American Airpower Comes of Age

AMERICAN AIRPOWER COMES OF AGE
the final day of the second Cairo meeting, the US chiefs were
able to get grudging British agreement to the establishment of
an American, but not Allied, commander for strategic air
forces to be embodied in an organization called United States
Strategic Air Forces in Europe or USSTAF. 4
Although the secretariat that recorded the exchanges at these
meetings represented both nations, the intensity and occasional
testiness of the arguments come through in the printed version
of their deliberations. At the afternoon CCS session on 4
December, Portal made a long statement setting forth the many
reasons that had been advanced consistently by the British
against a single Allied commander of the strategic air forces. His
position was that, “quite frankly,” the US chiefs could organize
their forces as they “saw fit.” But he advised “most strongly”
against it because it would not achieve its aims and was “quite
unnecessary and would prove inefficient.” He listed other objections,
including the fact that the “close integration” of the RAF
and Eighth Air Force would be broken up. From Arnold’s viewpoint,
Portal’s most revealing statement probably was that he
“could not undertake to subordinate the operations of the R. A.
F. to those of the 8th Air Force.” Portal indicated, in a disparagement
of Arnold, that in his opinion Eaker was doing as well
as possible with only 75 percent of his resources. Arnold
responded with some statistics that revealed the dissatisfaction
with the Eighth that he had been expressing almost since the
CBO at Casablanca and that were a criticism of Portal’s direction
of the CBO. Arnold “could see no reason why at least 70 percent
of the planes available should not be regularly employed,” insisting
that the “failure to destroy targets was due directly to the failure
to employ planes in sufficient numbers.” Arnold’s most
telling indictment of both Portal and Eaker was: “At present, the
necessary drive and ideas are coming from Washington.” He
threatened that, since there were more planes in the United
Kingdom than were being used, “unless better results could be
achieved no more planes should be sent.” General Marshall’s
remarks reflected his agreement with Arnold. The US chief of
staff was direct in pointing out that Portal’s arguments were
based in part on the RAF chief’s unwillingness to lose power as
executive agent of the CBO. Marshall said it had always “proved
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