World Battlefronts: How to be Allies

Many Britons believed that one thing holding up an all-out air offensive in Europe was faulty cooperation between the R.A.F. and the U.S. Army Air Forces. London newspapers said so. Some U.S. correspondents picked up the story. On both sides of the Atlantic people found the report all too easy to believe: it was in character with so much that had gone before, so like those bloody Americans or the goddam British.

There have been irritations, and there will doubtless be more. Clashes on high policy and procedure often enliven staff conferences, cause many a private cussing bee. U.S. pilots and crews, training with British units, find unaccustomed formalities and shibboleths in R.A.F. mess life, and sometimes they offend British sensibilities. At every stage of air operation, from training to combat, the R.A.F. and the Army Air Forces think and act differently. Now, within the tight confines of Britain, all these differences must be fitted into one operational pattern.

But the fact is that U.S. and British airmen are making Anglo-American history: they are getting along exceptionally well together. At the top, and across the British countryside, this official fellowship shows in many ways: the close integration of U.S. and British air staffs; the rapid transfer of R.A.F. airdromes, supply and maintenance depots to the growing U.S. forces; young U.S. pilots, fresh out of school and untried in battle, getting combat experience in British planes with British squadrons; U.S. tractors and excavators, operated by U.S. civilian laborers and Army engineers, clawing up the green lawns, parks and fields of many an old British estate, building airdromes for the U.S. forces.

Meshing two air forces into one offensive force is a tough and tremendous job. For the most part the job is being done well and rapidly, by men who have become close friends. Two of London's boon companions are Major General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz, the U.S. air commander in Britain, and Air Marshal Sir Arthur Travers Harris, chief of the R.A.F. Bomber Command. Their bonds: flying and poker. They and other officers play often, but they seldom finish a game. Spaatz and Harris usually forget the cards, fall to telling each other how they can beat Hitler from the air.