I've read that Leigh Malory was one of the few RAF officers interested in Army Support.
Leigh-Mallory was in the Middle-East before he was promoted to Fighter Command. So, maybe when the Aussie fact finding mission to Europe & the US to find a replacement for the Hawker Demon (which in OTL results in the Wirraway), stop off in the Middle-East - a meeting takes place.
The Australians recount with pride the destruction of the Turkish 7th Army as a fighting force in 1918 at Wadi el Far'a, by Australian aircraft.
The discussion turned to how more difficult that would be now, with AAA - 'Not if you dive down, rather than at low-level. It's easy to swivel your weapon from side-to-side than it is to track a target descending at speed'.
Curious, LM set up some tests, and found the comment was valid. And thought 'I'm on to something here'. So collecting some interested Squadron leaders together, they set out some rigorous target practise - they had the space.
Tests, were done, with level bombing at various altitudes, shallow dive bombing, and as the crews got more confident dive bombing. Even a visiting FAA Squadron had a go. The results were impressive, the FAA pilots were the best - done it before, but even the RAF pilots found that dive-bombing gave them much better accuracy than any other method.
LM sent off the report with detailed statistics - which created an indignant shelving of the report. But LM had sent copies elsewhere, and when comments and questions were made, repercussions began ......
Well it's one way to keep him out of Fighter Command, and to get the Henley used for what it was designed for!!