New Addition…

The latest book to fall through onto the doormat is…

Michael Neifield and Michael Berenbaum (Eds.) The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003) – This book combines two interests of mine; Air Power History and the Holocaust. It is a good collection of essays and document examining the contentious issue of once they knew about Auschwitz should the Allies have attempted to bomb it. An interesting debate that will never be reconciled I think.

On the blog front I came across the blog of Nicholas Sarantakas who is an Assistant Professor at the US Army Command and General Staff College. His blog, In the Service of Clio, is very interesting as it is not about the subject of History but much rather about the profession and what one can do with a History PhD. There are some very interesting posts especially for those of us who have either just finished or embarking on doctoral studies. The only issue I see if that at the moment in is US centric but I think some general points can be related to experiences elsewhere. Take a read.

Leigh-Mallory – A Pawn?

I have just begun doing some reading in preparation for starting my PhD; well I have the time so I may as well use it. I am currently reading Vincent Orange’s biography of Lord Tedder and as is the case with much of Orange’s work it is a good read though there is a degree of bias towards the likes of Leigh-Mallory and Sholto Douglas. Orange very much takes the side of Park, of whom he has written a biography, and therefore, is often critical of Leigh-Mallory and Douglas and this seems to come through in many of his works. However, the works are a useful gauge to examine opinions about Leigh-Mallory and biographies will form one of the key sources of my research as a useful indication of Leigh-Mallory’s command competence, but I digress and more on that later.

I am up to the section of the book that start to look at the preparations for Operation OVERLORD and the decision to appoint commanders to their respective positions and there are some interesting quotes from Eisenhower and his Chief of Staff Bedell-Smith over who should be the air commander for the invasion. For example, Orange quotes a memo dated 2 October from Eisenhower to Bedell-Smith, who was to go to the US to discuss air arrangements with Marshall, whom it was believed at the time to be the Supreme Commander for OVERLORD, about whom should be his air commander. It reads that Marshall will need:

…a top air man who is thoroughly schooled in all the phases of strategic bombing, and more particularly in the job of supporting ground armies in the field. Let him know that because of my earnest conviction on this matter I seriously recommend he insist upon getting ACM Tedder…

It then continues that in the UK Marshall:

…will have a dearth of high-ranking officers in England who have had to live with this problem of air-ground coordination and ACM Tedder not only is an expert in these matters, but has the such a high standing in British air forces that the readiness of the CAS to place, during critical junctions of the land campaign, every last plane in England under the General’s Air Commander will be enhanced.’[1]

This memo illustrates that Eisenhower is convinced that Tedder is the right man for the job and that his position and friendship with Portal would enable maximum coordination of effort in the preparation for the invasion, including the use of the strategic bombers. At this point it should be noted that this is the position of Air Commander, the position that Leigh-Mallory will be appointed to in November 1943, and not deputy supreme commander a position he was appointed to in December 1943. Considering Eisenhower’s preference for Tedder, a tried and trusted subordinate, why is Leigh-Mallory appointed to the position? Portal and Sinclair, the Secretary of State for Air, suggest Leigh-Mallory for the position. The question that then needs to be asked is why these two high-ranking officials appoint a fighter commander, with little experience outside of this field to such a prominent position that will require the coordination of several different arms of air power. This is not to say that Leigh-Mallory is not well qualified as an air power leader. He had a great deal of experience in fighter operation and in air-ground coordination, he had even written on the subject during the inter-war years, however, he had a dearth of experience when it came to maritime or bomber operations, which would be of just as much importance when the invasion came. Indeed the imposition of Leigh-Mallory into the command set-up created problems with Eisenhower. Bedell-Smith wrote to Eisenhower on 30 December 1943 to say that they all agreed that Tedder should be the air commander but that an officer by the name of ‘Mallory’ was claiming the position. This caused Eisenhower to complain to Marshall that he should have freedom to choose commanders, which imposing someone with lack of experience in this form of warfare was unacceptable, and Tedder agreed with him.[2] This argument is hard to fault as Leigh-Mallory’s only experience with Combined Operation was with Operation JUBILEE, small raid within the context of Combined Operation and this involved little cooperation with the Americans, an important prerequisite for OVERLORD.

So why does Portal and Sinclair support him? Is it something to do with a desire to attempt to maintain the independence of the strategic bombers? Probably. Indeed the decision to appoint Leigh-Mallory would eventually lead to a strategic debate over the use of the bombers in the lead up to OVERLORD. Does Portal realise this? Is he trying to give time to Harris to achieve his knockout blow before he knows he needs to support the invasion? Does Portal think that by imposing Leigh-Mallory into the mix will help him achieve this? I think this is something that needs to be explored.

However, it does have the effect of making Leigh-Mallory’s position much more difficult. He was known to be difficult to work with; Tedder had turned him down in January 1942 as his deputy in the Middle East because of this, and his experience played against him. This inline with the fact that he was not part of the Mediterranean cabal puts him out of place in the command set-up for OVERLORD. Out of the five key commands for OVERLORD Leigh-Mallory is the only one not to have served in the Mediterranean, he was, therefore, an outsider even before question were being raised about his experience and why he was chosen. Not a very good start for a commander.

Indeed the theory of the Allied Air Expeditionary Force was sound; it was based on the model being used out in the Mediterranean. The key reason for its perceived failure as an organisation must be laid at the door of the personalities involved and the machinations to hinder or control Leigh-Mallory did not help. That he was the wrong choice can be argued, however, once he was there every step should have been taken to integrate him into the team rather than the power battles that appear to have occurred. It is interesting to note that when Leigh-Mallory leaves to command in the Far East the AEAF is effectively shut down.

Well plenty to think about and to start looking at when I get to the archives.

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[1] Cited in Vincent Orange Tedder: Quietly in Command, p.242

 

[2] Orange Tedder, p. 249

RAF Centre for Air Power Studies

A couple of years ago the RAF established a Centre for Air Power Studies. The centre has at its heart an attempt to work with academia as learning tool for thinking about air power. In this it is is linked to KCL’s Defence Studies department. For an Air Power historian the most useful aspect of the Centre’s activities are the publication of the RAF’s in-house journal Air Power Review. Full of interesting articles on air power subjects it is a very useful resource. The centre has also started to make available some of the Air Historical Branch narratives that were previously on available from the AHB on the National Archives. These staff studies make for some interesting reading. RAF CAPS also holds an annual conference and several of these have made there way into publication that are available as e-books, currently available are:

Joel Hayward (Ed.) Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” (Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies, 2009)

Neville Parton (Ed.) Air Power: The Agile Air Force (Royal Air Force, 2008)

RAF CAPS has been around since 2007 and is positive move by the RAF in an attempt to think more analytical about its role in the world. The RAF has often been pragmatic in its views, for example, its strategic doctrine of the Second World War era, AP1300, was effectively only replaced in the 1990’s by AP3000, which has since its first publication in 1990 been revised four times. Indeed AP1300 was revised several times and last issued in 1964 and supplanted by NATO doctrine in the 1970’s.

It is official…

Just had the official confirmation from the university that I have passed my MPhil. I passed with no corrections or having to have a Viva. I am very happy and I can now look forward to the next step. In a perverse sort of way I am a bit disappointed that I did not have a Viva, do not get me wrong not having one is great from stress point of view and for a MPhil was always at the discretion of the examiners, however, I felt it would be good practice for the PhD. Having never had one part of me was keen to see what the experience is like but hey ho thats life.

I would just like to say thanks to those of you who have been reading the blog ad have made comments along the way. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. I plan to continue so keep reading…

For the Fallen

Today is Armistace Day and given the current conflicts that British troops are involved in around the globe it is a particularly apt time for member of the country to remember those that have given the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country. If there is one thing that i belive in ad tried to instill in my students it is that we should not forget and that we need to understand the past better in order not to repeat the mistake of the past.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon For the Fallen

The Next Stage…

Well it is time to move onto the next step for me. I finished my MPhil, though I am still waiting on my results, two months ago. I have always intended to continue onto my PhD and I was originally intending to do it part-time while working as an ‘A’ Level Lecturer, however, I was lucky enough to be offered voluntary redundancy package by my college. I know in time like this it sound odd that this was lucky but all I can say is that the package I was offered worked for both parties and that the sum involved means and can contemplate doing the PhD full-time. This means my application is currently going through the red tape and bureaucracy. All going well I will start in January, therefore, I will join the ranks of PhD bloggers like Jakob and Robert. I made a decision to stay at Birmingham and continue to work with my MPhil supervisor, Professor Gary Sheffield. I have mentioned before the importance of the good working relationship with your supervisor and this I feel I have with Gary. I will also have a second supervisor in the guise of Air Commodore (ret’d) Peter Gray. Peter is a Senior Air Power Research Fellow at the university and an expert in Air Power History and Leadership Theory, which is important, as you will see.

In terms of the subject matter, I have decided to move away from purely operational military history and have a look at leadership in the RAF. In particular, I am going to be researching the career of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Leigh-Mallory has often been given short shrift by most historians as being a career driven egotist who was at worst incompetent. This is, I believe, not strictly the case and I am going to attempt to examine Leigh-Mallory’s leadership effectiveness through the use of contemporary leadership theory, hence the importance of Peter as one of my supervisors. I am hoping to evaluate his decision-making through he use of contemporary sources and place his choices in their operational context. Here is the summary of the proposal that I have submitted:

The Leadership Effectiveness of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory

On 14 November 1944, an Avro York took of from RAF Northolt carrying Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, his Wife and Personal Staff Officer on the first leg of a journey that was to take Leigh-Mallory to his new command in South East Asia. Just after midday, the aircraft hit a mountain ridge some fifteen miles east of Grenoble killing all on board the aircraft. The impact of this avoidable accident was that unlike other contemporaries Leigh-Mallory has left no viable papers, memoirs or an autobiography. This has led to Leigh-Mallory place in the historiography of the Second World War being overlooked by most historians. Interpretations of Leigh-Mallory’s career had tended to examined through the prism of his role in the Battle of Britain and operation OVERLORD. Therefore, this thesis will seek to make a clear and objective analysis of Leigh-Mallory contribution using contemporary leadership theory. This methodology will allow the use of various sources in order to ascertain the effectiveness of Leigh-Mallory’s leadership capability. It will seek to examine how people viewed Leigh-Mallory and how self-aware he was of his own competence. Thus, the thesis will take a truly inter-disciplinary approach to examine one of the Second World War’s most misunderstood commanders.

It is an exciting prospect to start this. If there is one area that concerns me, it is the leadership aspect. I am going to have to get to grip with the theory and exploring different ideas on measure command competencies. Therefore, if anyone has any good ideas I am all ears. I am not sure how far I will take these aspects. I can see it going two ways. One is to go all out and synthesise a theory/model for the purpose. This will push the thesis away from a historical one but may offer some interesting insights. The other is to find a methodology and use it a conceptual model for examining Leigh-Mallory. This arguably, will allow the thesis to remain grounded in history much more. One thing that I want to avoid is a purely biographical essay of Leigh-Mallory.

Now I plan examine Leigh-Mallory’s leadership at the operational and strategic level of war i.e. from Group command up to his time as AOC-in-C of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force. I do want to have a look at the tactical level but this may be problematic in terms of the theory. However, I will be researching his command of No. 8 Squadron and his inter-war service in order to contextualise his career.

More soon…

P.S. Any thoughts on sources?