Arthur Coningham (RAF officer), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Arthur Coningham (RAF officer)

Royal Air Force World War II air marshal

Date of Birth: 19-Jan-1895

Place of Birth: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Date of Death: 30-Jan-1948

Profession: military officer

Nationality: Australia, New Zealand

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Air Marshal Sir Arthur "Mary" Coningham, (19 January 1895 – presumably 30 January 1948) was a senior officer in the Royal Air Force.
During the First World War, he was at Gallipoli with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, was discharged in New Zealand as medically unfit for active service, and journeyed to Britain at his own expense to join the Royal Flying Corps, where he became a flying ace.
Coningham was later a senior Royal Air Force commander during the Second World War, as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief 2nd Tactical Air Force and subsequently the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Flying Training Command. Coningham is chiefly remembered as the person most responsible for the development of forward air control parties directing close air support, which he developed as commander of the Western Desert Air Force between 1941 and 1943, and as commander of the tactical air forces in the Normandy campaign in 1944.
However he is frequently lauded as the "architect of modern air power doctrine regarding tactical air operations," based on three principles: necessity of air superiority as first priority, centralised command of air operations co-equal with ground leadership, and innovative tactics in support of ground operations.On 30 January 1948, he disappeared along with all the other passengers and crew of the airliner G-AHNP Star Tiger when it vanished without a trace somewhere off the eastern coast of the United States in the Bermuda Triangle.