Mediterranean Air Command

Mediterranean Air Command
Active February 18 – December 10, 1943 (1943-02-18 – 1943-12-10)
Allegiance Allies of World War II
Type Major Command
Engagements

The Mediterranean Air Command (MAC) was an Allied air force command active in the North African and Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO) between February 18 and December 10, 1943. MAC was commanded by Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, whose headquarters were established next to those of Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower at Algiers, Algeria for planning the Allied campaigns in Tunisia, Pantelleria, Sicily, and the invasion of mainland Italy during World War II.[1]

Formation

After Operation Torch in November 1942, the U.S. Army 12th Air Force established bases in Morocco and Algeria. This made it necessary for the US Army Air Forces to coordinate operations with the Allied ground forces and the RAF which had been fighting Axis forces (primarily in Egypt and Libya)for two years. Thus, coordination and cooperation between the USAAF, the RAF, and the Allied naval and ground forces were a major concern to British and American leaders at the Casablanca Conference. Effective February 18, 1943, Allied air forces were reorganized into the Mediterranean Air Command.

Objectives

To promote cooperation between the USAAF and RAF, it was intended that a unit commander from one Air Force would be assigned a deputy commander from the other Air Force. A major exception to this convention existed in MAC itself where Tedder's Deputy Commander-in-Chief was Air Vice Marshal H. E. P. Wigglesworth. MAC Chief of Staff was American Brigadier General Howard A. Craig who was schooled in desert warfare army-air operations by both Tedder and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. In keeping with the new convention, Spaatz's deputy in the Northwest African Air Forces was Air Vice Marshal James Robb who handled NAAF operations.[2] NAAF was the principal sub-command of MAC and its substructure was based on the successful air interdiction model of the RAF pioneered and developed by Tedder as Commander-in-Chief of Middle East Command and Air Vice Marshal Arthur Coningham as Air Officer Commanding of Air H.Q. Western Desert in 1942. The primary forces used for cooperative strategic, naval, and close air support of ground forces by Tedder and Coningham in Egypt and Libya had consisted of:

Flexible coordination of RAF with the 8th Army during this period has been contrasted with the more rigid relationship between the Luftwaffe and German ground forces.[3] One RAF tactic, the Tedder Carpet, consisted of squadrons of successive bombers dropping a rolling barrage of bombs just ahead of their own advancing forces. This influenced the nickname of the 12th Bombardment Group; namely, The Earthquakers. Another close air support tactic involved the highly mobile leap-frogging of interspersed landing fields to facilitate the performance of: 1) attack; 2) top cover; and 3) reserve (refueling) fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons.

In keeping with the RAF model, planners at the Casablanca Conference invested NAAF with three major combat commands:[4]

Air interdiction using strategic, coastal, and tactical air forces was further implemented, practiced, and developed by NAAF throughout the Tunisian, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns.

Lewis Brereton's 9th Air Force was assigned to Sir Sholto Douglas' RAF Middle East Command although the 9th's 57th and 79th Fighter Groups were part of No. 211 (Offensive Fighter) Group in NATAF's Western Desert Air Force under Air Vice Marshal Harry Broadhurst, its 324th Fighter Group was part of XII Air Support Command under Major General Edwin House, and its 12th & 340th Bombardment Groups became part of the Tactical Bomber Force under Air Commodore Laurence Sinclair.

The US 12th Air Force, the largest air force ever assembled following its inception several months earlier, ceased to exist in the new MAC organization. The 12th Air Force simply disappeared as its groups were distributed among the various NAAF commands listed in the table above. The sole remaining reference to the 12th Air Force among the higher tier commands was House's XII Air Support Command which along with Broadhurst's Western Desert Air Force, Sinclair's Tactical Bomber Force, and Air Commodore Sir Kenneth Cross' No. 242 Group RAF, became subordinate commands of Coningham's NATAF. Prior to the invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in July 1943, No.242 Group became part of Lloyd's NACAF.

The Mediterranean Air Command was disbanded on December 10, 1943 and succeeded by the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces (MAAF).

Citations

  1. ↑ Craven, 1949.
  2. ↑ Richards, 1953.
  3. ↑ House, Jonathan M., Combined arms warfare in the twentieth century, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, ISBN 0-7006-1081-2.
  4. ↑ Craven, 1949.

References

  • Craven, Wesley F. and James L. Cate. The Army Air Forces in World War II, Volume 2, Chicago, Illinois: Chicago University Press, 1949 (Reprinted 1983, ISBN 0-912799-03-X).
  • Richards, D. and H. Saunders, The Royal Air Force 1939-1945 (Volume 2, HMSO, 1953).
  • Howe, George F., Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West, Center of Military History, Washington, DC., 1991.
  • Army Air Forces Historical Office Headquarters, Participation of the Ninth & Twelfth Air Forces in the Sicilian Campaign, Army Air Forces Historical Study No. 37, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 1945.
  • C.J.C. Molony, F.C. Flynn, H.L. Davies, and T.P. Gleave, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, Vol. V, The Campaign in Sicily 1943 and the Campaign in Italy, 3 September 1943 to 31 March 1944, London: HMSO, 1973.
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