Trafford Leigh-Mallory was born on July 11, 1892 in Mobberley, England. He studied law at Magdalene College (where he met Arthur Tedder, future commander of Operation Overlord) and wanted to become a lawyer when the First World War broke out in 1914.Leigh-Mallory was educated at the University of Cambridge, received a commission in the British Army in 1914, and fought in France during World War I. In 1916 he was transferred He joined the Liverpool regiment as an ordinary soldier before becoming an officer, which prevented him from going to the front with his unit. He married in 1915 with Doris Sawyer before going to war in the South Lancashire Regiment: wounded in the Second Battle of Ypres, he asked for his transfer in January 1916 in the Royal Flying Corps, the ancestor of the Royal Air Force (RAF). Six months later, Trafford Leigh-Mallory served at No. 7 Squadron with which he flew reconnaissance flights during the Battle of the Somme. In November 1917, while serving with No. 8 Squadron, he guided artillery and tank fire during the Battle of Cambrai, an action for which he was awarded the prestigious Distinguished Service Order Medal.In November 1938, Trafford Leigh-Mallory became the youngest officer in the Royal Air Force to become Air Vice-Marshal, only forty-six years old. In 1943, he was made Knight and in August of the same year, he was appointed head of the Allied Air Expeditionary Forces as part of the preparation for Operation Overlord. What interests General Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of Overlord and who has chosen him for this position, is Leigh-Mallory’s expertise in the field of joint operations: cooperation and coordination between ground troops and Air forces are one of the keys to success.Leigh-Mallory plans the aerial part of Operation Overlord despite regular intervention by Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, Eisenhower’s deputy. Its primary objective is to fix the German reinforcements before they reach the bridgehead that the Allies set up in Normandy. In order to carry out its mission, it wants to bomb the road knots, marshalling yards and railway lines, as well as many localities in France: Leigh-Mallory accepts the risk that many French civilians are killed under the bombs because it is according to him a sacrifice for the success of the allied armies. It is also responsible for fighting V-1 rocket launch sites as part of Operation Crossbow.In August 1944, the Battle of Normandy was already well engaged and largely under Allied rule, he was appointed head of the air force deployed in Southeast Asia. He then flew with his wife aboard an Avro York November 14, 1944 but following very bad weather the plane crashed in the French Alps. The couple was killed instantly along with ten other people on board. His rival of the Battle of Britain, the Air Marshal Keith Park, is named in his place. He is buried near the place of the accident, in the village of Le Rivier d’Allemont, in Isère (France). Courtesy of D-Day overload.com, Britannica.com and nationslww2museum.com.