The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

F U N D A M E N T A L B A S E S O F S T R A T E G Y
last ARCADIA session on the 14th was submitted to the President
and Prime Mini~ter.~’Although the principal features of the plan
were never challenged, it was subsequently revised in a draft of 24
January and adopted on 10 February.73 This final version formed, as
it were, the constitutional framework for the combined direction of
the war; and in view of the remarkable success of Anglo-American
collaboration, it may be considered as one of the most significant
documents in the long history of military alliances.
T h e most important element in the new machinery was the Com-
bined Chiefs of Staff (CCS). Actually, that body had existed at
ARCADIA; what was new was the designation and the provision for
continuous rather than periodic sessions. In choosing the title, Amer-
ican rather than British usage was followed: the term “combined”
was officially defined as connoting collaboration between two or more
of the United Nations, “joint” as connoting collaboration between
two or more services of a single nation. This provided a more precise
designation than had existed before, though in respect to the sub-
sidiary agencies it reversed rather than confirmed earlier practice; thus
the group which had been commonly referred to as the Joint Plan-
ning Committee now became the Combined Planning Staff (CPS).
T h e Combined Chiefs of Staff was to sit normally in Washington,
with regularly scheduled meetings. It was to consist of the United
States chiefs of staff and the British chiefs of staff or, in their absence
from Washington, of their duly appointed representatives. For the
British this meant dual representation. Their members of the CCS
were Adm. Sir Dudley Pound, Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, and Air Chief
Marshal Sir Charles Portal, representing the three services, and Field
Marshal Sir John Dill representing Mr. Churchill as Minister of De-
fense. Sir John Dill was to remain in Washington after the departure
of his three colleagues, and with him were to act, vice those members,
the British Joint Staff Mission-Adm. Sir Charles Little, Gen. Sir Col-
ville Wemyss, and Air Marshal Arthur T. Harris. T h e United States
members consisted of Adm. Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Opera-
tions; Adm. Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet; Gen.
George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, U. S. AEmy; and Lt. Gen. H. H.
Arnold, Chief, AAF and Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Army.
T h e use of the existing British Chiefs of Staff Committee as a model
for the new organization raised two awkward questions. In the British
system, the R A F enjoyed the same status as the older services, with
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