The Desert Air Force (DAF), also known chronologically as Air Headquarters Western Desert, Air Headquarters Libya, the Western Desert Air Force, and the First Tactical Air Force (1TAF), was an Allied tactical air force initially created from No. 204 Group under RAF Middle East Command in North Africa in 1941 to provide close air support to the British Eighth Army. Throughout World War II, DAF was made up of squadrons from the British Royal Air Force (RAF), the South African Air Force (SAAF), the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), and other Allied air forces.
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Famous quotes containing the words desert air, desert, air and/or force:
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
—Thomas Gray (1716–1771)
“It’s alive and waiting for you. Ready to kill you if you go too far. The sun will get you, or the cold at night. A thousand ways the desert can kill.”
—Harry Essex (b. 1910)
“Old among the young, poor among the rich, I adopt an air of indefinable superiority.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“When we can drain the Ocean into mill-ponds, and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in gas jars; then may we hope to comprehend the infinitudes of man’s soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)