Word: spaatz
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Spaatz was Chief of Air Staff under Arnold, and the following year went to England to set up the Eighth Air Force. Late in 1942 he headed south to command the Allied Northwest African Air Forces through the Mediterranean campaigns, and last January he returned to England to boss all U.S. heavy bombing in Europe...
Life in X-House. In Britain today Spaatz's private life consists mainly of the four to eight hours he sleeps nightly in the spacious, big-windowed bedroom of "X-House," a comfortable, 19th-Century brick pile in a London suburb. There, as he did in Africa, he leads a kind of corporate, family existence, with his staff as family, and himself as patriarch, straw boss and referee...
Here General Spaatz lives in the most informal style of any of the Allied military commanders...
...most notable member of the official family is Spaatz's WAC aide, Captain Sally Bagby, a tall, slim brunette from New Haven, Mo., who functions as the General's confidential secretary, personal batwoman, mess hostess, badminton opponent ("I'm the only one he can beat"), wardrobe checker-upper and last line of defense against bores and time-wasters...
Most of the House family gather in Sally's room before dinner to gossip about the day's events, then they move on to Spaatz's office for drinks around the big table with guests. Sally serves the first round, then guests do their own pouring. The General, who is usually cutting someone's throat at cribbage beside the fire, sets up a hungry cry: "Sally, bring the anchovies!" and Sally reaches for a can opener. Mrs. Spaatz keeps a steady flow of ingenious crackers, biscuits, anchovies, kippers, sardines, smoked cheese and the like crossing...