T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
CCS and the governments they represented, but initial planning was
carried on independently by several staffs. The views of the Eighth
Air Force were incorporated in a paper which Spaatz submitted to
Arnold, requesting that he recommend it to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Spaatz’ plan adapted to the European theater certain features
of the new War Department structure, others from the Combined
Chiefs of Staff organization. It placed the Army air component in the
United Kingdom on a level with that of the British (i.e., Eighth Air
Force = RAF; VIII Bomber Command = RAF Bomber Command) ;
and while it provided for integral national forces each with its own
conventional chain of command, Spaatz proposed that in matters per-
taining exclusively to aviation, air commanders be allowed to settle
problems directly and “on the spot” with their British opposite
members.
Arnold approved this scheme in principle, and on the eve of his
departure for the London conference of 26 May, suggested that it be
co-ordinated with OPD * before it was sent up to the JCS.13s OPD
objected to a number of provisions, including the last named, and on
4 June submitted its own counterproposal^.^^^ Before these divergent
views came to the attention of the Joint Chiefs, the latter had received
from the British Chiefs of Staff Committee a memorandum on the
over-all command for the ROUNDUP/SLEDGEHAMMER opera-
tions, with several alternative suggestions for control arrangement^.'^^
The Joint Chiefs found no one of these satisfactory, and they felt that
the British had wrongly subordinated the main problem-combined
machinery for control of the theater-to that of command for what
was, after all, only a task force of unusual size. They felt also that
the as yet unnamed supreme commander should have some voice in
determining his own organi~ation.’~~So it was that final decision was
repeatedly postponed through June and July while the Combined
Chiefs debated the relative merits of ROUNDUP and TORCH.13g
The choice of T O R C H did result in the appointment of General
Eisenhower as Allied commander as well as theater commander, but
it was to be weeks before the air organization for T O R C H was per-
fected. That involved the creation of a new air force, the Twelfth,
and the story of its formation may be told more appropriately in
* On 23 March 1942, War Plans Division (WPD) of the War Department General
Staff had been redesignated Operations Division (OPD).
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