BIG WEEK - THE CRUCIAL VICTORY

In early February, 1944, USAAF commander General Hap Arnold wrote his old friend and comrade, General Carl Spaatz - now Commander, U.S. Strategic Air Forces, the unified command controlling the Eighth and Fifteenth air forces - regarding his concerns for the way the Combined Bomber Offensive was being handled; he worried RAF Bomber Command might overshadow the USAAF, concluding: “Already, the spectacular effectiveness of their devastation of cities has placed their contribution in the popular mind at so high a plane that I am having the greatest difficulty in keeping your achievement in its proper role, not only in publications, but unfortunately in military and naval circles, and in fact, with the President himself.”