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Doolittle for Long Ranges. The Strategic Air Force sends its bombers against enemy supply lines and rear bases. Said General Spaatz: "This group of flyers struck perhaps the hardest blows in daylight ever delivered by an air force." The commander of this group, U.S. Major General James H. Doolittle, had to be reminded last week that April 18 was the anniversary of his raid on Tokyo. He looked in his logbook, found an entry describing "a 13-hour flight — one landing," and said: "So it was." On a typical day last week his Fortresses found 112 Axis transport planes on the ground at Castel-vetrano, Sicily, and destroyed 51, including eight huge six-motored planes; found 106 more at Milo, destroyed 22.
Lloyd for the Shores. The Coastal Air Force, said General Spaatz, "covered our shipping, protected our ports, made many reconnaissance flights to assure the arrival of our convoys and assisted in the destruction of enemy shipping." The commander of this force was last week identified as Air Vice Marshal Sir Hugh Pughe Lloyd, a short, thickset, rough, gruff veteran flyer who was commander of Britain's Mediterranean air forces in 1941-42. One day last week his Beaufighters caught enemy torpedo-bombers trying to attack Allied naval forces, shot down two.
All for One & One for All. These commands were not rigid. Their missions occasionally overlapped. On some days the Strategic and Tactical Air Forces combined to attack an airfield; on others, the Strategic and Coastal Forces combined to attack Axis transport planes.
Between Nov. 8 and last week, the Allied air forces in North Africa had shot down 1,253 Axis planes. In the last fortnight alone they had claimed 318 planes. The Allied toll for the whole period was 498 planes; for the fortnight, 100. Even making the necessary allowances, this record spelled first superiority, then supremacy.
But the Axis air force was not yet finished. Field Marshal Kesselring flew in relays of fighters last week to his 18 remaining fields. For the three air forces in North Africa, superiority was not enough. Not even supremacy was enough. They had yet to achieve finality.