 In the words of Air Force historian Alan Stephens, "Jones was the head of his service, but he was neither unambiguously its senior officer, nor presiding over a unified command ...The system of divided command... was not an ideal arrangement, but with men of goodwill it could have worked.Regrettably Bostock and Jones were not of that mind..."

Friction between the two senior officers over the command structure rapidly deteriorated into a state of "complete obduracy", and remained so until the end of the war.