University Of Birmingham

Graduate Student, School of History and Cultures

Other Affiliations: University Of Birmingham, Centre for War Studies

Thesis Title: 'The Flying Sergeant': The Leadership Effectiveness of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory at the Tactical and Operational Level of War

About

I am a PhD candidate and Post-Graduate Teaching Assistant at the Centre for War Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. I am currently writing a thesis entitled “The Flying Sergeant’: The Leadership Effectiveness of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory at the Tactical and Operational Levels of War’ under the supervision of Air Commodore (ret’d) Dr Peter Gray and Professor Gary Sheffield.

My expertise lies in Air Power History, Theory and Doctrine, British Military History of the 19th and 20th Century, Leadership and Command, Organisational Culture, and Military Operations Research. I have received the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Aerospace Speakers Travel Grant and in 2011, I was a West Point Fellow in Military History at the United States Military Academy. My first paper, entitled ‘A Blueprint for Success: Army-Air Force Co-Operation and the Battle for the Mareth Line, 19-29 March 1943’ is to be published in a volume on Allied Military Effectiveness in the Mediterranean in 2012.

Prior to my PhD, I completed an MPhil at the University of Birmingham entitled ‘The Royal Air Force, Combined Operations Doctrine and the Raid on Dieppe, 19 August 1942.’ In addition, I hold a PGCE in Post-Compulsory Education and a BA (Hons) in History and War Studies from the University of Wolverhampton.

My PhD seeks to make a balanced and objective analysis of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory’s role as an air power leader, thus, attempting to understand his role in the Second World War and the development of the RAF. A key issue in the historiography of Leigh-Mallory’s contribution is the lack of useful papers, memoirs or autobiography. Leigh-Mallory died on 14 November 1944 when his Avro York transport crashed into a mountain ridge east of Grenoble while he was en route to take up a new command in South East Asia. This meant that unlike many of his contemporaries he never had the opportunity to write his memoirs or an autobiography. He also left a paltry collection of papers, which are housed at the RAF Museum, Hendon, and Guy Revell, Assistant Curator of the Department of Research and Information Service, has described them as ‘disappointingly devoid of any paperwork relating to his RAF service.’ Therefore, my research uses contemporary leadership and management theory to contruct an analysis from a variety of sources and place his development in its operational context.

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