T H E E I G H T H A I R F O R C E
mission, which of course included protection of our own bases in
Britain, continuing in the experienced hands of the RAF Fighter
Command. General Spaatz defined the primary function of the AAF
fighter planes as that of supporting “our bombers in an effort to secure
air Supremacy and not for the defense of England,’’ but he agreed
that they should be so trained as to permit their assumption of
defensive obligations in the event of an emergency.47 O n this basis
the decision was finally made.48 T h e R A F would be responsible for
aerial defense of the sectors in which American airdromes were lo-
cated, and AAF fighter forces would be committed principally to the
escort of bomber strikes against the continent. It had been agreed
between General Arnold and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal,
Chief of Air Staff, RAF, in May that the Americans, in line with an
earlier decision dividing production responsibilities between the air-
craft industries of the two countries, would assume a primary re-
sponsibility for the provision of air transport, even for the training
of British airborne division^.^' Thus in the great airborne operations
that followed, American troop carrier units would provide most of
the lift.
T h e defensive responsibilities assumed by the British included anti-
aircraft and other ground defense of American airdromes. T h e AAF
had assumed in the earliest planning for a bomber command that such
an arrangement could be effe~ted,~’but as the number of our projected
installations increased, it became apparent that British forces would
be unequal to the task. Steps had been taken as early as August to
set up an air defense organization within the Eighth Air Force,‘l but
American antiaircraft and infantry units could not be made available
even in the number required to supplement those provided by the
British, much less in sufficient quantity to replace them.52 Our allies
consequently continued to carry the main responsibility into the early
part of 1943, a t which time the Eighth Air Force took over the job
with forces hardly more adequate than those the British had been able
to At no time during the war, fortunately, did the Germans
undertake large-scale attacks on American installations in the United
Kingdom.
T h e heaviest indebtedness of the Eighth to its British allies fell,
perhaps, in the field of intelligence. When war began, the AAF prob-
ably was more deficient in its provision for intelligence than in any
other phase of its activities-a deficiency brought home with increas-
6 2 3