Let’s talk about clothes. It cannot have escaped your attention that a storm has burst over a recent White House meeting in which one of the immaculately bearded attendees, in the face of the world’s media, was disrespectfully dressed, and spoke out of turn. In this case the individual was crammed into a pair of dark slacks, wore an irritating national logo on his left breast, refused to sport any accessories associated with wealth or power, such as a wristwatch or cufflinks, while his crumpled shirt and lace-up shoes were a fashion disaster. He was seated opposite the president of Ukraine.
Many Republican figures in and out of government have jumped on the bandwagon of criticising President Zelensky’s mode of dress, but in all honesty Vice President J.D. Vance took the biscuit, sporting a blue necktie so long it looked like a prison escape rope, and skin-tight trousers that seemed to finish, like a boy scout’s, at mid-calf-level. Finally, the black leather shoes of former Marine Corps combat photographer, Vance, Corporal, J.D, at whom I think Major Caddick-Adams once shouted during a ticklish moment on operations in Iraq, must have caused extreme distress to his boot camp instructors. As they would have said to me, “More elbow grease, Sir. Your polishing skills are as much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle!”
However, less about what went wrong in the White House. The choice of garb of the defender of Ukraine was not an issue for King Charles when they shook hands later at Sandringham, his Norfolk home, to which personal invitations are as rare as Trumpian modesty. The immaculate monarch, to whom few across the planet can hold a candle in terms of the cut of his suits, choice of shirts, knots of his ties, and all the accessories, down to the lustre of his footwear, was not in the least concerned at the lion of Kyiv dressing rather less than formally, provided he felt comfortable in the royal presence. However, I am not here to distribute fashion notes to presidents and vice-presidents, for the whole issue merely constitutes another piece of ammunition with which to batter the Lion of Kyiv. In the final analysis, it really doesn’t matter, especially as we’ve been there before.
In the era before an Air Force One existed, early on 11 January 1943 the wheelchair-bound President Roosevelt was covertly carried aboard a flying boat in Miami. The Boeing 314, dubbed The Dixie Clipper, had been specially chartered from Pan Am. Although no US president had ever flown while in office, the polio-crippled Roosevelt was determined to reach North Africa for a top-secret meeting, codenamed Symbol, with his wartime compadre, Winston Churchill.
Their first encounter over dinner on 29 July 1918, when both were cabinet ministers, had not gone well, Roosevelt recalling the Briton, “acted like a stinker and was one of the few men in public life who was rude to me”. Later as premiers, they had enjoyed time together over 22 December-14 January 1941-42, when America first found itself at war. Churchill invited himself to the White House, took over the second-floor Rose Suite as a mini-headquarters, established a map room, and altered the daily presidential rhythm with strictly-enforced 2-hour afternoon naps, and special food and drink requests for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
This was when Roosevelt wheeled himself into his guest’s bedroom one evening and caught Churchill emerging “stark naked and gleaming pink from his bath”. As the president, his colour fast-matching Churchill’s, apologised and made to withdraw, Winston announced, “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the President of the United States”. Through it all, the Roosevelts were much amused by Churchill’s redesign of a zip-fronted boiler suit. Generously cut, with a belt, an array of roomy pockets, and pleats to the trouser fronts, the workmanlike garment caught the wartime mood of both nations.
It spelled out a leader determined to roll up his sleeves and defeat his foes. Although people today might call it a “onesie”, Winston had his zippered boiler suits specially designed by his London shirtmaker, Turnbull & Asser, in red, bottle green and black velvet for formal occasions, several pin-stripe versions for daily wear, and in business-like blue serge for writing, painting and post-war brick-laying. Several were returned for repair, damaged not through enemy action, but glowing cigar ash. His family privately dubbed them his “rompers”, but the prime minister himself and the English-speaking world knew them as “siren suits”.
For his 1943 journey Roosevelt flew via refuelling stops at Trinidad, and Belém on the coast of Brazil, crossed the Atlantic to Dakar in the Gambia, then was whisked over the Atlas Mountains at 15,000 feet to Casablanca. For eight days F.D.R. and Churchill schemed by day and relaxed at night over cocktails and dinner parties, for which the prime minister wore siren suits, plus black velvet slippers with his intertwined initials, W.S.C., embroidered on each toe. As the presidential entourage was preparing to leave the next day, Winston’s personal physician, Lord Moran, recalled his master “put on the most eccentric outfit I have ever seen: his rompers over pyjamas, monogrammed slippers, an air commodore’s cap, and his favourite Chinese silk dressing gown with black velvet collar and cuffs, on which crimson-and-gold dragons chased one another around his portly frame. Impulsive as ever, like this he then hopped into Roosevelt’s car for the trip to the airport, to prolong their amiable encounter”.
And there we have it: President Zelensky’s attitude to argument and attire positively pales in comparison to an earlier American president being flashed and harangued by another premier, who refused to conform to any known modes of conventional dress, being otherwise engaged in leading his nation in war. Long may it continue.
It was at the Casablanca Symbol Conference that the Western leaders formulated a new aerial policy, issued on 21 January 1943 to their respective air forces: “Your primary objective will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.” The First part was addressed to the American Eighth Air Force stationed in England, while the second, dealing with the morale of the German people, was for Sir Arthur Harris’ RAF Bomber Command. It effectively endorsed what both forces had already been attempting, but required them to increase the tempo of their operations. The Anglo-American alliance realised that to gain and maintain a foothold in France, they would need complete mastery of the air, with Germany’s war-making capacity destroyed and its air force dispersed, harried and destroyed.
The degradation of Russian airpower by Ukraine began quite early in the current war
This is not dissimilar to the air war being waged in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict today. With most headlines taken up by tank and warship losses, and a largely stagnant land battle, many observers have been puzzled by the relative lack of activity in the air. The latest Ukrainian Defence Ministry figures, if even half true, show that Russia’s Soviet-era defence stockpiles are being fast eroded: 10,177 tanks, 21,157 armored fighting vehicles, 23,626 artillery systems, 1,299 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,081 air defence systems, 26,645 drones, 38,444 vehicles and 370 aircraft, including roughly equal numbers of fixed-wing types and helicopters. However, the low number of aircraft and high number of drones indicate the true nature of combat in the east. It is still being dominated by vast air raids of the kind directed by Churchill and Roosevelt in 1943, except that the majority of machines employed are unmanned.
The degradation of Russian airpower by Ukraine began quite early in the current war, with drone strikes in December 2022 on an airfield at Kursk and another on the Engels air base, 125 miles southwest of Moscow and home to Russia’s fleet of strategic Tupolev 95 and 160 bombers. Further attacks left four of Moscow’s Illyushin-76 transport aircraft “engulfed in flames” on 23 August 2023, at an airbase near Pskov on the Russo-Estonian border, 500 miles north of Kyiv. In another instance, deep unmanned penetration raids hit Morozovsk airfield in the Rostov region, taking out six Russian fighters on 5 April 2024. Four months later, on 15 August 2024, drones targeted four Russian airfields, wounding military personnel, damaging communications centres, and “destroying at least one Sukhoi-34 fighter-bomber”, according to Kyiv.
However, Russia’s relentless raids are of a different order, being indiscriminate and aimed at apartment blocks, shopping centres, schools, hospitals, churches and universities. On 2 September last year, President Zelensky noted on social media: “In the past week, Russia has launched over 160 missiles of various types, 780 guided aerial bombs, and 400 strike drones of different kinds against our people.” Last month, on the eve of the third anniversary of the 24 February 2022 invasion, Russia unleashed an overnight raid of 267 unmanned craft and three ballistic missiles, designed to destroy the Ukrainian will to resist. “This was the largest attack, a record,” asserted Ukraine’s president, adding that most had been shot down en route. The remotely-piloted war is escalating, with the total number of devices launched by Russia in February 2025 alone totalling 3,902 machines, mostly propeller-driven, Iranian-designed Shahed-136s, which typically carry around 100 pounds of high explosive. Lumbering along at around 120 mph, they can be brought down easily, but the challenge lies with the numbers. Ukraine’s Air Force Command observed that roughly half of the incoming Shaheds were lethal but half were decoys designed to exhaust their air defences. They are a curious response from a country allegedly wanting peace and supposedly encouraging ceasefire negotiations.
In retaliation, over 25-26 February, Ukraine reported a focussed attack on the seaport of Tuapse, one of the key cargo ports of the Russian Federation on the Black Sea, which hosts an oil terminal, and a rail and logistics hub that processes significant volumes of coal, mineral fertilizers, metal products and grain. Refinery strikes, echoing the oil plant raids of 1944, have been common, with the Syzran, Ryazan and Volgograd oil complexes and a gas processing plant in Astrakhan being forced to close this year, according to Russian sources, due to successful Ukrainian drone attacks. Ryazan alone used to process 5 percent of Russia’s output in 2024, producing 4.3 million tons of fuel oil, 3.4 million of diesel, 2.2 million of gasoline, and one million tons of jet fuel.
None of this would have seemed out of place to the allied leaders and their air force commanders who met at Casablanca. On 3 June 1943, their instructions were refined to include attacks on Luftwaffe “airframe, engine and component factories and the ball-bearing industry on which the strength of the German fighter force depends; aircraft repair depots, and the destruction of fighters in the air and on the ground”, in order to pave the way for the invasion of France the following year. In other words, precisely the target set President Zelensky has directed against Russia. The wording of this directive, codenamed Pointblank, soon bore fruit with U.S. attacks on German ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt on 17 August 1943, and the Messerschmitt plant in nearby Regensburg. However, American losses totalled 60 of the 367 planes deployed, with 5 more ditched near or over England, and 17 damaged beyond repair. A second Schweinfurt mission on 14 October (thereafter known as “Black Thursday”) fared no better, with another sixty out of 291 bombers lost, plus 121 suffering irreparable damage. These missions so undermined the Eighth’s confidence in its heavy bombers to self-defend that the Americans temporarily suspended such ambitious long-range daylight raids.
To settle their dues with the German air force, they switched tactics to “bait and kill” missions to reduce the Luftwaffe’s effectiveness. American bombers were to become the lure to draw their opponents into the air, where they would be swamped in air-to-air combat. In January 1944 the outstanding and innovative Jimmy Doolittle took over the Eighth in England and by late January had sufficient numbers of fighters fitted with external fuel tanks to resume the bombing of Germany. These had the range to escort raids all the way and back. Top of his inherited agenda was the plan made by his predecessor and the RAF’s Sir Arthur Harris for a massive series of attacks to establish air supremacy in Europe once and for all. The timetable was tight: the Luftwaffe had to be made to use up its resources in intercepting allied aircraft ahead of the coming invasion of France that summer. Attrition of the Luftwaffe over Germany would bring air superiority over Normandy.
This would be one of history’s few examples of a major battle fought to achieve a decision elsewhere in place and time. Doolittle altered U.S. fighter escort doctrine. “From now on,” he ordered, “the mission of the fighters will not be to bring the bombers back safely, but simply to shoot down Germans”. His new policy, allowing “targets of opportunity”, which encouraged pilots to use their initiative, is a good example of the more modern military concept of mission command, where soldiers are given a task but not a straitjacketed set of orders on how to achieve it. This evolved into Operation Argument, later known as “Big Week”, a concentrated period of day and night missions against aircraft factories and airfields, at the same time destroying as many Luftwaffe machines as possible wherever they could find them. Much time was wasted waiting for good weather, then exactly 81 years ago, clearer skies allowed “Big Week” to begin.
RAF Bomber Command opened the campaign overnight on 19-20 February with a raid on Messerschmitt factories in Leipzig. A total of 816 “heavies” set out: 561 Lancasters, 255 Halifaxes, led by seven Mosquitos. Interceptions of the Leipzig-bound aircraft commenced over the North Sea and having found them, like the relentless hornets they were, German night-fighters stayed with the stream all the way to the target, and back. However, they had to be careful, for the Luftwaffe had just lost Manfred Meurer, one of its highest scoring aces with 65 claims, who in January had flown too close to his last victim, a Lancaster, which exploded and took his Heinkel 219 with it.
A strong tail wind put Harris’ RAF raiders over their target too early, obliging them to circle and await their Pathfinders, resulting in four lost to collisions and twenty to flak. Leipzig received 2,300 tons of bombs which destroyed an aircraft factory, but 78 “heavies” failed to return from night-fighter interceptions, flak, collisions and other causes. The experience of Q-Queenie, a 166 Squadron Lancaster from Kirmington in Lincolnshire was not untypical.
“After a couple of uneventful hours,” its crew debriefing notes recorded:
… attacked by two Messerschmitts over Stendal. Electrical system fused and all lights came on. Mid-upper gunner badly wounded and rear turret damaged. Aileron control lost and only possible to apply left rudder. Rear gunner gave good commentary, but Pilot unable to carry out manoeuvres ordered. Order to bail out given, but cancelled when Mid-upper Gunner found unconscious and could not be moved. Bombs jettisoned at 03:30. Wireless Operator put lights out by removing fuses and Navigator plotted course home. Although badly wounded & fainted thrice from loss of blood, Flight Engineer transferred fuel from damaged petrol tanks and kept engines running. Crash-landed at Manston [Kent] at 06:05.
The Daily Mirror reported “Crippled Bomber, Lights Full On, Won Dog Fight,” but Harris lost 420 RAF flyers that night, almost the precise number of Fighter Command pilots killed in the Battle of Britain. With 9.5 percent of his total force failing to return, Leipzig became the heaviest Bomber Command loss to that point.
Big Week continued early the following morning, Sunday 20 February, with just over one thousand U.S. Eighth Air Force heavy bombers, escorted by 835 fighters, attacking 12 aircraft factories across Germany. With 3 airmen awarded Medals of Honor for valour, and of 21 out of 1,003 bombers and 4 fighters missing, Doolittle was well-pleased with the outcome. However, German pilots were startled at the novelty of American fighters operating so deep into Germany, and finding themselves suddenly pursued by hostile airmen. The hunters had become the hunted.
That night, 20-21 February, a clearly nervous Harris signalled his men this time to attack Stuttgart in southwest Germany. A force of 598 heavies was assembled, including fifteen Lancasters of 49 Squadron, flying from RAF Fiskerton in Lincolnshire. Their crews had barely returned from Leipzig the previous night, before Air Vice Marshal Rice at No. 1 Group called for another effort to hit Germany. Just before midnight, the first “Lanc” climbed into sleet-ridden skies followed by ten more. As the twelfth, R-Roger, gathered speed, it veered off the runway. While the pilot grappled to retain control, the undercarriage collapsed, scraping along the hardstanding in a fury of sparks, forcing a hasty evacuation as fire took hold.
Despite efforts by crash crews, the conflagration could not be contained and R-Roger’s load, a 4,000-pound “cookie”, ignited scattering pieces of Lancaster and concrete over a wide radius. With their runway replaced by a smoking crater, the remaining three Lancasters had to abort. Eventually 587 of Harris’ machines made it to Stuttgart where diversionary operations had drawn away night-fighters, allowing industrial premises to be smashed. As with all RAF night raids, battle damage assessment by unarmed, high-flying Spitfires, in this case a Mark XI of 542 Squadron, immediately confirmed the destruction in daylight by camera. Harris rejoiced at the scarcely believable loss of only seven Lancasters and a single Halifax, though a further five machines crashed on return to England.
The next raid of Big Week on Monday 21st, saw Fortresses and Liberators of the Eighth attack more airfields, which caused widespread damage at a cost of 16 aircraft lost, 211 killed, wounded or taken prisoner. While the RAF rested that night, more heavy bombers of the Eighth raided German factories and airbases on Tuesday 22 February accompanied by others of the Italy-based Fifteenth Air Force, who also bombed similar targets. Poor weather on Wednesday prevented the Eighth from flying, and the Italy-based bombers took the strain by attacking southern Germany.
Improved weather on Thursday 24 February saw more raids against Schweinfurt, object of the disastrous raids in 1943, Gotha near Weimar, and targets in Poland, while the Fifteenth sent others to attack aircraft-components plants in Austria. That night, Harris wrapped up the offensive with a visit to Augsburg. RAF Bomber Command split their 594 bombers into two streams arriving separately and enjoying a clear night, destroying many factories, though Augsburg’s mediaeval heart was also burnt out, due to the low evening temperature that froze fire hoses solid. Harris was heartened by concluding Big Week with losses of just 21 aircraft (3.6 percent) of the evening’s force.
During Operation Argument, conducted exactly 81 years ago, RAF Bomber Command dropped 9,198 tons of bombs in 2,351 sorties, the Eighth Air Force delivered 8,231 tons of munitions in 3,880 bomber sorties plus 2,548 for their escorts, while the Fifteenth Air Force, commanded from Bari, Italy, supported by a more fragile supply chain, managed 600 sorties. Analysing Luftwaffe records, we now know they destroyed 355 fighters in the air, ten percent of those sent into battle, though wilder claims for 600 downed machines were made in U.S. debriefing rooms. The Luftwaffe responded to the massive pressure by removing aircraft from the East and West to defend the Reich, but one basic truth it could not overcome: the German Air Force was now too small to counter the allies in the clouds. Big Week had achieved its aim, with most German fighters thereafter withdrawn from France to defend German airspace. Each aircraft protecting the Reich meant one less Luftwaffe machine over Normandy on D-Day.
Kyiv, like a judo player, is using skill and agility to degrade its opponents’ military capabilities
In total, more than 140 United Kingdom airfields were constructed for the Americans, garrisoned by over 385,000 U.S. air force personnel. They would fly a third of a million sorties during their thousand days of being stationed in Britain, of which Big Week was the most significant period. Now only the ghosts of the aviators and their long-gone machines whisper across the fields of Lincolnshire and flatlands of East Anglia. Their effort and sacrifice in winning the war is commemorated at the American Air Museum in Duxford, the RAF International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln, and splendid Memorial at Hyde Park Corner.
Churchill and Roosevelt would recognise that Big Week is echoed every day and night in the Russo-Ukraine War today, with missile and drone attacks on precisely the same target sets. Kyiv, like a judo player, is using skill and agility to degrade its opponents’ military capabilities. Russia prefers the boxing ring, as a heavyweight slugging it out against Zelensky’s people. Both are jockeying for position before peace, whenever it happens, breaks out.
