Family of Lord Arthur TEDDER ("Bomb") and Marie SETON ("Toppy")

Husband: Lord Arthur TEDDER ("Bomb")

	Lord Arthur TEDDER ("Bomb"), "Arthur Tedder"

Wife: Marie SETON ("Toppy")

Note on Husband: Lord Arthur TEDDER ("Bomb")

Tedder was commissioned into the Dorsetshire Regiment in 1913, then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in 1916, serving in France from 1915 to 1917 and then in Egypt from 1918 to 1919. After the War, Tedder accepted a permanent commission in the new Royal Air Force (RAF) as a squadron leader. By 1931 Tedder had reached the rank of group captain and from 1934 to 1936 he served as Director of Training . Prior to World War II he was commander RAF Far Eastern Forces and was director general for research in the Air Ministry.

Portrait of the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Middle East Forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder sitting at his desk at Air House, his official residence in Cairo, Egypt.As head of the RAF Middle East Command in the Second World War, he commanded Allied air operations in the Mediterranean and North Africa, covering the evacuation of Crete in May 1941 and Operation Crusader in Africa. After experiencing victories and defeats supporting troops fighting General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, Tedder's air forces were key to the Allied victory at the Battle of El Alamein. One of his bombing tactics became known as the "Tedder Carpet".

Promoted to Air Marshal, Tedder was involved in the planning of the Allied invasion of Sicily. When Operation Overlord -- the invasion of France -- came to be planned, Tedder was appointed Deputy Supreme Commander beneath General Eisenhower. Finding himself with little responsibility in this new role he wrested control of the air planning for D-Day from the commander of the Allied Air Expeditionary Force, Trafford Leigh-Mallory.

Arthur Tedder (centre) at the ceremony of the German unconditional surrender (May, 1945). Standing is Soviet Marshal Zhukov reading the act of the surrender.In the last year of the war Tedder was sent to Russia to seek assistance as the Western Front came under pressure during the Battle of the Bulge. When the unconditional surrender of the Germans came in May 1945 Tedder signed on behalf of General Eisenhower.

Knighted in 1942, Tedder was granted a peerage at the war's end. He followed Charles Portal as Chief of the Air Staff and served in that post from 1946 to 1950. In 1947 he delivered the Lees Knowles Lecture, which was then published as Air Power in War.

Note on Wife: Marie SETON ("Toppy")

Known as "Toppy" because of her red hair