Trafford Leigh-Mallory
Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory , KCB , DSO and Bar (born July 11, 1892 in Mobberley , Cheshire , † November 14, 1944 near Grenoble , France ) was an officer in the British Royal Air Force .
Life
Leigh Mallory was a squadron captain in the First World War , then mainly in the training system of the Royal Air Force (RAF). In 1938 he was appointed Air Vice Marshal . Leigh-Mallory commanded at the start of World War II the No. 12 Fighter Group of the Fighter Command of the RAF, which had to defend the industrial cities of the Midlands and the shipping routes along the east coast.
During the Battle of Britain he was one of the critics of Sir Hugh Dowding , as he preferred a more offensive fighter leadership in larger units, as he did from December 1940 as the new commander of No. 11 Fighter Group practiced in south-east England ( Big Wing controversy ).
In November 1942 he became Chief of Fighter Command and on November 15, 1943 Commander-in-Chief of the tactical Allied Air Forces in Operation Overlord , which led to conflicts with the American Spaatz and the British Harris over the use of the heavy bombers .
The successful transportation plan for the invasion went back to Leigh-Mallory , by which all enemy traffic and communication connections in the closer and further combat area were systematically eliminated from the air before the landing.
Appointed Commander in Chief of the Allied Air Forces in Southeast Asia at the beginning of November 1944 , he and his wife were killed in an airplane accident on the flight there in the French Alps near Grenoble.
His brother was the British climber George Mallory .
literature
- Bill Newton Dunn: Big Wing: The Biography of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, KCB, DSO and Bar. Airlife, Shrewsbury 1992, ISBN 1-85310-240-7 .
Web links
- Newspaper article about Trafford Leigh-Mallory in the press kit 20th Century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Leigh-Mallory, Trafford |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Air Marshal |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 11, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mobberley , Cheshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 14, 1944 |
| Place of death | Grenoble |