<p>With the loss to the Japanese of Guam and Wake Islands in the Pacific, supply routes from America to the Far East had swung around the globe in the other direction. They crossed the South Atlantic, and moved through northern Africa and the Middle East to India. Those lines had to be kept open to supply the Burma and China theaters, and to send weapons and food to the Russians.
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<p>Churchill had requested more aid, and particularly more air aid, for the British forces in the Middle East. The RAF, Middle East, was doing a superlative job, but it needed reinforcements. Faced with the need to keep its own lines open, and the British request for more air power, the USAAF had only two alternatives. One was to reinforce the RAF in the theater with a transfusion of aircraft and supplies, at the expense of USAAF needs in Europe. The other was to send in USAAF combat units. Both were costly endeavors. The USAAF chose the latter, and planned an orderly schedule for the build-up, trying to match the short-term needs of the Middle East with the requirements for supporting Torch and the pre-invasion air operations over Europe.
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<p>The first reinforcements to arrive in the Middle East were unexpected. The HALPRO detachment staged through Egypt for its Ploesti raid on 11 June. The crews that got their B-24Ds back to Fayid stayed there waiting for orders. Then Major General Lewis H. Brereton flew in from India with a detachment of nine beat-up B-17s from the 9th Bombardment Squadron, all that 10AF could spare from its meager strength. On 28 June, Brereton activated the United States Army Middle East Air Forces (USAMEAF) with his own and Halverson's detachments as the nucleus.
