Sir Arthur Tedder's Air Superiority

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Recommended: The role of airpower in World War 2

“Air superiority was the pre-requisite to all winning operations, whether at sea, on land or in the air.”1 This belief was what Air Marshall Sir Arthur Tedder used as his guide during the Second World War, and when able to be fully implemented, allowed his air forces to dominate the skies. This complete air superiority would provide the Allied forces significant and decisive advantages throughout the course of the war. Air Marshall Sir Arthur Tedder was not always an Air Marshall, nor was he always a knight of the British Empire. Born in Glenguin, Scotland in 1890, he received an education at Magdalene College in Cambridge before enlisting in the Royal Army in 1913 at the age of 23. He quickly transitioned to the Royal Flying Corps in 1916, serving in France and Egypt for two years each. After carrying out many bombing and reconnaissance missions, he was given command of his own squadron, 70 squadron. With the formation of the Royal Air Force, he found himself charged with the duty of director of training from 1934 to 1936. Promoted to Vice Marshall in 1938, …show more content…

His plan for the invasion involved three phases: strategic bombing of Germany, focusing on the aircraft industry; bombing of railway centers17, coastal defenses, harbors, and air fields, and providing assistance to the invading ground forces.18 Once again, Tedder’s insistence on air superiority allowed the Allies to carry out Operation Overlord without interference by German fighters or bombers. Overlord involved the largest single operation of aircraft during the war, with 11,000 aircraft flying 14,000 sorties on June 5th and on D-Day. 19 As Tedder wrote in his memoirs, “Air superiority is the difference between the unhindered passage of our shipping across the Channel to the beaches of Normandy and the continual harassment our coastal shipping had suffered in the early days of the

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