Then and now: Head of bomber command in Second World War lived in Grantham in 1939
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Travers Harris was born in Gloucestershire in 1892. In the 1920s he attended the Army Staff College and eventually commanded the flying boat squadron, becoming a group captain in 1933.
After commands in the Middle East and Africa, in 1937 he was promoted to Air Commodore. He became an air vice-marshal in 1939, and in the Second World War was appointed head of Bomber Command.
According to the 1939 register, he was living at Elm House on Elmer Street North, Grantham, with his wife and daughter. Harris married Therese in 1938 and their daughter Jacqueline Jill was born in Grantham in 1939.
The head of the house was listed as ‘no entry’ so Arthur Harris was not named for security reasons. The family later moved to Norman Leys on Beacon Lane. During air raids on the town, the baby and her nurse would shelter in the cellars of Beaconsfield next door.
Sir Arthur Harris died in Goring on Thames in 1984, aged 91.
By Ruth Crook, of Grantham Civic Society