Talk:Trafford Leigh-Mallory

Competence
The expression in the article "and the highest-ranking British officer to die in the war" is misleading. A better expression would be "one of the highest-ranking British officers to die in the war". He shared that fate along with "full admirals" Admiral Sir Tom Spencer Vaughan Phillips KCB (1888-1941) killed in action in the sinking of his flag ship HMS "Prince of Wales” on Wednesday, 10th December 1941; and Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay KCB KBE MVO (1883-1945) killed in plane crash whilst taking off at Toussus-le-Noble, near Paris, Tuesday, 2nd January 1945. Aged 61.

-

I think this article is biased in favour of Leigh-Mallory especially the "Death Legacy" Section. It is extremely favourable, and implies that he was one of the better Air Commanders in the 2nd WorldWar. Tomdidiot 14:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I also think it is biased in Leigh-Mallory's favour. It says "Fighter Command ... was suffering great casualties as a result of learning new tactics and when its fighters were too short-ranged to do any real offensive work". This implies Leigh-Mallory was not responsible for the tactics. He failed to adopt tactics to fit the limitations of the aircraft. The German fighters were flying near their own bases and so had plenty of fuel. This is the reverse of the Battle of Britain, when it was the Germans had little fuel. Leigh-Mallory apparently did not see this, or worse did not care. I will amend it accordingly. JMcC 17:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I also think that this article is biased in favour of Leigh-Mallory. It fails to record that numerous historians have pointed out that not only was he unprepared to accept the tactics and strategy that Park and Dowding were employing in the Battle of Britain but that he deliberately failed to follow those tactics and strategy which on the whole cost lives and damage to airfields 86.11.91.126 23:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Date query
Date of death is usually given as Nov 1944. However Air Britain: Aeromilitaria, vol 1, 1984 gives the crash date of Avro York MW126 near Grenoble as 31 Octoer 1944. Is this correct? Wayne Riddock (talk) 09:09, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Air operations over D-Day
Who was in charge of overall Allied air operations immediately before and after D-Day? It seems that Tedder had a good working relationship with the American leaders, particularly Eisenhower, and effectively pushed Leigh-Mallory aside. In Al Deere's "Nine Lives" book he mentions a pre D-Day briefing given by the then AOC, Arthur Conningham. While in charge of the RAF over North Africa Conningham developed the "textbook" on Air-Army cooperation, he also had a good working relationship with Tedder and Eisenhower from their time in the mediterranean campaign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mccrora (talk • contribs) 15:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)