<p>Two weeks after the 8AF's official first combat sortie, American and British military and political leaders met in London to discuss the planned invasion of North Africa (codename: Torch). By then. it was beginning to look more and more like a major operation and not quite the sideshow Churchill had implied it would be.
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<p>Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then commander of the European Theater of Operations (ETO), assigned a mission and a deadline to 8AF: attain air superiority over western France by 1 April 1943. Three days later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff effectively countermanded that order with a statement that 8AF would supply heavy and medium bomber groups from its strength for transfer to the Torch operation. Further, 15 of its combat groups were to be transferred to the Pacific, where there was an emerging and critical need.
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<p>The 8AF, hardly established in England, was rocked by the JCS statement. Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz, commanding USAAF in Europe, protested the planned drawdown of his forces and wondered just how this could be done while at the same time attaining air superiority against the Germans.
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<p>His bomber forces were not yet at strength, and his fighters had yet to become operational in the theater. The RAF stepped into the gap with a promise; it would furnish fighter escort for 8AF bomber strikes, using squadrons of Spitfire IXs developed for high-altitude fighting. Eight days later, 5 August 1942, VIII Fighter Command sent its first fighter force over France.
