The invasion of North Africa was now imminent. Previously, on October 24, 1942, 700 ships had sailed out of British ports and New York Harbor almost simultaneously. They carried 22 million pounds of food, 38 million pounds of clothing, 10 million gallons of gasoline, and guns, tanks, bulldozers, and trucks by the hundreds.
Before dawn on November 8, the 700 ships in small contingents were turning toward shore off the North African coast. Aircraft were already in the air from aircraft carriers and battered airstrips on Malta. Landing craft were approaching shore along 1,000 miles of coastline between southwestern Morocco and Algiers.
The big question was still not answered: How much resistance would the French put up against us? President Roosevelt had gone on the air speaking in French. He asked for all loyal Frenchmen to join the liberators who were at that moment about to land on their beaches. He ended the brief message with, “Vive la France éternelle!”
Admiral Jean François Darlan, commander of all Vichy French army and naval forces in Africa, had his headquarters in Algiers. His first clue that there was an invasion occurred when British warships began to shell the city. By 7:00 P.M., Admiral Darlan and General Alphonse Juin surrendered the city.
The capitulation was not so easy at other landing places. Our troops encountered heavy fire along the Moroccan beaches, and the defenders of Casablanca held out for an extended time. Two French cruisers were able to get out of the harbor and battled briefly before they were silenced. But there was obviously no cohesion among the defending forces. It seemed that any resistance was directly related to the fighting personalities of the individual leaders of the French defending units. Some units gave up as soon as they realized what was going on. Others fought savagely. Our forces took some heavy losses.
Admiral Darlan was captured and agreed to call off the resistance. He sent word to his commanders to cease and desist and to cooperate with our forces. On the morning of the third day, the French tricolor was raised over his headquarters with the American flag on one side, the British on the other. His acquiescence saved many lives.
By the fourth day, all resistance had ceased, and American ground forces formed up for the push eastward toward Tunisia. The few planes of the 12th that had managed to get to French fields covered the advance. At the same time, Field Marshal Bernard L. “Monty” Montgomery and his 8th Army were pushing Rommel’s 10,000-man panzer units westward out of Egypt.
I had flown across from Gibraltar as planned and tried to get things in some sort of order. On November 19, 1942, I wrote a letter to Hap explaining what had happened up to that time. My letter and his reply show the rapport we enjoyed and how Hap was able to receive news and recommendations from his commanders without having the information delayed by having to go through any middle channels. In turn, his letters, always written directly to his commanders, brought them up to date on what he was thinking and planning. My letter was as follows:
The American carrier-borne Navy aviation at Casablanca and the British 1st Air Arm at Oran did the major part of the air fighting. By the time airports were secured they had destroyed either in the air or on the ground the majority of French aviation.
Joe Cannon, at Casablanca, has done an outstanding job. His 33rd Fighter Group gave air support and the necessary reconnaissance to General Patton’s forces. We had no actual air fighting and lost only one pilot; he in an airplane accident. Nick Craw, while going forward under a flag of truce in a jeep, was most unfortunately shot through the head by a sniper and killed instantly. Cannon unloaded some 72 aircraft from the Chenango at Port Lyautey. The principal runway had been bombed and was not usable. The field was soft and seven of the aircraft sustained minor damage in landing. Part of these aircraft were later removed to the Casablanca airport and some 35 more were shot off the Archer. Joe now has, in addition to these, a half dozen B-25s from the 310th Group and more are now coming in steadily. He also has such transport as he requires of the 62nd Group.
In addition to Port Lyautey, there are some good fields at Sale, Rabat, and Casablanca. The field at Casablanca is large but has no prepared runways, and there are some spots which will not hold a B-17. I proved this the other day by landing there and bogging down. Apparently the small footprint and high unit loading was more than the sod would stand, and it required four tanks to pull the B-17 out so that we could take off again. Joe Cannon and George Patton have the western situation well in hand and get along together beautifully.
The first airport was secured at Oran on noon of D-Day. Twenty-four Spitfires of the 31st Group, with Shorty Hawkins in command, hopped over from Gibraltar. Four aircraft, which the boys took to be British Hurricanes, were doing lazy eights high overhead. As the squadron was landing, they peeled off and attacked. One of the Spitfires, which had lowered its landing gear and flaps, was shot down and the pilot was killed. Three ships which had not landed immediately attacked the four aircraft, which turned out to be [French] Dewoitine 520s, and shot down three. The fourth got away. The Dewoitine 520 is apparently no match for our modern fighters.
[Before daylight on] the following morning a French bomber flew over the field and dropped a single bomb, damaging one of our transports. We had a flight in the air, but it was so dark that they could not pick up the bomber, which was flying at a very low altitude. The ground radio equipment had not yet come in, so the people on the ground, who could see the bomber and fighters, were unable to direct them to the enemy.
The fighter units did a splendid job, taking out tanks, batteries, lorries, and foot columns, and even attacking a concrete gun emplacement in order to drive the crew away from the guns and permit the ground forces to capture it. The French capitulated at Oran shortly after this battery was silenced. The buildup of the first airport secured, which was Tafaraoui, was continued with additional units from the 31st and the 52nd, the latter under Dick Allison. These ships were flown in from Gibraltar.
I neglected to mention an instance in connection with our fighters: Six French artillery batteries were put in place on a hill about two and one half miles from Tafaraoui. They shelled the airport. Two flights of the 31st group strafed this emplacement, and in a matter of minutes the batteries were silenced and six vertical columns of smoke arose from their previous position. Some 14 tanks were observed to be approaching in the distance and as the airplanes were about out of ammunition they permitted the honor of destroying the tanks to go to our tank force, which immediately took them out.
I cannot speak too highly of the work done by these groups. They twice stopped mechanized columns that were attacking the airport at Tafaraoui from the south. The ground units had moved forward to take La Senia airport, which is closer to Oran. Had it not been for the prompt and efficient action of the Spitfires, Tafaraoui and our air units would have been lost and the war at Oran lengthened and made much more bloody. One column taken out and routed was the French Foreign Legion moving in from its headquarters at Sidi-Del-Abbes. Our fighters destroyed five tanks and routed the foot soldiers.
La Senia airport was secured, lost, and secured again. During the process it was bombed by our own people and shelled by the French. We have finally moved into La Senia, in addition to Tafaraoui, and are rehabilitating it.
The necessity of marrying ground and air forces on the field of battle precluded the training and study in recognition necessary to assure perfect collaboration. In spite of this the cooperation was of the highest order. In only two instances were mistakes made. On one occasion we were directed to attack an enemy column east of La Macta on Arzew Bay. By the time the message got to us, it read west of La Macta. Two airplanes flew over the column to the west, which was actually ours. The ground forces, being light on the trigger, shot at the airplanes. The pilots, thinking that these must be French troops, started to strafe them. Fortunately, our tanks are not as vulnerable as the French, and no damage was done to our ground troops, but two of our planes were shot down by our own people. After this, General Oliver gave his troops instruction in aircraft recognition; we got pieces of all of our mechanized equipment on the airport and permitted pilots to study them both from the ground and the air.
The other incident occurred almost at the same time, when some tanks stuck their noses up over a hill and our mobile artillery started shooting at them. The tanks withdrew over the brow of the hill, and the artillery requested that we attack them, which we did. In this case I personally asked the artillery officer who had requested the strafing if he was positive these were French tanks and he assured me they were. Our ships went out and took one pass at the tanks, which promptly displayed a white and an American flag.
We lost a total of six fighters shot down. Three were shot down by enemy ground troops—two on low reconnaissance flights just after Oran had capitulated.
[Colonel] Larry Norstad went to Oran on the command ship and was in charge of all 12th Air Force operations until I arrived. He did an excellent job. He proved himself to be not only a fine planner but an outstanding operator. I intend to recommend Larry and P. L. Williams for promotion [to Brigadier General] as soon as the final action is taken on the recommendations for Van [Vandenberg], Tommy Blackburn, and Claude Duncan. Jack Allard and Bob Zane carried the brunt of the personnel and supply situation and also showed up most favorably.… An operation of this kind promptly separates the sheep from the goats and I am happy to report that all of our people showed up well and most of them were superior.
The one project that did not come off as well as we had hoped was the initial paratroop operation. The drop was to be made on the Oran airport at H-Hour. Upon assurance from political advisors that the French would be friendly, it was decided to arrive after daybreak and if possible land the airplanes without dropping the parachutists in order to have them available to proceed immediately to the eastward, where they would be more urgently needed.
With the assurance of the politicos that the French would not fire on them, the boys sailed blithely in and four of them were shot down long before they even arrived over the airport. Most of the rest landed on a dry lake bed some 30 miles to the westward. One plane got lost and landed in Gibraltar, one landed in the water, and at least two in Spanish Morocco. The only mollifying thought is that the paratroopers stuck machine guns out of the windows and shot down two of the De 50s which attacked them.
… I personally feel that the initial plan of the paratroop operation was sound. The fact that the operation was not entirely successful was due to three factors: first, the misinformation received from political advisors; second, unfavorable weather en route; and third, inadequate communications. In connection with the last I want to say that our principal difficulty has been the establishment of satisfactory radio communication. This has been true in both the air forces and the ground forces. It is imperative that in any future operation of this kind we have special aircraft that can fly in complete ground radio equipment. These aircraft must be able to protect themselves and go in with the advance element. An airplane like the B-26 but with considerably increased wing area to permit operation from small airports would be ideal for this purpose. The large fuselage would permit the installation of reliable VHF, RDF, HF, and DF equipment. The armor and armament would permit it to fight its way in. A transport could carry the equipment necessary but would be too vulnerable.
Two of my principal worries were the concentration of aircraft on Gibraltar and the long flight down from the UK in the season of bad weather. Gibraltar is now pretty well cleaned out, and to date far less difficulty than I anticipated has been experienced in connection with flying the aircraft down. In addition to the paratroop plane that landed in the water, we had another that landed a few miles from Gibraltar due to bad weather there. The crew was promptly picked up. Two P-38s landed in Portugal. One took off under a ruse and the other is interned. Day before yesterday when one of the B-17s was about an hour and one half out of the UK, number three engine caught fire and burned so furiously that it fell out. The ship crashed in the sea but was immediately enveloped in flames due to the gasoline spreading on the water and burning all around the ship. Two of the other B-17s went back and saw several people in the water but no sign of life.…
When I was last at Casablanca there were about 4,000 air people ashore. Yesterday at Oran we had 14,000 men and about 1,000 officers. These are all stationed at Tafaraoui and La Senia at the moment, but as these fields were built to accommodate only about 300 officers and 3,000 men we are dispersing them on adjacent fields as rapidly as the latter can be prepared. Operations to date have been primitive due to difficulty of getting organizational equipment from the boats to the airports. The boys lived mostly on B, C, and K rations. It is unsafe to use the water, so water has been brought in and rationed. As a matter of fact, the local water system was plugged and the engineers had to clean it out before we could get even enough for normal sanitation. The sewer system was blown up and had to be repaired. In the meantime, it is necessary to utilize very homely facilities. These conditions are being corrected and we expect to be fairly permanently established in the near future.
The fight has moved to the eastward. In order to get the Hun out of Tunisia and occupy this area before he can, we have made available to the RAF and to General Anderson’s army, who are charged with this chore, as many of our [air] units as they can use. The arrangement under which these airplanes are made available is for the British to assign the missions but we operate. For the first few days, before we had an organization at Algiers, they operated our aircraft, but that unsatisfactory condition was corrected almost immediately. They now have the services of one squadron of the 14th group, two squadrons of the 97th heavy group, one squadron of the 27th light group, and a varying number of transports here in Algiers.… We expect to move the rest of the 14th, 27th, and 97th groups from Oran as soon as facilities here and to the eastward can support them. Additional units will not be moved to the eastward until we have the principal part of our striking force set up in eastern Algeria and Tunisia.
We must prepare and maintain adequate bases in the Casablanca and Oran areas in case the Hun decides to invade through Spain, in which case we will establish a holding force here and to the eastward and operate from the western bases. Oran will be our major training and maintenance center. The 12th Air Service Command and regional weather organization will be established there. Initially, we can stage, consolidate, and perfect our teamwork there while extending to the eastward. We must be prepared to combat periodic nuisance raids, which may become frequent if the concentration warrants. We must keep the Straits of Gibraltar open and provide fighter cover and later submarine protection for convoys along the west and north coasts of Africa.
With all of the above in mind we have decided to break this entire area up into districts; one at Casablanca, one at Oran, one here [Algiers], and one to the eastward, probably at a convenient point south of Bône. Each one of these districts will have a composite organization that will be in substance a small air force.
For convenience we have, temporarily, left the 12th Air Support Command at Casablanca with such bombardment and pursuit attached as are required. The 12th Air Support Command proper will eventually move to Oran and will have assigned to it such bombardment, transport and so forth as is required.
The 12th Bombardment Command will be established east of here and again will have its requirements of fighters and transports assigned. The commands are utilized only in the interest of simplicity; because they already contain trained organizations that permit them to function as composite units; and because each one has an extremely competent commander.
The 12th Air Force headquarters is now established at Algiers, and the three previously noted units will be directly responsible to this headquarters.
The whole of this operation is so clear in my own mind that it is possible I have not made it entirely clear to you. I can only say that a single air force built up on the old lines cannot operate satisfactorily over this large an area with the required degree of flexibility. For this reason we are breaking it up into individual composite commands, each responsible to this headquarters.
I have discussed this with General Eisenhower, General Clark, and General Spaatz, and they are all in complete agreement. As a matter of fact, General Spaatz had already, for convenience, decided to break his bomber command into districts, and we are going only a step further in the formation of composite commands.
Hap replied on December 21:
Your interesting and informative letter of the action between November 8 and November 19 gave me the first authentic account of the actions during that important period. In some ways you made it appear too simple, but I can visualize the difficulties which had to be overcome and the hardships which were suffered before the airdromes were captured and your forces were in operation.…
The help which your air force rendered the ground forces was evidently the deciding factor in the early success of your mission. When this can be done without adequate communications, it should be much easier when all the equipment and specially trained air support troops are available. If we can make such troops available to you, your fighters and bombers can then be released for their primary missions.
We are having some trouble here in opening up the ferry route to forward replacements to your theater. The utilization of the South Atlantic ferry route was based primarily upon the belief that all aircraft, other than fighters, could be flown nonstop from either Bathhurst or someplace in the vicinity of Kano. I am now informed that the prevailing north winds make it a very dangerous gamble for B-26s to attempt either one of these flights. Strenuous efforts are being made to obtain intermediate fields and to stock them with the necessary supplies. I have sent General C. R. Smith of the Air Transport Command to Dakar to negotiate with the French for the early opening of such fields, and he is very hopeful that, within a short time, we will be able to use them. The shipping situation is still serious, and replacements of fighters as well as personnel are dependent upon convoys.
You have already been informed by cable of the location of succeeding groups and replacements for your groups which have been in action. There has been some difficulty, due to misunderstanding in cables, in separating replacements for the 12th Air Force from those intended for the United Kingdom. This matter has now been straightened out, and you should be kept informed fully and thoroughly of what you are going to get and when you are going to get it.
I have been engaged for the past several weeks in negotiations with the British on the allocations of the 1943 aircraft production. The papers are finally signed and, although we believe we have given the British more than they asked for, they still believe they didn’t get as much as they wanted.
I have started the Air Staff working on your suggestions as to what is needed in future operations of this kind. The provision of the flying communication station, completely self-contained with all types of radio equipment, is dependent on our ability to obtain the required airplanes and to incorporate the changes in them.
Your organizing into districts and small composite commands to meet your particular needs looks all right to me as long as you can do it with the troops made available to you for your headquarters. It will not be possible for me to continue to pyramid large headquarters and to furnish any excess in overhead or service troops. The shipping situation will continue critical for a long time. Every man and every piece of equipment must be maintained; therefore, every unnecessary increase in personnel overseas must be ruthlessly eliminated, remembering at the same time that the necessary needs must be supplied. The Air Staff is now working on a study to determine the maximum number of troops which can be maintained in each theater, and balancing this against the number of groups set up. As soon as this is determined, you and other Air Force commanders will be notified of just what you can expect.
I am delighted with what you have done. Keep on slugging ’em—for the sooner you can get the German out of North Africa, the sooner we can proceed to our main business of pounding him down in his homeland.
I am writing this just before Christmas. I hope that you can help in giving the Nation and me what would be a wonderful Christmas present—Tunisia.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t deliver Tunisia to Hap for Christmas. We were plagued by poor communications between our units and my command post. However, when Tooey Spaatz arrived from England, he established what he called his “red line service,” which was a direct communications system between his headquarters and all his major commanders.
Another problem was intelligence information. This deficiency surfaced quickly as I found out that we had no reliable intelligence service whatsoever in the early days of the campaign. We were dependent on the British for information about the enemy. We had little knowledge of what the enemy’s intentions and capabilities were, and this seriously penalized us. I learned that when you have to depend on someone else for communications and your intelligence, they are inclined to exercise command. It took a long time to remedy this situation.
Looking back, I must admit now that when we started in North Africa, we didn’t know our job as well as we should have—especially me. From the commanding general on down, we had to learn how to identify and solve our logistics problems. I made some mistakes, but I had a magnificent staff that often put me on the right track when I strayed. And I can’t say enough for the group commanders, who were the backbone of the fighter and bomber units—and the sergeants, who were largely responsible for maintaining the aircraft during that period while we were getting our feet on the ground.
One of our basic mistakes in the beginning was that we were more oriented toward the fighters and bombers than we were toward ground support. And that’s where our poor communications penalized us most. We had to learn on the job because no one in our whole military establishment had had much experience with ground support. Even in England, where we had the 8th Air Force doing medium and heavy bombing, we had no experience giving air support to ground troops.
There were some incidents that reflected our deficiencies. When the French Foreign Legion troops started toward our two airfields at Oran, we sent our fighters out to shoot up their column. Shortly after the mission was launched, we got word that the French were now coming in in truckloads to surrender. Their leader said, “We could not give in immediately; we had to preserve French honor. The French honor has now been preserved; we surrender completely.”
We had a very hectic time, because of poor communications, trying to get in touch with our fighters before they attacked the columns. I don’t know if those Legionnaires ever realized how close they came to being annihilated.
As a result of the French surrender, I had a joint French-British-American command. We gave a group of P-40s to the French to keep their pilots gainfully employed. They immediately stole all the stove lids they could find to put under their seats because there was no armor to protect the P-40s from below. Thus, they were further anxious to preserve the honor and property of the French.
Our own ground troops gave me some problems during those initial days by requesting ground support when I knew it shouldn’t be provided. In December 1942, I had a ground commander ask me to give fighter cover to a Jeep that was going out to repair a broken telephone line. I refused. The plane that would have wasted its time on this mission shot down two German Me-109s. If each ground commander had his own “air umbrella” overhead to use defensively, there would have been little or none to use offensively. I had to defend myself often to ground commanders, even down to company commanders, who insisted that they have air cover at all times. We wanted to keep American losses to a minimum, of course, but the ultimate objective was to win the war and that could not be done by employing defensive tactics. Air power must be allowed to operate offensively.
Georgie Patton was one ground commander who understood this philosophy. He didn’t want to lose any men, but he was willing to release his air cover for offensive purposes. His feeling was that a soldier’s duty was not to keep from being killed, but to advance, kill enemy soldiers, and win the war.
Probably my most unsettling personal experience during those opening days in North Africa happened shortly after we arrived. I always insisted on flying all aircraft assigned to my commands. When we received the first improved model of a new British fighter, a Spitfire IX, I took it up for a local test hop and found it flew very well. It had a supercharged engine that gave it high-altitude capabilities—an excellent airplane. Once I was in the air I looked for German or Italian playmates but couldn’t find any.
While I was flying, General Eisenhower, who was still on “Gib,” sent word that he wanted me over there “right now!” He was told I was flying a Spitfire. Our communications were still so poor that they couldn’t reach me in the air, so when I landed and found out he wanted me, I fueled up immediately and headed for Gibraltar. On the way over, I saw two cruisers, one British and the other Italian, lobbing shells at each other. I flew over to get a better view and both turned their antiaircraft weapons on me, so I hastily withdrew and proceeded to Gib.
As soon as I reported to Ike, I could see he was very upset. He wanted to know why I was flying instead of being on the ground commanding my units. I told him that I felt it was my duty to test-fly any new aircraft assigned to my command—that it was a clear responsibility for every air force commander. Flying the airplanes assigned would enable them to do a better job of supervising other people who flew airplanes.
That rationale didn’t go over with Ike. His face reddened and he said, “I want my airmen available when I want them. Doolittle, you have a choice. You can either be a major and fly Spitfires or you can be a major general and be my senior air officer down here.”
The choice couldn’t have been put more clearly. I assured him I chose the latter. As I flew back to Oran, I realized for the first time that Ike had implied he had recommended me for promotion to major general. I found out later that he had already replied to a query from General Marshall, with Tooey’s approval. Ike had written:
Promotion of Doolittle is fully justified and I recommend it be accomplished at once. Apparently my fault that Doolittle has not been recommended since November 8, but it was my impression that you had already planned his promotion to take effect shortly after initiation of [Operation] Torch. It is appropriate to announce his promotion as a result of leadership in actual battle command as well as in organization of 12th Air Force.
I was promoted to major general on November 20, 1942.
Ike must have still had reservations about me. He wrote to Hap that he thought Doolittle was “stronger as a field commander than he is as an organizer.” In a letter to Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews, Ike said he thought Doolittle had “established himself as a commander and, although he had to learn the hard way, he has learned something of the responsibilities of high command.”
He was certainly right about learning the hard way. I was learning something new and useful every day. I intended to keep on learning.
The period between November 8, 1942, and February 18, 1943, was a time of experimentation while we began flying missions against the enemy. The very extent of the territory that fell to our forces in a matter of days after the initial landings created monumental problems. Many units had previously been split into small parallel units or separate entities located in England and the United States. Now those echelons were redivided. Some units were split into as many as five separate echelons divided between the States, England, North Africa, and the high seas. Within North Africa, these various echelons remained separate entities for weeks while we tried to get them transportation to join their parent units. In some cases it took six months to make a whole unit out of its various parts.
The main ports of entry for 12th Air Force units in the early days were Casablanca for units arriving from the States and Oran for units coming from the United Kingdom. At the same time, other units were moving closer to the enemy. As early as November 30, 1942, the advance echelon of my headquarters was moving from Tafaraoui to Algiers. A week later, fighter groups were moving to Youks-les-Bains and Bône.
What this meant from a command point of view was that I had some ground and rear echelons well over a thousand miles from the rest of their units. To join up they had to rely on the small, slow French railways, insufficient motor transport, and transport aircraft that were continually hampered by bad weather and fields in poor condition.
Despite the fact that no group could function as it was supposed to, with a full complement of men and equipment, air defense of the harbors was established, airfields were built, air support was given to the Army, and we were able to send out bombing missions. All this was possible only because of the excellent planning that had taken place before the invasion. I was blessed with a staff of career Army Air Forces officers with superior intellect and drive. I relied on them and let them have their heads, and they came through magnificently.
One of those close to me who was not a career officer was Bruce Johnson, an old friend from Mexican border days. He had been commissioned a captain and had talked his way by military aircraft all the way to North Africa. His ticket: a packet of letters addressed to me from Washington. He showed up one day in Algiers, much to my pleasant surprise. He said, “Sir, Captain Johnson reporting for duty. I am instructed to give you this packet. I must have your signed receipt.”
I was glad to see Bruce but didn’t know what to do with him, so I turned him over to Jack Allard to find a suitable job that would take advantage of Bruce’s unusual ability to acquire life’s necessities and make our war as comfortable as possible, as he had done on the Mexican border years before. We were quartered in the Shell Oil Company building in Algiers, so Jack made him the headquarters commandant. It was an ideal job for Brucie. He saw to local security for the headquarters, acquisition of office space, handling of food service facilities for us, and making sure we always had ground transportation available. He did such a good job right away that I promoted him to major about six weeks after he arrived.
In typical Johnson form, he wrote into his own headquarters regulations the statement: “In exercising the allotted function, the Headquarters Commandant is authorized to issue in the name of the Commanding General such instructions as become necessary.” I didn’t mind because I was sure he would never do anything for his personal gain but only for the benefit of all of us in the headquarters. I just didn’t want to know the details of whatever it was he did.
Bruce’s job was also to mollify and cooperate with the British as much as he could to get the job done as he saw it. He noted in his memoirs:
Getting along with the British was almost as hard as winning the war. I did business with them almost daily in supplies, but the American troops and officers in my command did not see eye-to-eye with their allies. They treated us like step-children, unwelcome ones at that, and more than once a group of Britishers would force one of our soldiers into the street from the sidewalk. These situations developed into head-on collisions and I had to keep an iron hand to prevent all-out combat.1
The guiding light in all we did in the 12th in those initial days was Major General Tooey Spaatz. He made sound decisions and never lost sight of the objective. It was announced on December 5, 1942, that he was acting deputy commander in chief for air, Allied Force, in addition to his other duties. This was a good idea because the men who had planned and organized the 12th could continue in the same relation to it.
It was the coordination of the British and American air effort that gave us headaches. It was decided that a complete and separate higher headquarters should be established to prevent misunderstandings and botched missions. On January 5, 1943, a new headquarters was activated, called the Allied Air Forces, with Tooey Spaatz in charge. Thus, the 12th Air Force, Eastern Air Command (RAF), and some French air units were brought together under one commander. However, the commanders of the 12th and the Eastern Air Command were each given clear and distinct operational responsibilities. I would support the U.S. ground forces under General Patton; the commander of the British Eastern Air Command, whoever was to be appointed, would support their 1st Army. If the situation warranted, we could switch operational control back and forth with Tooey’s approval.
Serving within this basic organization were all the fighter, bomber, transport, and support wings and groups, who had to be indoctrinated and learn what was expected of them. I saw it as my job to visit every unit I was responsible for, find out what their problems were, and seek solutions. To do this, I flew a B-26 mostly, but occasionally took a P-38 or Spitfire because of their increased speed. I flew on B-26, B-25, and B-17 missions as copilot or observer. I would drop into a field and announce that I was going to fly with them that day, climb aboard one of their planes, and go. I was convinced that nothing gives your men the confidence in you and in themselves that having you go with them does. I have often heard some lads say about their commanders, “Must be an easy one today, the old man is going.” So I picked only the tough ones. I selected aircraft that would be flying in different spots in a formation so I would know firsthand what difficulties they had joining up, flying formation, approaching the target, dropping their bombs, evading flak, and returning to base. I also wanted to see firsthand the tactics of enemy fighters. There was no better way to get that kind of information.
I had some “interesting” experiences, but my luck held. Got shot up by enemy flak and fighters quite a few times, but was never shot down. The aircraft I occupied were never damaged severely and no one was wounded. In North Africa, as in Europe, the greatest difficulties were posed not by the enemy but by the weather.
I learned a lot on each mission I flew and passed my information on to other units I visited. I never wanted anyone in my command to think the “old man” wouldn’t fly the rough ones. I never wanted any pilot or crew member in any units I commanded to say I didn’t know what I was talking about when it came to bombing tactics, flak and fighter evasion, and formation flying.
Probably the most valuable thing I learned was that American lads wanted to know only three things: that the job they were given to do was worthwhile, that the sacrifices they made were appreciated, and that they had a fair chance of survival.
One of the capabilities we needed badly in the early days in North Africa was photo reconnaissance, so we could assess the results of our attacks and determine future targets. The first photo mission flown was made by Lieutenant Colonel James Anderson in a modified B-17. A unit of camera-equipped British Spitfires had been transferred from England to help us, but their airfield at Maison-Blanche was bombed day and night by the Luftwaffe after the Allied landings. Within a few days the Spitfires were only piles of wreckage.
Anderson’s flight of November 19, 1942, was one to remember. He headed for the Kasserine Pass, where the Germans were massing their forces. He stayed above the flak level until he reached the pass, then dove the Fortress down to about 6,000 feet to photograph the activity below. He then flew to Gabes and made three photo runs over the city before returning to Algiers. He logged seven and a half hours flying time that day. When he returned, we had his film developed quickly. Since we had no photo interpreters assigned, the two of us analyzed the pictures ourselves and saw what targets had to be hit as soon as possible. They were.
One of those responsible for getting us excellent photos during this campaign was Elliott Roosevelt, son of the president. He was not a pilot but flew on many missions as an observer. I wrote to Joe that I had the pleasure of decorating him “to get even with his old man for decorating me.”
During those beginning weeks, we were having a very high rate of training accidents in the B-26 Marauder. The word was out that it was a “killer,” and I suspect that many crew members were convinced they could never survive the war in that airplane, not because of the enemy but because they would meet their maker in a noncombat accident.
Having tested the airplane thoroughly before many of the combat crews had ever seen one, I knew it was my job to show them it was an airplane to be respected but not feared. Paul Leonard, my faithful crew chief on the Tokyo raid, was still with me, and I took him along as my copilot to the various B-26 units to show that it could easily be flown as a one-pilot airplane, although regulations required two pilots on every flight. When they saw Paul in his mechanic’s coveralls refuel and care for the plane and found there was no one else aboard, they had their first lesson in B-26 management—it could be flown as easily with one pilot as with two. Proper training and confidence in the equipment was the answer, and I stressed this to the group commanders and the pilots. I then put on a show for them to prove that single-engine operation was as easy as flying with both engines operating.
On one occasion, I took Major Paul W. Tibbets up for a ride. Paul was one of the pilots who had flown General Eisenhower down to Gibraltar and was partial to the B-17 because he felt the role of the B-26 as a medium bomber would be limited. He wanted to fly the big ones, but I wanted him to see what the Marauder could do. Paul tells what we did in his memoirs:
I should have suspected that Doolittle knew more about the B-26 than he admitted when he said, “It’s just another airplane. Let’s start it up and play with it.”
That is exactly what we did. We got in the air and circled to 6,000 feet, remaining close enough to the field to reach the runway if we had trouble. But everything went smoothly.
Doolittle then shut down one of the engines and feathered the propeller. He got the plane trimmed and we did some flying on one engine, turning in both directions, climbing, making steep banks. The Marauder was a tame bird with Doolittle at the controls.
Suddenly he put the plane into a dive, built up excess speed, and put it into a perfect loop—all with one engine dead. As we came to the bottom of the loop, he took the dead propeller out of feather and it started windmilling. When it was turning fast enough, he flipped on the magnetos and restarted the engine as we made a low pass over the airfield. We came around in a normal manner, dropped the gear and the flaps, and set the B-26 down smoothly on the runway.
The pilots and operations people who had been watching us were impressed. The flight was an important start toward convincing them that the B-26 was just another airplane.2
There was one B-26 trip that Paul Leonard, my crew chief, and I took to Youks-les-Bains, Algeria, that I have tried to forget but can’t. I had to go into town to attend to some business with the ground commanders there. I left Paul to take care of the airplane. About midnight that night the Germans came over and bombed the airfield. I tried to get out there to see if our plane had been damaged but couldn’t because an ammunition dump had been hit along the road and ammunition was exploding all over the place.
The next morning I found the airplane. Paul had moved it to the other side of the field. The plane was there but not Paul. I found that he had manned the top turret machine gun in the plane as long as the batteries held out and had shot back at the German planes that were bombing and strafing the field. Empty .50-caliber shells were all over the place beneath the plane.
Finally, I found a bomb crater nearby. It was part of an older one and I pieced together what had happened. Paul had fought the attackers as long as he could and then leaped into the crater for protection. But another bomb, aimed at the plane, had missed its mark and had hit the old bomb crater instead.
I found what was left of Paul. It was his left hand off at the wrist, with a wristwatch still in place. This was all that remained of the wonderful boy who had tried to cheer me up in China in my saddest moment. I had to write to his widow to tell her the bad news. I said, “The softening point of this tragedy is that he never knew that it was coming and never knew that it hit him. If he had to go it was the way he would have preferred, quick, clean and painless.”
Paul’s loss was my greatest personal tragedy of the war.
In January 1943, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Casablanca. Four of the seven basic decisions they reached affected what we were trying to do in North Africa. Our job was to continue the assault against Germany, knock Italy out of the war, and draw enemy attention away from Russia. After we completed the Tunisian campaign, we were to invade Sicily in June or July. A high priority was to be given to a combined bomber offensive against Germany and German-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom. Hostilities would be terminated only upon the unconditional surrender of the enemy.
These decisions may seem elementary in hindsight, but they gave guidelines for future actions to those of us at the lower echelons. It was our road map. It was the job of people like me to follow the map and carry out the strategy worked out at the highest levels of our governments. The military forces of the allied nations wanted to achieve these objectives. However, combining these forces in a harmonious way when they were spread out over great distances proved extremely difficult.
The victory over Tunisia we had hoped we could achieve was not possible in December 1942. Heavy rains had kept us on the ground and stalled the advance of our ground troops. The day after the Casablanca Conference ended, I sent a confidential memo to my commanders and their subordinates:
You and I know that the 12th Air Force was faced with tremendous problems when it arrived in North Africa. Expected equipment did not arrive, was incomplete, or wouldn’t work. Officers and men alike lacked training and experience in the type of warfare with which we were faced.… We arrived in the rainy season, and the mud made airports impossible and living conditions unpleasant. The move to the eastward was more rapid than had been planned and the 12th was obliged to move forward, fighting, far ahead of schedule and under the most difficult conditions.
In order to meet a threatening situation, you have been obliged to fly long missions over highly defended territory, under extremely difficult operating conditions. To the best of my knowledge and belief, you have flown more missions under such conditions than were ever accomplished before. In the past two months you have dropped thousands of tons of bombs, shot down or destroyed hundreds of enemy aircraft, and damaged many more. We have had losses, too, but the enemy has paid a price of more than two to one for every airplane we have lost. This record against an experienced enemy, operating from established bases, is better than good—it is damned good.
While we were trying hard to organize the air effort to bring pressure on General Rommel and drive the Axis forces out of Africa, the ground forces didn’t find the going as easy as they might have first believed it would be. The Germans had forced the Allies out of Tebourba, Tunisia, but Monty Montgomery had forced Rommel to retreat from El Agheila. The situation stabilized in north and central Tunisia by the end of December 1942. But in the middle of February, Rommel forced a showdown and American forces were pushed back at the Kasserine Pass after a 10-day battle.
By May 3, however, the British had recovered and began a final offensive in Tunisia; Bizerte and Tunis were taken on May 7. On the thirteenth the last Axis forces surrendered. Altogether 250,000 troops were captured in the final days, half of them German.
The trials and tribulations we weathered in North Africa were great learning experiences for all of us. Unfortunately, during the first three months we had not yet been able to conduct strategic operations against targets in Sardinia, Sicily, and Italy to the extent we had originally intended, although we did let the enemy know we were coming by staging raids as often as we could to Palermo, Sicily, an important shipping point between Italy and Tunisia. Our attention had to be devoted to attacks against enemy aircraft on airports, bridges, communications facilities, and supply lines that connected the Axis forces with Europe. On February 7, however, our bombers were so effective against torpedo bomber installations on Sardinia that not a single enemy torpedo bomber was able to attack a British convoy progressing from Algiers eastward along the coast of Africa. Tooey Spaatz, in one of his frequent personal letters to Hap Arnold, gave his assessment of the situation as of the middle of February. He reported favorable results against bridges, railheads, and shipping, and noted that medium bombers were successful with area bombing targets at medium and low altitudes, but were not doing well with precision bombing. However, low-level attacks against surface vessels using skip bombing tactics were very profitable. He predicted that results were certain to improve tremendously with development of intelligence and communications, with the arrival of P-38 aircraft, and with the arrival of the 86th Dive Bombardment Group. Tooey wrote:
Of all our fighter aircraft, the P-38 deserves special mention. As reports indicate, P-38s have been shot down but the enemy refuses to attack unless he has superior numbers and altitude advantage. In spite of these unbalanced encounters, the P-38 has accounted for 127 German aircraft of all kinds while losing only 74 to enemy aircraft (as of February 5, 1943). This ratio might well be higher except that escort missions necessarily limit freedom of action.
As escort for the bombers, P-38s have contributed largely to successful bombing by actively denying enemy attacks on bombers (especially over the target), by boosting the morale of bomber crews and by furnishing cover for straggling crippled bombers. On January 12 a section of 12 P-38s successfully defended a badly damaged B-17 from persistent enemy fighter attacks while returning from Tripoli more than two hours overdue.
As a low altitude ground support aircraft, the P-38 has established itself as a dual purpose weapon. The ship has high speed for surprise and the necessary heavy fire power. Its distinctive appearance assists the pilot materially in that he may operate at very low altitude without hesitation or fear of friendly ground fire, thereby permitting more complete concentration on the job at hand.
Tooey commented on the use of the Spitfires, P-39s, and P-40s as escorts and against ground targets. The “ever dependable” C-47 was praised for the air movement of supplies and equipment, and the B-17 for its ability to score against a variety of targets. He reported that 125 enemy aircraft had been destroyed, with the loss of only seven B-17s.
Two days later, Tooey wrote to Hap again to explain how he was reorganizing his forces based on a decision by the American and British chiefs of staff at the Casablanca Conference. The Eastern Air Command and the 12th Air Force were to be formed into a single air force to be known as the Northwest African Air Force (NAAF). The staffs would be made up of a mixture of British and American officers.
I was to be relieved of command of the 12th and take on a new job. I wasn’t happy about it. In my final staff meeting as commander of the 12th, held on February 22, I explained the situation as I saw it. I said there were two schools of thought about the administrative setup of the new organization. One school of thought believed that the highest levels of the new command should be composed of British and Americans, while lower echelons should be segregated because of differences in arms, in temperament, in training and operations, in equipment, in supplies, and so on.
The other school of thought was consolidation, which felt that throughout all echelons, from the highest to the lowest, British and American people should be thoroughly intermingled. Their belief was that through this, the real or imaginary differences could be overcome by close association. The differences were settled in Casablanca, when the President and the Prime Minister decided that consolidation was the answer. There would be one head of the air forces in the Mediterranean area. There would be one head for all air units in the northwest African area. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder would be the overall chief of all air units. General Spaatz would be head of the NAAF. They decided also that the NAAF was to be broken into four units: the Tactical Unit, Strategic Unit, Coastal Unit, and Service Unit. NAAF General Order No. 1 explained:
… The Twelfth Air Force is to remain nominally in existence until such time as outstanding problems, particularly courts-martial, can be brought to conclusion. Then its skeleton, which will consist of the name only because all units will have been absorbed, will either have to return to the U.S. and be reformed or it will have to be abandoned through War Department orders. Then if the Twelfth Air Force is desired in the future it will have to be reactivated.
To show how rapidly plans changed during those trial-and-error days, the 12th Air Force was not deactivated. Tooey wrote to General Eisenhower several days later recommending that the 12th should continue “for an indeterminable length of time.” Ike approved. Tooey assumed command of the 12th on March 1, 1943. Under the new arrangement, names were changed and a fifth unit added. I would command the Strategic Air Force; Air Marshal Arthur Coningham, the Tactical Air Force; Brigadier General John K. “Joe” Cannon, the Training Command; Brigadier General Delmar H. Dunton, the Service Command; and Air Vice Marshal Hugh Lloyd, the Coastal Air Force.
It was the task of the Strategic Air Force to attack the ports at both ends of the Axis supply route across the Mediterranean and go after airfields that the enemy used for air resupply and as bases for their fighters and bombers used to attack our ports and sea traffic. I had six types of bombers assigned to me: B-17s, B-24s, B-25s, B-26s, A-20s, and two squadrons of RAF Wellingtons.
I was not happy about the organizational changes. I thought things were working out properly under the original organization as I had constituted it. It seemed like a demotion to me. I wrote to Joe in longhand saying that I was enclosing a typed letter that I called “a short report of my downfall,” which is the way I saw it then. In the typed letter, I explained what was taking place and implied that I was being downgraded in responsibility with much-reduced control over operations. I wrote:
I feel no resentment over the change, only a very keen disappointment that I have failed my gang. I had the administrative, technical, and even the tactical side in hand. The latter through competent staff and command personnel. On advertising and politics I was weak. I have found many times in the past that one can’t simply do a job and rest on results. There are “angles” and in a job as big as mine was here, where conflicting desires between services and nations exist, there are more angles than a diamond has facets.
In retrospection I see many mistakes. Places of weakness where immediate ruthless remedial action should have been taken. Accomplishments should have been pointed out—advertised. Above all, I should have fought for my job—thrown what little weight I had around in an effort to direct policy and overcome adverse politics. Politics! I have always sneered at the word “politics.” Whenever anyone has failed he has never said, “I couldn’t have cut her.” Always, “Politics booted me out.” Now I at least appreciate the power of politics, realize that it must be molded in one’s favor, and understand that in some instances, nothing can be done about it by the individual concerned.
I have advised Tooey that I will be glad to accept any job that he feels will take advantage of my training, experience, and ability and am now much smarter, ready, willing, and anxious to start over again.
I didn’t know whether or not Joe really understood what I was trying to express, but my letters to her gave me an opportunity to have a catharsis and examine my own thoughts. Several days later, I wrote this to Joe:
Have been on a half dozen missions recently and thoroughly enjoyed them. Got a bang out of watching our fine American boys in action. They are tops. On one occasion with flak bursting on all sides, we were taking violent evasive action. One burst went off right in front of the bombardier in the nose of the plane, a B-26. I was in the copilot’s seat and watched him throw up his hands and fall back. Thought he was hit but it was only a close miss. He promptly glued his eye to the bombsight and said, calmly, “Hold her steady now, sir.”
Every indication was to call for further evasive action, but he had a job to do so requested straight and level flight. It was the most intense and accurate flak I or any of the rest of the gang had ever seen. We lost two ships to enemy fighters and one was badly shot up with flak. The latter got home and with only one badly wounded crew member.
On another occasion, we were attacked from below by fighters. One boy said, “Shall I cut down on them?” Another said, “Don’t shoot yet. You’ll scare them away. Wait until they get closer.” No worry about what the fighters might do to him, only wanted to be sure that they got close enough so he could knock them off. The enemy fighters must have had a premonition as they did not press the attack and finally went their way. This was a long-range mission in B-17s and we did not have fighter escort.
Have a lot of stories and experiences to tell you. Guess I’ve gotten to the point where “every flight is an adventure.” Have flown with each one of our bomber groups, sometimes as observer and sometimes as copilot. They are all exceptionally good considering the fact that many of them had absolutely no combat experience when they arrived. They had to learn their jobs while fighting.
1. Johnson, Bruce, The Man with 2 Hats. New York: Carlton Press, 1967, p. 113.
2. Tibbets, Paul W., with Clair Stebbins and Harry Franken, The Tibbets Story. New York: Stein and Day, 1978, p. 123.