Before Arthur Harris Became Bomber Harris

Some 70 years after World War II, the name Arthur ("Bomber") Harris often evokes negative reactions to his tenure as head of the RAF Bomber Command, and his engineering of the strategic population bombing of Dresden, Germany. But few recall that prior to this role, Harris served several stints in the Middle East, during which he developed his strategy of civilian bombing, that he applied so forcefully in World War II. The first was in Iraq in the 1920s (about which a further blog post to come), the second as Air Operations Commander, Palestine, July 1938 - July 1939. He arrived in the midst of the Arab Revolt, a bloody and costly three year nationalist uprising of the Palestinians in protest against the growing number of Jewish immigrants to Palestine, and British administration of the country under the League of Nations mandate. Armed bands of Arab guerrillas would scatter from surrounding villages, making it nearly impossible for British ground forces to round them up and arrest them. Harris devised a method to counter this by using RAF aircraft to drop leaflets onto the villages, warning residents not to flee or risk massive bombing destruction. With the guerrillas thus trapped in the villages, British Army troops could then encircle the villages and apprehend them. The strategy, known as the "Air-Pin", effectively tamped down the uprising. Commanding the northern ground forces at the time was another future key World War II senior commander, then Major General Bernard Law Montgomery. I plan to post much more on this in the future.

Who Am I?

Welcome to my professional blog! Let me introduce myself to you: I am an editor and writer, focusing on aerospace topics. I spent 19 years as an Associate Editor with Air Force Magazine, editing the annual USAF Almanac, writing articles, photo features, and daily news items for the Magazine's online publication, Daily Report. I also edited the Magazine's Space Almanac, until its termination in 2009, and the Russia Military Almanac to 2000. This blog features items on aviation history, space, aerospace developments, and interesting personalities. Readers will see an international focus as I also appreciate the Royal Air Force and its history, and aerospace developments in other nations.