Statue of chief of WW2 Bomber Command in central London - photos

by Stephen Hewitt | Published 28 March 2021

Full length grey, metal statue of a man standing, wearing a jacket and trousers and a flat cap, on a white stone pedestal almost as tall as the statue itself, with plane trees and the facade of a church visible behind
The statue of the man who was chief of The Royal Air Force's Bomber Command during World War 2, Sir Arthur Harris BT GCB OBE AFC in front of St Clement Danes Church, London WC2R 1DH, October 2017 (51.51305 N, -0.11441 E)

The photographs here, taken in October 2017, show a statue of the man who was chief of The Royal Air Force's Bomber Command during World War 2, Sir Arthur Harris BT GCB OBE AFC. The statue is in the heart of London, within a minute's walk of the Royal Courts of Justice, outside Saint Clement Danes Church in the Strand, WC2R 1DH. (OpenStreetMap marker)

Carved into the white stone on the front of the support is “SIR ARTHUR HARRIS BT G.C.B. O.B.E. A.F.C. 1892 - 1984 COMMANDER IN CHIEF BOMBER COMMAND ROYAL AIR FORCE 1942 - 1945”, although too faint to be visible in the photograph here.

On another face of the support a small metal plaque reads “THIS STATUE WAS UNVEILED BY H M QUEEN ELIZABETH THE QUEEN MOTHER 31ST MAY 1992”.

Full length metal statue of a man standing wearing a jacket and trousers and a flat cap, hands behind his back
The statue of the man who was chief of The Royal Air Force's Bomber Command during World War 2, Sir Arthur Harris BT GCB OBE AFC.
cast metal plaque with raised letters, of dark, tarnished copper-like appearance
“MARSHAL OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE SIR ARTHUR HARRIS BT GCB OBE AFC IN MEMORY OF A GREAT COMMANDER AND OF THE BRAVE CREWS OF BOMBER COMMAND, MORE THAN 55,000 OF WHOM LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM. THE NATION OWES THEM ALL AN IMMENSE DEBT.” - words on a metal plaque on the side of the statue in the Strand, London, WC2R 1DH, October 2017.

Arthur Harris “first practised his trade against Kurdish villages in Iraq” according to Oxford Research fellow David Omissi. After one bombing raid in 1924 Arthur Harris reported:

“Where the Arab and Kurd had just begun to realise that if they could stand a little noise, they could stand bombing, and still argue they now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage; they now know that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape.” (Guardian, 19 January 1991)

View looking down along a wide city street covered in rubble with ruined half-demolished buildings on both sides, up to five storeys or so. Haze blots out the street after a few hundred yards.
Picture from a book The Night Hamburg Died, Martin Caidin, Four Square/New English Library, London, 1966. The caption in the book is “The heart of the firestorm area; a picture taken by the Germans soon after the attack. The buried vehicles are gutted firetrucks that had to be abandoned because of the heat. National Fire Protection Association”

Related

External links