Page 78 - Demo

78map%u2019 and, once you have a map, you know that if you follow it you will eventually reach your destination. The destination, in this case, was the creation of an independent USAF, which eventually happened in 1947, but one wonders whether they would have made it without the RAF%u2019s example. To make the point, I would like to quote from the proceedings of an Anglo8American seminar held in this theatre in 1990.1 Maj8Gen Ramsay Potts ended his contribution by saying: %u2018I would like to make a final comment and it is about the way that the USAAF viewed the RAF as a model. All the senior commanders that I was associated with had an admiring envy of the RAF. They were separate from the army; they haddistinctive ranks and they had a separate and independent Air Force that had equal status with the army and the navy. Our men all wanted that, and they wanted it more than anything. I recall an incident in Japan when I was working for General Anderson as his Executive Officer. We had a dinner for him and Seversky, the famous aircraft designer, who got up to propose a toast to %u201cAir Chief Marshal%u201d Orville Anderson2, and General Anderson broke down and wept. He was so absolutely overcome. More than anything in the world that is what he wanted and that is also what the senior officers in the Air Force wanted. They wanted a separate Air Force, and they wanted one like the RAF. And that, in September 1947, is eventually what we got.%u2019%u0004%u001affi%u0006 3%u0017%u0013%,%u0017%u0006 %u0019+(&