The US Eighth Army Air Force

On a dull February day, a Douglas DC-3 transport crossed the south-west coast of England after the long and dangerous over-water flight from Lisbon. In that year of 1942, Luftwaffe long-range patrol aircraft from French bases frequently searched the Bay of Biscay in the hope of intercepting traffic to and from Britain. The travellers who that day successfully eluded enemy patrols included a group of seven United States Army Air Force (USAAF) officers who had come to arrange for the reception of American combat flying units, soon to be based in England, for operations over Hitler's "Fortress Europe". Their leader was no stranger to Britain having spent many weeks in previous years studying the Royal Air Force's operations. He was Brigadier General Ira C. Eaker, an ardent believer in the USAAF's concept of strategic bombardment as a war-winning facet of air power. He was to head an American bomber command to work alongside that of the British; but whereas the RAF bombers flew by night, the USAAF would operate by day.

Lt. General Ira Eaker took command of the 8th Air Force on 1 December 1942. Lt. General James H. Doolittle took command of the 8th AF on 6 January 1944. Major General William A. Kepner took command of the 8th AF on 10 May 1945. General Doolittle moved to the U. S. to begin setting up B-29 groups for the 8th AF in the Pacific. On 16 July 1945, the 8th AF flag was moved from England to Okinawa, with General Doolittle assuming command once again. The war ended just before the 8th AF was ready for bombing operations.

Eaker knew the British were generally sceptical of these American ideas, having already seen proof of high losses from daylight operations. Nevertheless, the USAAF was determined to put their theories to the test and the British, though doubting the chances of success, were more than willing to help their new Allies in every possible way. So, on February 20th 1942, the seven officers in well-cut uniforms, strange to the British eye, were warmly greeted. In addition to Eaker, they were, Lt Col Frank A. Armstrong Jr, Major Peter Beasley, Captains Fred Castle and Beirne Lay Jr, Lts Harris Hull and William Cowart Jr. Ahead of them lay the tedium of much desk work.

Initially, Eaker and his staff were stationed at RAF Bomber Command Headquarters, near High Wycombe (30 miles WNW of the center of London), Buckinghamshire, where they could closely study RAF procedures and make recommendations to incoming American units. The USAAF drew heavily upon the RAF's two and a half years experience in operating against the enemy, and which was still building up its own strategic bombing offensive against Germany. Eaker based the organisation of his own command as close as possible to that of the RAF's to facilitate cooperation.

A name for the new force was a matter for early consideration. The American Air Staff had assented to a bomber force in the UK known simply as the projected Army Air Force in Great Britain. In the United States at the time, the Force consisted of four separate air forces, located in geographical regions and designated by numbers, First to Fourth. Early in 1942 a new air force was formed to provide the air element of a task force being assembled for a projected invasion of North-West Africa. When inaugurated on January 2nd, 1942 it was known as the "Fifth" Air Force but four days later this title was changed to "Eighth" Air Force under revised plans to incorporate units in American overseas possessions and protectorates into the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Air Forces. The US Eighth Army Air Force was officially born on January 28th 1942 when a headquarters was activated at Savannah Army Air Base in Georgia. No sooner had its first units assembled in the training area than the build-up for the North African invasion was cancelled in order to meet pressing demands in the Pacific war areas. The Eighth Air Force, commanded by Colonel Asa N. Duncan, then found itself without a mission four weeks after its inception.

On 24 April 1942, Major General Carl Spaatz, designated for over-all command of the Army Air Force in Great Britain arrived in England. He established the Headquarters of the 8th Air Force at Bushy Park, 15 miles WSW of London center. A veteran pilot of combat in the First World War, with a fine following record in the Army air organisations, and now one of Arnold's foremost commanders. Spaatz suggested to Arnold that the infant Eighth Air Force could provide the nucleus for the build-up in the United Kingdom. This was accepted and Eaker learned early in April that he was preparing the way for an "Eighth Air Force".

To the USAAF, the Eighth Air Force, to be symbolised by a winged eight insignia, constituted an opportunity of promoting and testing their doctrine of high-altitude daylight precision bombing. However, the US War Department had no plan for a strategic bomber offensive against Germany except as a preliminary to an amphibious invasion of Europe, provisionally planned for mid-1943.

Meanwhile, the advance party of USAAF personnel busied themselves in England. The British Air Ministry had appropriated a country mansion not far from RAF Bomber Command HQ and on April 15th Eaker's staff moved into these sumptuous premises. This was Daws Hill Lodge, High Wycombe, once the seat of English nobility and more recently part of the evacuated Wycombe Abbey Girls' School.

The planned strength of the Eighth Air Force in the United Kingdom was put at 60 combat groups, made up of 17 heavy, 10 medium and 6 light bomber; 7 observation, 12 fighter and 8 transport groups—a strength of some 3,500 aircraft to be available in the United Kingdom by April 1943. This great force, larger than the combined total of all combat units of the home-based RAF, had to be found airfields and base installations in the UK. Fortunately, even before Pearl Harbor, consultations had taken place between Britain and America over the possible establishment of American forces in Britain, if the United States became involved in the war, and the problem of airfield accommodation had been considered. The British Air Ministry at this stage put into effect its airfield building programme.

The area selected for basing the first US bomber units was centred on the county of Huntingdonshire, roughly halfway between London and the coastal indentation called The Wash. Airfields in this area were already under construction for a new RAF Bomber Command formation which was then disbanded, so that the installations could be made available.

The RAF normally based two bomber squadrons on one airfield and as an American bomber group consisted of four squadrons it was assumed that one group would occupy two airfields. It was foreseen that a total of 75 airfields would be required by the Eighth Air Force. The majority were to be sited in the eastern coastal bulge of England known as East Anglia. A small group of airfields were to be provided in Northern Ireland and these were eventually allocated to training and "logistics" (maintenance and supply). The airfield requirements were increased as the months went by to meet revised assessments of the number of combat units likely to form this American force.

The standard British bomber airfield consisted of three runways, within a perimeter track edged with aircraft dispersal points; these were of concrete with bituminous surfacing. Administrative buildings, living accommodation, maintenance facilities were normally dispersed in the neighbouring countryside to minimise damage in the event of an enemy air attack.

The problem of maintenance and supply was a most exacting task. A force on the scale planned would consume prodigious quantities of ordnance, fuel and lubricants and parts to keep the aircraft operational, besides the needs of administrative staffs and the domestic requirements. Some action had also been taken the previous year to plan for maintenance and supply facilities. Arnold had sent one of his officers to the UK to discuss this problem and come to some arrangement with the British on setting up depots for major repairs and overhauls. Two sites were selected. The first, in Northern Ireland, was a large country estate named Langford Lodge where construction commenced in February 1942. The Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, already operating an assembly plant for the RAF at Speke, near Liverpool, was co-opted to staff and operate this depot; although it was planned eventually to have it operated entirely by military personnel when they were suitably trained. The other site, at Warton, Lancashire, in a highly industrialised area was not far from the west coast port of Liverpool. An existing airfield was to be enlarged and depot facilities provided.

Since neither of these major depots would come into operations for many months more immediate facilities for heavy repairs had to be provided. Fortunately at Burtonwood, not far from Warton, the Ministry of Aircraft Production had a repair depot already handling American aircraft for the RAF and an agreement was reached for the transfer of this establishment, with its staff of British technicians, to the repair of USAAF aircraft and components at an early date; US technicians eventually took over most of the work from the British. Small depots, nearer the combat airfields had also to be established as essential links in the chain of maintenance and supply. Additionally, much storage space had to be provided.

Although the USAAF sought to be functionally independent it was only prudent that it should adopt certain systems and procedures proven by the British. For communications and air traffic control a unified system was essential, and the efficient RAF operating procedures were adopted.

This contact with the RAF highlighted some deficiencies in USAAF operational techniques and equipment. Intelligence in particular had been neglected and the RAF undertook to train American intelligence officers in its schools. At first, all relevant target and enemy defences information was readily provided from British sources.

The adoption of many RAF operating procedures and reliance on special British equipment meant additional training for USAAF personnel. Newly arrived aircrews needed to be familiarised and special units, known as Combat Crew Replacement and Training Centers (CCRC) were arranged initially with RAF instructional staff. Conveniently sited a few miles north-east of Eaker's Headquarters was Bovingdon airfield, then in an advanced state of completion for the RAF. The Air Ministry agreed, however, to lease this base, and its satellite at Cheddington, to the USAAF for training purposes. It was further agreed that any extension of training facilities should utilise bases in Northern Ireland, which could be better spared than those in eastern England.

The first unit of the Eighth Air Force to leave America was the 689th Quartermaster Company. They sailed on the SS Cathay on April 22nd 1942. The one officer and fifty men of the 689th formed part of the 2nd Air Depot Group of which the major portion, in company with advance parties of Eighth Air Force HQ, the VIII Bomber, Fighter and Base Commands, and the 15th Bombardment Squadron, sailed on the SS Andes from Boston five days later. The Andes, with 1850 officers and men arrived first, docking at Liverpool on May 11th.

The command staffs journeyed to High Wycombe, while the 2nd Air Depot went to Molesworth airfield in Huntingdonshire and the 15th Bomb. Sqdn. to the airfield at Grafton Underwood, near Kettering. The 689th Quartermaster Company set foot on British soil at Newport, Monmouthshire on May 14th and from there travelled to Wickstead Park, near Kettering. Lt W. T. Fairbanks, the commanding and only officer, confined his men to camp for the first evening and busied them about settling into their new home. He was somewhat taken aback to see a large crowd of "natives" had gathered outside the fence lining the adjoining road. Curiosity at what these "Yanks" were like was obviously too much for the traditionally reserved local inhabitants and it was some days before the evening audiences subsided. With a few hundred officers and men the Eighth was an entity in the UK; even though there was yet little semblance of an air force. If the aeroplane was the symbol of such status it could at least boast one, an Airspeed Oxford trainer loaned for courier purposes by the RAF.

A bombing offensive being the keynote of USAAF plans, the heavy bomber dominated the schedules for the Eighth Air Force. Two four-engined types were currently in production in the USA. One, a new version of the Fortress, the B-17 model "E", included refinements in the light of experiences with earlier models. The rear section of the fuselage and the tailplane featured a complete redesign, with a tail gun position to enhance rearward firepower and larger tail surfaces giving better stability at high altitudes. Production of the B-17E was soon superseded by the B-17F, embodying further refinements. Although Fortresses would be the backbone of the bomber force for at least a year, it was planned to concurrently produce the B-24 Liberator, a design of the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation of San Diego, California. Although a far less shapely machine than the B-17, the B-24 possessed greater flight endurance and bomb-carrying capacity. It was scheduled for production on an even larger scale than the Fortress. The mighty Ford Motor Company built a vast factory especially for producing Liberators. All told, five American plants would be devoted to final assembly of B-24s and three to B-17s. But early in 1942 B-24 production was only just getting under way and the first complete B-24 group was still in training.

As mentioned, the formation known as the group, rather than the squadron, had become the component by which the USAAF measured its strength. The squadrons forming a group were usually activated with the parent group and were rarely separated. Bombing operations were usually conducted on a group basis, and this had led to some loss of individual squadron identities. A bomb group in the spring of 1942 was composed of a Headquarters and four combat squadrons, each having establishment for 8-10 aircraft.

When the US entered the war many of the 67 groups in being were little more than a nucleus of men awaiting training. Thirteen of these groups were designated as "heavy bombardment" although few had either aircraft or crews to substantiate the title. With the huge expansion programme projected for 1942, most of the groups that were equipped with B-17s and B-24s, and not actively engaged against the Japanese, were allocated to training new heavy bomber groups. By coincidence, on the day the Eighth Air Force was officially made active at Savannah, the War Department sanctioned the constitution of twenty new heavy bombardment groups, designated by the USAAF 88, 90 to 100 and 301 to 308 (the large numbering gap took account of a traditional ruling that numbers in the 101-300 range should be reserved for units of the National Guard, State territorial organisations.) These new groups were soon earmarked for the Eighth; four became training organisations and remained in the States, five were diverted to other theatres of war, and the remaining eleven eventually became the original, and some of the most distinguished, heavy bombardment groups to operate from England.

Fighter groups assigned to the Eighth Air Force were intended primarily for a bomber support role. In the spring of 1942 the best American fighter for such work was deemed to be the twin-engined Lockheed P-38F Lightning, a beautifully streamlined machine of unusual configuration with a performance far superior to any other American production fighter of the day. However, the Lightning's advanced design brought teething troubles that delayed its entry into combat groups until the winter of 1 941 -1942 and then only in small numbers.

Another fighter selected for service in England with the Eighth was the Bell P-39D Airacobra, then currently equipping a fair proportion of the thirty or so pursuit groups. This too was a novel design, its conventional appearance belying the fact that the engine was placed mid-fuselage, behind the pilot's cockpit. The prototype, flown in 1938, had promised a good performance, but Service models by 1942, laden with combat equipment, could only give their best at low altitudes.

The RAF had shown an interest in both types. After putting the Airacobra in service with No. 601 Squadron in late 1941 they found its performance too poor for operations across the English Channel and the type was withdrawn in March 1942. In the case of the Lightning, American security restrictions of that time permitted only a low-powered version to be made available to the British. The RAF, not inspired with this model, offered the bulk of their order back to the USAAF.

First of the heavy bombardment groups constituted in January 1942 to be made ready for a combat theatre was the 97th Bombardment Group flying B-17Es. Assigned to the Eighth Bomber Command in May it moved to the overseas staging area in the north-east tip of the USA from where the aircraft and crews proceeded by air across the North Atlantic ferry route to the UK, while the ground personnel travelled by sea.

The Eighth was also assigned the 1st and 31st Fighter Groups, the first units to have received P-38s and P-39s. The 1st was the oldest and most distinguished group in the USAAF having originated in the First World War. The 31st, formed in 1940, had newly assigned squadrons, its original units having been transferred to the south-west Pacific, just prior to commitment to the UK. A shortage of shipping space and the delay in moving fighter aircraft by sea had some bearing on the ambitious plan formulated for the 1st and 31st Groups to fly their aircraft to the UK, with B-17s of the 97th as navigational guides. These two fighter groups moved into the staging area in May to prepare for the long overwater flights, with the movement date set for June 1st or as soon as possible thereafter.

At the end of May, however, a new Japanese threat in the Pacific caused the movement to be postponed. The 1st with its P-38s and the 97th with its B-17s were switched to the west coast of the US on a defence emergency from which the last aircraft did not return to Maine until the middle of June. Meanwhile, any misgivings on the advisability of flying the single-motor P-39s to the UK were settled by the absence of the B-17s to guide the fighters. The 31st pilots were therefore sent by sea, leaving their planes behind.

Early in June, the 60th Transport Group had been added to the Eighth Air Force's strength and moved to the staging area. The first fully-equipped Douglas C-47 Skytrain (RAF Dakota) transport group to complete its training and be allocated for overseas service, the 60th was to be used initially to provide logistical support for the Eighth, and its Skytrains carried stores and equipment on their flight eastward.

With the return of the 97th and 1st Groups, the air movement could go ahead and on June 18th the first units were ordered to the airfield on Presque Island, at the extreme north-east tip of Maine, in preparation for the first leg of the flight, 569 miles to Goose Bay in Labrador. A minimum of twenty B-17s were needed to escort the eighty P-38s of the 1st Group and those not required for escort were sent on ahead. At 16.25 hrs on June 26th the first fifteen B-17Es reached Goose Bay. Refuelled, they took off about three hours later for the Bluie West 1 landing-ground on the southwest tip of Greenland, 776 miles distant. The visibility on approach was so poor that they were unable to land. Faced either with a return to Goose Bay or an alternative landing ground 400 miles along the Greenland coast, eleven Fortresses returned to Goose Bay after fourteen hours in the air, and one went on to land at Bluie West 8. The remaining three machines, hopelessly lost, were forced down out of fuel on the Greenland coast; luckily all crews were saved. This first experience underlined the difficulties in ferrying along this route, particularly the weather hazards.

The following day the first P-38s began their movement, usually with one B-17 leading an element of four Lightnings. This time the flight went smoothly and on July 1st the first USAAF manned combat aircraft reached Britain when B-17E 41-9085 of the 97th Group, touched down at Prestwick, Scotland. On July 18th the final flight of eight P-38s left Presque Island led by two B-17s carrying the VIII Fighter Command commander and his staff. Their Headquarters had been responsible for the direction of the Eighth's first air movement overseas, from a temporary station in New Hampshire. On July 27th this flight arrived at Prestwick, completing the ferrying of the 180 aircraft of the 1st, 60th and 97th Groups. The 2,965 mile route from Presque Island, via Goose Bay, Bluie West 1, Reykjavik, to Prestwick had been negotiated with the loss of 5 B-17s and 6 P-38s, although all crews were saved. Two of the B-17s and the P-38s were supposedly the victims of misleading directional broadcasts put out by the Germans.

Rumour was part of everyday life in wartime English villages, so it was not surprising that when Americans were said to have been seen on the local airfield at Polebrook, Northamptonshire, speculation was rife. Rumours were soon given some substance in June when a troop train pulled into the little country station at nearby Oundle and disgorged several hundred men clad in olive drab, speaking English with accents that most of the locals associated with the cinema. On July 6th native curiosity was roused still further when large fourengined aircraft marked with a white star on a blue disc background landed at Polebrook. The B-17s had arrived. By coincidence, it had been at Polebrook in the previous summer that the RAF had chosen to base the early Fortresses for their experimental daylight bombing raids. With Headquarters and two squadrons at Polebrook, the other two squadrons of the 97th went to the nearby satellite field at Grafton Underwood.

On July 25th the first C-47s of the 60th Group arrived at Chelveston, also in Northants, and five days later the last of their 48 machines had come in. Perhaps the greatest interest was engendered by the Lightnings when part of the air echelon of the 1st Group landed at Goxhill in Lincolnshire, on July 9th. Only two of the 1st's squadrons were destined to complete the journey to England at this time. Its 27th Fighter Squadron was ordered to remain at Reykjavik, Iceland for defensive patrols in view of possible German air attacks on the island.

While the initial air movement of American units to the UK were in progress, the white star insignia had also begun to appear on Spitfires at Atcham airfield, near Shrewsbury, in the west of England. The 31st Group, whose personnel had reached England early in June, was there training on the famous British fighter which the RAF insisted was superior in performance to t!le P-39s the Group had flown in the US. Thus, the 31st could claim to be the first complete USAAF group established in England: the first of the many. For another group, the 52nd, trained to fly P-39s and already on its way, it was arranged that their equipment should be left behind in favour of equipping with Spitfire Vs on arrival.

Between the Bomber Command and the combat groups a formation organisation was required for the more detailed planning and direction of combat operations the wing. Two of the original wings that dated from early US Army Air Service days, the 1st and 2nd, were established; the former at Brampton Grange, hub of the complex of eight airfields selected as the first heavy bomber bases, and the latter at Old Catton in Norfolk, where a number of bomber fields were nearing completion. The Headquarters of VIII Fighter Command, under Brigadier General Frank O'D. Hunter, appropriately a distinguished fighter pilot of the First World War, was set up at Bushey Hall, near Watford, close to its RAF counterpart at Bentley Priory. It was to lean heavily on RAF Fighter Command HQ in these formative days. A new fighter wing, the 6th activated in the States, was on its way to afford operational control for the Eighth's fighter groups.

With the arrival of Major General Carl Spaatz in London on June 18th, the Eighth Air Force was officially located in Britain. A few thousand men with no more than 200 aeroplanes, its test in battle was awaited with much interest on both sides of the Atlantic and presumably with apprehension in the Third Reich. The British were pleasantly surprised by the determination of the US airmen to come to grips with the enemy, a feeling neatly reflected in the following comment overheard in an RAF officer's mess at that time: "Not a bad lot of chaps; damned eager; but little idea — the war, I mean, not the other."

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