T H E E I G H T H A I R F O R C E
gated to him by General Chaney. Before Pearl Harbor, his activities
had been conditioned largely by deployment plans stipulated in the
W a r Department strategic plan RAINBOW No. 5 and by the im-
plications of air lend-lease. Preliminary and necessarily tentative plans,
made in consultation with British officials, had centered on such
questions as the accommodation of American air units, the training
of AAF technical personnel by the RAF, and the establishment of
US.-managed depots to service the RAF’s American-built planes.
T h e progress made toward a common understanding of some
of the more fundamental problems greatly facilitated collaboration
between the air arms of the two nations after December 1941. As
early as February 1942,the British Air Ministry had prepared for
its guidance a comprehensive statement of policy and procedure
which was circulated under the title of Joint Organization and Main-
tenance (United States). This document provided a sound foundation
for Anglo-American co-operation in the establishment of the Eighth
Air Force, and was kept current through the ensuing years by a series
of amendments shaped in conferences between British and American
officials. Its constructive contribution to a solution of the problems
involved in receiving, accommodating, and servicing an American
air force was promptly supplemented by the practice of establishing
special sections within the major divisions of the Air Ministry for
handling American question^.^^ Recognizing the tremendous impor-
tance of the effort to build a great American air force in the United
Kingdom, the Air Ministry prepared to play its part by the most care-
ful and detailed planning.
General Eaker’s bomber command plan of 2 0 March contributed
a further clarification of the problems to be faced. Setting forth an
“Ideal Method” that would have required the development of an
independent system of supply and maintenance, complete with base
depots, before the initiation of combat operations, the plan recog-
nized that a consequent postponement of our active participation in
the European air war until the end of 1942 could hardly be coun-
tenanced. T h e alternative, which called for extensive use of British
facilities and assistance at the outset, on the other hand, would permit
an earlier inauguration of operations against the enemy and the build-
ing of an American logistical organization concurrently with their
d e ~ e l o p m e n t . ~ ~There was of course little room for debate. Indeed,
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