Proof of Independence

To air tacticians the world over, Feb. 18, 1943 has already become a historic date. On that day, at his Northwest Africa headquarters. General Dwight David Eisen hower signed an order which gave air-power men their chance to prove another chapter in their philosophy of air warfare.

The order freed the Allied air-support commands from the ground units to which they were tied. It lumped them into the Northwest African Tactical Air Force.

Their new mission: to break out of their restricted battle areas, blast the way for the ground troops by theaterwide strokes.

Their first task: to engage and destroy the enemy's supporting air force.

Old Doctrine. So far as Allied airmen could tell. Axis airmen in Tunisia were still working under the system they had thunderingly proved in the Low Countries and France. Their air-support units were largely tied to ground organizations --armies, corps, even divisions. And that, too, was roughly the Allied organization in Northwest Africa when Montgomery and his Eighth Army reached the Mareth Line.

The Eighth Army had its supporting air force, under Australian-born Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham -- for U.S. airmen's money, the greatest air-support commander who ever strafed a marching column.

Alongside him, and backing up the U.S. II Corps, was the American Twelfth Air-Support Command under white-haired, leggy Brigadier General Paul Williams. Still farther north was a group under tough Air Commodore "Bing" Cross, working for Anderson's First Army.

Coningham had abundantly proved in the Battle of Africa that, to be most successful, air support must be turned loose for the deep penetration as well as the shallow attack ahead of troops. Thus he was air's most persuasive spokesman when he and other flyers brought their plan for amalgamation of all the support commands to air-minded "Ike" Eisenhower.

New Doctrine. Under the new setup, tall, desert-bronzed "Mary" Coningham became boss of the Northwest African Tactical Air Force. His deputy was an American: Brigadier General Laurence Sherman Kuter, at 38 one of the U.S.

Army's youngest general officers. His chief of staff: tough, pug-faced Air Commodore George R. Beamish, C.B.E., onetime boxing and golf champion of the R.A.F.

Now Africa's Allied flyers had independence, power, flexibility. They set out to prove all three.

Their first proof was made when Montgomery attacked the Mareth Line. Few days before, the Tactical Air Force sailed into the enemy's air establishments all over Tunisia, shot his planes from the air, strafed and bombed his airdromes.

By the time the Eighth Army began its artillery preparation, the enemy's dwindling air power had been sucked to the north and was being shot to pieces. But Mary Coningham, blessed with plenty of U.S. and R.A.F. power, also furnished the light bombers and fighters to blast the way for Montgomery's troops on the ground in the Mareth area.

At the Homma-Wadi el Akarit line the performance was repeated. And while the final break-through was being readied by General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander's ground forces, Coningham's airmen continued their slash-and-bomb tactics. They were still at it when the last resistance on Cap Bon finally broke down.

The Wide Areas. To get their impressive results, airmen of his command worked in a wider area than Tactical Air Force men had ever worked before. They beat down enemy fields and dumps in the rearmost areas, ranged out to sea to get at reinforcing troops.

Meanwhile the Strategic Air Force under Major General Jimmy Doolittle, also set up by Eisenhower's order of Feb. 18, was ranging farther, throwing its heavy bomber and escort fighters against the island bases of the Mediterranean.

There was a direct telephone between Coningham's and Doolittle's headquarters. Over it, wisecracking Mary Coningham often yelled to wisecracking Jimmy Doolittle for help, e.g., more bombers for a special operation. When Doolittle needed help from Coningham's light and medium bombers or his shorter-range fighters, he got it too, in a matter of minutes.

When the last prisoner was taken, airmen could tell themselves that they, as well as the dogged infantry and the artillery, had written new tactical doctrine.

Most of all, they had shown that independence of air power (which the R.A.F. has long had) does not mean helter-skelter employment in battle. Tunisia had proved that independence can be harnessed when the needs of battle call for it.

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