from February 1942 until the end of the war. Although hardly alone responsible for the RAF's bomber strategy, Harris was an enthusiastic and unapologetic advocate of area bombing. His reputation suffered in the post-war world, however, and he was far from popular with his crews. Below a closer look.
Harris will be forever associated with the bombing campaign he masterminded, lead and furiously defended to the end of his days. However, strategic bombing was not invented by Harris and despite what its detractors allege, it was far from useless. It was the Second Front the Soviets demanded. It did degrade Germany's ability to wage war. It enabled the Allies to attain air superiority during the land offensive from June 1944 to May 1945. It helped shorten the war and so saved uncounted lives. Harris' association with strategic bombing alone would not have discredited him any more than it did Generals Curtis LeMay and Carl Spaatz. What really made Harris an object of contemporary and post-war anger was his personality and the way he commanded that offensive.
Aviation historian Patrick Bishop noted in his book Air Force Blue: The RAF in World War Two [WilliamCollinsBooks, 2017, 252]:
Arthur Harris -- 'Bomber' Harris as he became known to the world but 'Butch' to the men who carried out his orders -- liked to shock people. He presented himself as a leader for times of crisis, willing to confront hard decisions that weaker men would flinch from and to face uncomfortable truths with brutal frankness.
Which is all very well, if he hadn't coupled this with arrogance, a tendency to bully others, and a short-temper. He was unwilling to admit to ever making a mistake. He was vicious in his attacks on his opponents -- and indeed anyone with a different opinion. Even the official historians of the RAF concede that he tended "to confuse advice with interference, criticism with sabotage, and evidence with propaganda." [Sir Thomas Webster and Noble Frankland. The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939-1945. HMSO 1961.]
Another serious failing was that he made no attempt to get to know the men carrying out his orders. Unlike AVM Park or ACM Dowding, Harris was not a familiar face at RAF stations. He justified his absence by saying if he visited one station he would have to visit them all, but his men believed he simply didn't want to look them in the eye before sending them to their deaths. Indeed, many ordinary airmen in Bomber Command believed he lived in utter luxury -- and safety, of course. The legend even grew up that he simply threw a dart at a map every morning to decide "the target for tonight."
His callousness towards his crews was not imagined. He insisted that wives of aircrew be banned from a forty-mile radius of their husband's bases. This meant that the young men being asked to risk their lives night after night were the denied the comfort of love. Instead, they were supposed to concentrate on "the job" and form a stronger "bond" with their fellow aircrew.
This policy seriously backfired, however, as it soon became evident that venereal disease was rampant among aircrew. Harris' reaction has been described as "savage." He accused the crews of "deliberate malingering" and "criminal carelessness." He vehemently insisted that anyone who contracted VD would have to start his tour all over again as soon as he was fit. Although it was pointed out that making flying a punishment was not the best way to encourage volunteers and moral, Harris refused to budge. It took the outrage of RAF medical establishment to get this policy reversed -- essentially by threatening to inform Parliament and the press.
Harris is also on record opposing putting limits on operational tours. Although he did not insist on changing a policy that was already in place, in a letter to the Air Ministry he wrote: "I am most unwilling to do anything to foster the idea that our crews are under some description of Trade Union contract to carry out a certain number of carefully-defined operational missions, after which they are free...to take no more part in the war." [Quoted in Patrick Bishop, 266]
The RAF medical establishment on the other hand believed the requirement to complete 30 operational sorties was too great a psychological burden on young men and advocated shorter tours. The USAAF initially required 25 operational sorties and only extended the tour to 30 when the long-ranger fighters were deployed and casualties went down significantly.
When reviewing Harris biography it is striking that he was the son of a man in the Colonial Service in India, although Harris himself grew up in England until he emigrated to Rhodesia in 1910. There he worked at various jobs and finally settled into farming. When the war started, he joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment, and saw action in South and South West Africa. In 1915 he returned to England where he joined the Royal Flying Corps. In the interwar years he served in India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, and Palestine. Allegedly he said: "The only thing the Arab understands is a heavy hand." On another occasion, he is said to have argued that the best way to end the Palestinian revolt was to drop a 250 or 500 pound bomb on each village that "speaks out of turn." After the Second World he moved to South Africa. This suggests to me a very strong "imperial" strain in his character, which may explain his arrogance and his indifference to the welfare of those serving under him -- not to mention an utter lack of sympathy for the victims of his bombs.
To be fair, Harris was responsible for a number of innovations. First, Harris is credited with pressuring the Air Staff into investing in four-engine, heavy bombers leading to the development of the Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster. More importantly, he introduced the concept of the bomber stream -- the notion that the bombers, although traveling independently, should travel close together and along a single route in order to overwhelm the Luftwaffe's defenses.
Nor should it be forgotten that the policy shift to area bombing was taken not by Harris but by the War Cabinet; Harris was simply the man tasked with carrying it out. However, Churchill, to his credit, was uncomfortable with it. Long after the policy of area bombing had been adopted, Churchill continued to claim that RAF was targeting industrial and military installations and that civilian casualties were unintentional. Harris, on the other hand, angrily demanded that the government "be honest." He went on record saying:
"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 civilized life throughout Germany [Including] 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...." [Henry Sokolsky, Getting MAD: Nuclear Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice. Strategic Studies Institute, 2004, 36.]
Harris also believed that bombing alone could win the war. He argued specifically that an all-out offensive against Berlin would cost the allies between 400 to 500 aircraft but would "cost Germany the war." He was wrong. After losing twice his estimated number of bombers (1,047) and with no signs of German surrender in sight, Harris reluctantly ended his "Battle of Berlin." Characteristically, however, never conceded he was wrong. Instead, he blamed the USAAF for not supporting his efforts adequately.
Harris was reluctant to switch from his hammer-fist blows against German cities even to support the Allied invasion of the Continent. He had to be ordered to provide the necessary tactical support and willfully undermined efforts to coordinate bombing between the USAAF and the RAF in the final months of the war. At no point did he express the slightest remorse for the damage and casualties his war inflicted. In short, he earned the sobriquet "Butcher."
Yet Harris was consistently promoted and never chastised even when he was being difficult. He was showered with honors -- not just from Britain but from the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Poland. After the war, he tenaciously fought for recognition for the men of Bomber Command who were denied their own campaign medal. When eventually a statue was erected to him, there were protests and allegations that Harris was a "war criminal." His statue is frequently defaced with graffiti.
Yet for the greater part of the war, RAF Bomber Command was viewed by civilians and aircrew alike as the only means of striking back at Germany for the damage, destruction and misery it had inflicted on Britain. Harris may have been cold-blooded about what he was doing, but very few of the men actually risking their lives to carry out his polices were. It is important to remember that distinction.
My novels about the RAF in WWII are intended as tributes to the men in the air and on the ground that made a victory in Europe against fascism possible.
they took the war to Hitler.
Their chances of survival were less than fifty percent.
Their average age was 21.
This is the story of just one bomber pilot, his crew and the woman he loved.
It is intended as a tribute to them all.
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