BATTLE OF EUROPE: The Man Who Paved the Way

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Spaatz had the advantage of being a West Pointer, as well as an early birdman. By the time World War II broke out he was chief of the Air Corps plans section in Washington, and in 1940 he went to England to observe air war at first hand. That summer he wrote home:

"There is much talk of Hitler's secret weapons, but the British weapon that will defeat him isn't secret—it is Guts."

In 1941 Spaatz was Chief of Air Staff under Arnold, and the following year went to England to set up the Eighth Air Force. Late in 1942 he headed south to command the Allied Northwest African Air Forces through the Mediterranean campaigns, and last January he returned to England to boss all U.S. heavy bombing in Europe.

Life in X-House. In Britain today Spaatz's private life consists mainly of the four to eight hours he sleeps nightly in the spacious, big-windowed bedroom of "X-House," a comfortable, 19th-Century brick pile in a London suburb. There, as he did in Africa, he leads a kind of corporate, family existence, with his staff as family, and himself as patriarch, straw boss and referee.

His living room is almost filled with a huge rectangular table, covered with maps. That is his desk. At it, in front of a coal fire, he holds the all-important conferences to which he invites officers with such offhand orders as: "Come on over and see me" or "Better drop in tomorrow."

Here General Spaatz lives in the most informal style of any of the Allied military commanders.

His staff family of 15—the regular members of his mess—dine at home nightly. Their day's routine is done, but they stay around to talk after dinner. A half-dozen guests, mostly military, are usually spaced around the dinner table.

His chief commanders, including Doolittle, and such colleagues as Lewis Brereton, Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Sir Arthur ("Mary") Coningham, come for dinner about once a week.

The most notable member of the official family is Spaatz's WAC aide, Captain Sally Bagby, a tall, slim brunette from New Haven, Mo., who functions as the General's confidential secretary, personal batwoman, mess hostess, badminton opponent ("I'm the only one he can beat"), wardrobe checker-upper and last line of defense against bores and time-wasters.

Sally is the only female aide extant in the top Allied command. Recently she was discussing an aide's tribulations with Eisenhower's aide, Commander Harry C. ("Butch") Butcher, and wound up with an artless: "But of course I like it. ... After all, it's really women's work, isn't it?" For once, smooth-tongued Butch was speechless. Someone told Tooey about it, and he spread the story with fiendish glee.