The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War ll

D-Dnv1944

Air Power Over the

Normandy Beaches and BeYond

Richard P. Hallion

Air Force Historian

Air Force History and Museums Program

1994
June 6,1944

Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion-like

William the Conqueror's before it or the Inchon landing

afterwards-will long be studied as a classic in military

planning, logistics, and operations. Overlord depended

to a remarkable degree upon the use of air power in

virtually all its forms. A half-century ago, aircraft were

primitive vehicles of war compared to the modern attackers of the Gulf War era" with their precision weapons,

advanced navigational, sensor systems, and communications. Yet, the airplane still had a profound impact upon

the success of the invasion. Simply stated without air

power, Normandy would have been impossible.
Plonning for Overlord

By D-Day, June 5, LgM, the Allies had been planning for the

invasion of Europe for more than two years. In August 1943, the

Combined Chiefs of Staff had approved the general tactical plan

for the invasion, dubbed Overlord. GeneralDwightD. Eisenhower,

Commander of the European theater since February 19t14, would

be responsible for carryring off this bold gambit. The Allies' main

strategy, in Eisenhower's words, was to

. . . land amphibious and airborne forces on the Normandy coast

between Le Hawe and the Cotentin Peninsula and, with the successful

establishment of a beachhead with adequate Ports, to drive along the

lines of the Loire and the Seine rivers into the heart of France. destroying

the German strength and freeing France.

The Allies believed that the enemy would resist strongly on the

line of the Seine and later on the Somme, but surprisingly, once

ground forces had broken through the relatively static lines of the

bridgehead at Saint-L0 and inflicted heavy casualties on enemy

troops in the Falaise Pocket, Nazi resistance in France disappeared.

Britiih and American armies swept east and northin an unimpeded

advance which brought them to the German frontier and the defenses of the Siegfried Line.

Air Power: Crilicollo Success on D-Doy

From the beginning Eisenhower and the rest of the combined

forces planners recognized that air power would be critical to

success of Overlord. Experience had taught planners to avoid

facing hostile air power over the battlefront. This meant that the

Luftwaffe would have to be destroyed, but not at the price of

sacrificing vitally needed air support missions for air superiority

ones.

Fortunately, in early 1944 the Luftwaffe was on the skids. By the

fall of 1943, Republic P-4TThunderbolts equipped withlong-range

"drop" tanks were inflicting heavy losses on German fiStrters over

Occupied Europe and in the German periphery. Thery in December

1943, the North American P-51B Mustang entered service. Featuring superlative handling qualities and aerodynamic design, and

powerba by a Packard-built Rolts-Royce Merlin engine, the P-5,18

(and its successors, the P-51C and P-51D) could escort bomber

strikes to Berlin and back, thanks in part to a symmetrical wing
section that was thick enough to house a large quantity of fuel and

streamlined enough to minihize drag. These trarb fine iircraft were

worthy supplements to the overall Afued strategic bombing effort.

Whatever the bombing campaign may or may not haveiccomplished in destroying enemy resourceg ii did contribute directly to

the D--Day success. Large bomber formations were aerial magnets

that drew up the Luftwiffe to be destroyed by the American fi[trter

force.'The omnipresent Thunderbolts ind Mustangs (and lesi frequently P-38_ Lightnings) gave the Luftwaffe no re-spite over Germany, complementing the shorterJegged Spitfires and Hawker

Typhoons of the Royal Air Force.

- 

Between January and June 1944--the five months before D-Daythe Luftwaffe was effectively destroyed: 2,262 Getman fightef piIots died during that time. In May albne, no less than 25 plerceni of.

Germany's total fighterpilot force (which averaged 2,283 at anyone

time during this period) perished. During Big Week" Americin air

forces targeted the German aircraft induJtryTor special treatmen!

while production continued, the fighter -force ^took staggering

losses. In March 1944, fully Ed pnrint of the available Germai

fighters were lost, dippinglo 43'percent in April (as the bomber

eftort switched to Germany's peholeum production), and rising

again to just over 50 percent in May, on thl eve of Normandy. N6

wonder, thery that th-e Luftwaffe could contribute less than fhundred sorties to the defense of Normandy. Months of concentrated

air warfare had given the Allies not only ur superiority, but air

supremacy as well.

BlsicaJly,- the Allied air campaign for the invasion of Europe

c_onsisted- of three phases. First, Afiied fighters would attempt io

9"rtlo;r Jfq Luftwiffe. The second phase" called for isolatin! the

battlefield by interdicting road and rail networks. And oncE the

invasion began, Allied air forces would concentrate on battlefield

interdiction and close air support. The requirements to keep the

landing sites_secret-particuia'rly the deception to encouragb the

Germans to devote th6ir greatesf aftention in the region of tfre pas

de Calais--complicated t-he air campaign. Strike planners had to

schedule vastly more operations across ihe sweep 6f [kely landing

sites rather than just at the true site of Overlord. For ixample]

rocket:armed Boyal Air Force Hawker Typhoon fighter-bom6ers

of the Second Tactical Air Force (2 TAF) alticked tdo radar installations outside the planned assault area for every one they attacked

withinit.

2
Two P47D Thunderbolb bke off on a bombgr escort mission.

fhe "Deserf Fox" on fhe Beoches

Entrusted with the defense of Nazi-occupied Europe from the

Allies, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel realized that he faced a most

critical challenge. The Panzer and Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber units

that he might want to defend the West were, instead, needed for

the Eastern Fron! and, of course, aircraft like the Stuka simply

could not be expected to survive in the face of intensive Allied air

and ground defbnses. In 194O France had confronted the specterof

defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany. Now the shoe was on the

other foot.

The "Desert Fox" emphasized meeting and defeating the invasion forces on the beach. Rommel understood that if the Allies got

a toehold onthe continent, itwouldbe extremely difficult, probably

impossible, to remove them. The field marshal discussed the upcoming invasion frequently with his naval aide, Vice Admiral

Friedri"ch Ruge, and the Allie]d air theat figured prominently in his

thoughts. On one occasiory as Rommel inspected a gun battery on

the coast, two British fighters roared overhead. His staff members

scattered at the low-level approach, but Rommel defiantly re-
mained standing in plain view. Perhaps the "Desert Fox" was

subconsciously attempting to offset, by this theatrical (if foolhardy)

gesture, the crushing Allied air advantage that he knew was d-eployed against the Cerman forces.

On April 27, forty days before the invasion, Admiral Ruge confided in his diary thit he found the disparity between the Luftwaffe

and the Allied air forces "humiliating.tr By May 12, he was reporting

"massive" air attacks, though troops often exiggerated the imouni

of actual damage. On the 30th, with "numeroir-s aircraft above ut

none of them German," Ruge narrowly missed being bombed into

the Seine by a raid that dropped the bridge at Gaill6n. At 0135 on

Jun-e 5, as Ruge and other sinior staff officers regaled themselves

with tales of the Kaiser's army and real and imagined conditions

around the world, the German Seventh Armyleported Allied

parachutists landing on the Cotentin peninsula.'Overlord was underway. Time had run out for Rommel, and the countdown to the

ignominy of the bunker in Berlin had begun.

Assembling the Allied TocticolAir Forces

As Overlord embarked upon its preparatory phase, tactical air

power- increasingly came into play. Two great tactical air forces

existed to support the ground fories in thi invasion-the AAF's

Ninth Air Fofc;r and the"RAF's Second Tactical Air Force. Both were

under the overall command of Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal

Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. In additiorg of course, Eisenhower and

his ground commanders could call upon strategic aviation as required, in the form of the AAF's Eighth Air"Force and Great

Britain's Bomber Command.

In June 1944 the Ninth Air Force consisted of several commands,

including the IX Fighter Command. The IX Fighter Command in

turn spawned two Tactical Air Commands, the iX TAC and the XIX

TAC. IX TAC had three fighter wings, and the XIX TAC had two.

Each of. these fighter wings contained at least three-and usually

four-, fighte^r groups, a group typically consisting of three fighter

squadrons. Of the two, IX TAC was the "heavv"; it could muster no

less than eleven fighter groups, while the XIX TAC could muster

seven. From late 1943 to early LgM, lX Fighter Command had

sqryed p_rimarily as a trainingheadquartersfunder the command

of Brig. Gen. Elwood Quesada. Eventually Quesada assumed command of the IX TAC, and Brig. Gen. Otto p. ,'Opie" Weyland took

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over XIX TAC. No in-theater formalized structure linked the Ninth

and its subordinate commands directly to specific land forces units/

though there was a general understanding that the IX TAC would

support the First Arhy, and the XX TAC would support Lt G9n.

George Patton's Third Army once the Third became operational in

France nearly two months after D-Day. Eventually, on AuEust 1,

1944, when both Patton's Third Army and Bradley's 12th Army

Group became operational, this arrangement was formalized.

Onthe Britishlide, the RAF's Second Tactical Air Force (2 TAF)

had grown out of initiatives in mid-L943 to structure a "Composite

Group" to support the invasion of Europe. It had risen from the

ashes of the moribund and never-satisfactory Army Co-operation

Command. In January 79M, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham

took command of 2 TAF, and two months later he assumed additional duties as commander of the Advanced Allied Expeditionary

Air Force (AAEAF). Ironically, at this critical point, two serious

command problems arose. Relationships among the RAF commanders, particularly Coningham, Leigh-Mallory, and_Arthur

Tedder (Deputy Supreme Commander for Overlord) were

strained at best. Much more serious was the breakdown between

the RAF commanders and 2l.st Army Group Commander, Field

Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, who also wore an additional

hat as commander of Allied ground forces during the invasion.

While fighting Rommel in the Western desert, Montgomery had

enthusiastkally supported air action in the Mediterranean and

accepted whole-heartedly Coningham's thoughts on air support.

Ironically, Montgomery and the RAF now came to disagree over

the relationship between the air and the land commander.

Montgomery paid lip service to the concept of independent air

action, but his actioni in early 1944 clearly indicate that he considered his equals in the RAF mirely adviseis. For their part, Coningham and Tedder nursed grudges going back to the plodding

advance after second El Alamein and Montgomery's notorious

slowness during the pursuit of Rommel's retreating forces.

For the airmery the critical question in Overlord was how rapidly

Montgomery would advance to seize airfields so Allied tactical air

forces would not have to operate across the Channel, frombases in

England. In fact, this issueiurned out to be far less importantthan

originally thought. Bases were quickly hacked out of the Normandy terrairy often only a few thousand yards from opposing

Germin forces. Montgomery's planned advance from the beachhead (which the airrien considered too slow) turned out to be
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Abbrevietions and SymbolE

AF Air Force * Liason and Cootdination TAC Tactical Air Command 

- 

Air Chain of Command TAF Tactical Air Force 

-- 

Land Chain ol Command BD Bombardmenl Group AG Army Group Fr French Can Canadian GP Group (RAF) wG Wing (RAF)

SHAEF Supreme Headquarters

Alli€d Erpeditionary Force
instead over-optimistic; the actual advance was even slower. Given

this, Allied air power in Normandy proved all important. As hi+'

torian ]ohn Terraine has noted:

History insists that the last wor4 in regard to the Battle of Normandy,

must be that the quanels did not, finally, matter: Allied air power was

so overwhelming that the defeat of Allied intentions on the ground never

threatened disaster, only delay, and that only in the early stages, well

compensated later. But let us be quite clear about it what made the

ultimate victory possible was cnrshing air power.

Britain's 2 TAF consisted of four RAF Groups: No. 2 Group, No.

83 Group No. 84 Group, and No. 85 Group. Of these four, only the

first three were really available forthe air-landbattle in Normandy;

85 Group was under the temporary operational conhol of No. 11

Group attached to an RAF home defense command. No.2 Group

consisted of four wings of Boston, Mitchell and Mosquito light and

medium bombers. No. 83 Group, exclusive of a reconnaissance

wing and some light aircraft used for artillery spotting, contained

one Mustang wing four Spitfire wings, and four Typhoon wings.

No. 84 Group, again exclusive of recce and spotting aircraft, consisted of one Mustangwing five Spitfuewingt and threeTyphoon

wings. As the campaign progressed 2 TAF's subordinate units

directly supported units of the 21st Army Group. Thus, the British

Second Army could rely upon 83 Group, and 84 Group supported

the First Canadian Armv.

Another important relationship, however, evolved between the

Ninth Air Force's IX TAC and the 2 TAF's 83 Group. IX TAC's

Elwood Quesada and 83 Group's commander, Air Vice Marshal

Harry Broadhurst, worked well together. For example, after troops

were ashore at Normandy, control of tactical aircraft passed from

shipboard control centers to two land-based control centers: a IX

TAC control center in the American sector of the beachhead, and

an 83 Group control center located in the British sector. Coningham

later praised the "excellent teamwork" between the two control

centers. This teamwork would be refined even further in the weeks

ahead.

Altogether, the tactical air forces had2,434 fighters and fighterbombers, together with approximately 700 light and medium

bombers available for the Normandy campaign. This force first

struck against the Germans during the preparatory campaign prior

to D-Day. At D minus 50 days, Allied air forces began their interdiction attacks against rail centers; these attacks increased in ferocity and tempo up to the eve of the invasion itself and were
accompanied by strategic bomber raids against the same targets.

The bridge campaign, which aimed at isolating the battlefield by

cutting Seine bridges below Paris and Loire bridges below Orleans,

began on D minus 46. Here, fighter-bombers proved more efficient

than medium or heavy bombers, largely because their agility enabled them to make pinpoint attacks in a way that the larger

bombers, committed to horizontal bombing runs, could not. The

fighter-bombers also had the speed firepower, and maneuverability to evade or even dominate the Luftwaffe. Though ground fire

and (rarely) fighters did claim some attacking fighter-bombers, the

loss rate was considerably less than it would have been with

conventional attack or dive bombers. By D minus 21, Allied air

forces were attacking German airfields within a radius of 130 miles

of the battle area and these operations too continued up to the

assault on the beachhead.

Air Support on the Beoches

During the June 6 D-Day assault itself, a total of 171 squadrons of

British and AAF fighters undertook a variety of tasks in support of

the invasion. Fifteen squadrons provided shippingcover, fifty-four

provided beach cover, thirty-three undertook bomber escort and

offensive fighter sweept thirty-three struck at targets inland from

the landing area, and thirty-six provided direct air support to

invading forces. The Luftwaffe's appearance was so minuscule that

Allied counterair measures against the few German aircraft that did

appear are not worth mentioning.

Of far greater importance was the role of aircraft in supporting

the land battle. As troops came ashore at Normandy, they made an

unpleasant discovery all too familiartotheMarine Corpsand Army

operating in the Pacific campaign. Despite the intensive air and

naval bombardment of coastal defenses, those defenses were, by

and large, intact when the invasion force "hit the beach." This was

particularly true at Omaha beach, where American forces suffered

serious casualties and critical delays. Despite a massive series of

attacks by Eighth Air Force B-17s,V24s and medium bombers in

the early hours ofJune 6, the invading troops were hung up on the

beach. The air commanders themselves had, in fact, predicted that

the air and naval bombardments would not achieve the desired

degree of destruction of German defensive positions. The Army's

general optimism that air would cleanse the beaches before its

8
approach, however, was shattered. Only the subsequent successof

fighter-bombers operating against the battlefield would revive the

Army's confidence in air support. Indeed, throughout the PostNormandy campaign-and in the Second World War as a wholethe fighter-bomber proved overwhelmingly more valuable in

supporting and attacking ground forces in the battle area than did

the heavy or even the medium bomber.

Rodor Adopted to fhe Bottlefield

Drawing upon experience ranging from the Western Desert and

Tunisia through the Sicllian and Italian campaigns, Allied tactical

air control in Normandy and during the subsequent European

campaign was generally excellent. Fundamental to this success was

the wartime evolution of radar. The Allied air forces had radar

availabte to them from the very fust day of Normandy operations,

and it was soon incorporated into tactical air control as well as for

early warning and air defense purposes. Radar had first been used

for tactical air support control during the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, and now, in Normandy and the subsequent breakout, it

reached new levels of refinement. Each TAC had a radar control

group built around a Tactical Control Center (also called a Fighter

Control Center), a microwave early warning radar (dubbed a

MEW), three Forward Director Posts, three or four SCR-584 Close

Control Units (the SCR-584 being a particularly fine precision radar

used for positioning data and antiaircraft gun laying), and, finally

four Direction Finding stations, dubbed Fixer stations. The MEW,

considered the heart of the system, would be located within ten to

thirtv miles of the front.

Oiiginally developed for air defense purposes/ this radar network now took on added importance for the control of tactical air

strikes. For example, when an Air-Ground Coordination Party sent

in a request for immediate air support, that request went directly

to a Combined Operations Center functioning between the TAC

and the Army. There, the Army G-2 and G-3 and the TAC A-2 and

A-3 evaluated the request. Assuming it was considered legitimate,

the Army G-3 and Air A-3 would each approve it, and the Air A-3

would relay it to the Tactical Control Center with a recommended

course of action. Typically, the TCC would relay the request to

airbome fighter-bombert and a geographically appropriate Forward Director Post would furnish precise radar guidance and
navigation information from the MEW and SCR-F84 radars to the

strike flight vectoring them to the target area. Once in the target

area, of course, the strike flight leader wbuld communicate with ihe

Air-Ground Coordination Party that had sent in the request for

final details. For its part, the Air-Ground Coordination Parly would

arrange for artillery to mark the target with colored smoke and also,

if possible, to undertake suppressive artillery fire against known

enemy antiaircraft defenses. Radarwas also used for so-called blind

bombing in conditions of reduced visibility. SCR-584 control eventually enabled blind bombing strikes witli accuracies on the order

of 400 yards from the predete-rmined aiming point, notably during

the Battle of the Bulge in winter 1944-45.

The Air-Armor Porlnership

. 

Normandy's most noteworthy tactical air support development,

however/ was the close partnership befween air and armored

forces, typified by the "armored coluhn cover" missions perfected

!y ttt" F TAC under Quesada. During the Italian campaign, the

British had begun operating so-callediontact cars that-served as

mobile air-ground control posts with armored forces. Now, at

Normandy, 83 Group under Broadhurst placed "contact cars" with

leading British armored forces so that- tactical air units would

always know the precise location of friendly and enemy forces. The

contact cars functioned in close cooperation with tactical reconnaissance aircraft, reducing the time hecessary to set up immediate

sypqort strikes. This scheme proved its value particutarly during

the German retreat out of the Falaise Pocket.

Quesada developed a similar system for the American forces in

Normandy-an ouigrowth of his'commitment to the Army's mission_and his relationship with Omar Bradley, then commander of

the First Army. Bradleyadmired Quesada'iwilingness to regard

air support "as a vast new frontier waiting to be explored." Beciuse

o-f-this, these two strong-willed comman-ders got elong exception4ly ry"lt and felt confident enough to expriss frarik opinions.

Shortly before the Saint-Ld breakoit, Quesada became convinced

that Bradley was reluctant to concentrate his armored forces because of the magnitude of German defensive forces along the front.

So Quesada made a deat if Bradley would concentrate hiJ armor, IX

TAC would furnish an aviator and an aircraft radio for the lead tank

so that it could communicate with fighter-bombers that Quesada

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o

E

d)

lEil* combined [Af"f-9?.c:sOperations I Combat Ops

C€nter f FAC A-ZA-3)

lX Tactical Air Command lmmediate Support System, Summer-Fall 1944

1. Division Air-Ground Coordination Party (AGCP), staffed by Tactical

Air Party Officer (TAPO) and Division G-3 (Air), send direct suPPort

request to Army G-3 at Combined Operations Center (COC) also informing Corps G-3 (Air) so Corps AGCP can monitor or intervene as necessary.

2. Corps AGCP monitors communications net.

3. COC, consisting of Army G-2 and G-3 together with Tactical Air

Command's A-2 and A-3 (termed Combat Operations), consults with

Army HQ and TAC HQ on request; then G-3 and A-3 each aPProve it.

4. A-3 at Combat Ops relays support request and recommended course

of action to Tactical Conrol Center (TCC), also termed Fighter Control

Center.

5. Forward Director Post (FDP), in constant communication with TCC,

provides continuous updates on location of friendly and enemy air units

using microwave early warning (MEW) radar tracking.

6. TCC relays strike request to airbome "on call" fighter-bombers.

7. FDP, usingSCR-584 radar, furnishes precise guidanceand navigation

information to en route strike flight.

8. Division AGCP prepares for incoming strike flight by artillery fire to

mark targets with colored smoke and to suppress enemy air defenses;

AGCP wilI maintain communication with strike flight during attack.

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would have operating over the column from dawn until dark.

Bradley immediately agreed and a pair of M4 Sherman tanks duly

arrived at IX TAC headquarters irrNormandy (only a hedgerow

away from Bradley's own command post) for trial modification.

The modification worked and became a standard element of First

Army-and subsequently 12th Army Group as a whole-operations.

By the end of July 1944, Quesada's armored column cover operations were receiving enthusiastic support from armor and air forces

personnel alike. The 2d Armored Division, for example, had three

air support parties: one with the division commander, and one with

each of its two Combat Commands. Combat Command A (CCA)

found the system particularly useful; their air liaison officer (from

the armored forces) rode in a Sherman tank whose crew was

entirely AAF except for the tank commander. The tank commander

could communicate with his fellow tankers via a SCR-528 radio,

while the air Iiaison officer had a SCR-522 to communicate with the

column cover flight. Column cover consisted of four P-47s relieved

by another flight every thirty minutes. CCA's liaison officer reported:

The planes worked quite dose to us, generally with excellent results . . . .

Our best air (reconnaissance) information came from the column

cover. On occasions G-2 asked me for specific information, and I asked

the planes to get it. In most cases the p bts furnished information to me

without requast, especially that of inemy motor movements. Before

leavingthe flightleader would report to me on likely prospective targets,

and I would pass the information on to the incoming flight commander.

On one occasion we made an unexoected move for which no aL cover

had been provided. Inlormation was ieceived of a group of hostile tanks

in some woods three or four miles away. I called direct to a plane

operating in the zone of another corps and asked him to relay a request

to fighter control center for some fighters. Within 15 minutes about 12

planes reported in to me. I located my tank for the plane commander by

telling him of the yellow panel [used for identification of friendly forces,

and located on the back deck of the tankl, then vectored hirn on to the

woods where the enemy was reported. When he seemed to be over the

target, I told him to cirde and check the woods under him. He located

the tanks, and they were attacked successfully.

In a study done immediately after the war for the United States

Strategic Bombing Survey, the Air Effects Committee of the 12th

Army Group (a committee composed entirely of ground officers,

and thus free of the kinds of built-in bias that might have afflicted

a committee composed of AAF personnel) assessed the role of

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tactical air power in the European campaign. They examined a

number of issues, generating a report (which Bradley signed) that

endorsed the air support system the AAF employed in assistance

to the ground forces. From such document one would hardly

imagine that only two years earlier the AAF and Army Ground

Forces had been at virhral swords' points over the entire air support

issue. The USSBS report stated:

Armored column cover . . . was of particular value in protecting the unit

from enemy air attack and in running interference for the spearhead of

the column by destroying or neutralizing ground opposition that might

slow it down or stop it . . . .

The decision of the Ninth Air Force to give high priority to armoted

column cover in a fast-moving or fluid situation from the break-out in

Normandy to the final drive across Cenlral Europe made a successfuI

contribution to the success of the ground units in breaking through and

encirding thevarious elements of the German armies . . . . [After addressing immediate support needs] the flight leader patrolled ahead of the

armored columry as deep as thirty miles along its axis of advance, in an

intensive search for enemy vehicles, troops or artillery. This effort permitted our armor far greater freedom of action than would have been

otherwise possible.

Normandy operations, typified by Quesada's armored column

cover and Broadhurst's contact cars, thus fulfilled a concept born a

quarter-century earlier, amid the mud of Flanders: the notion of the

airplane as apartner of t}:re tank/ as a "counter antitank" weapon. In

that war, then-Colonel J.F.C. Fuller, Great Britain's greatest armor

advocate, had recognized that cooperation between air and armor

forces was "of incalculable importance." Coincidentally, LeighMallory, the commander of Allied tactical air forces in Normandy/

had commanded a squadron of tank-cooperation aircraft in the

Great War. Perhaps this controversial, gifted airman (who died in

a flying accident in November 1944) reflectedbackin his own mind,

as the Normandy campaign unfolded, to those early days of opencockpitbiplanes and awkward, ungainlytanks and the progression

of both air and land warfare technology since that time.

fhe Tonk's Formidoble Enemies

If the Allied Typhoons and P-47s were friends of British and

American armored forces, they also proved implacable enemies of

German armored mechanized, and infantry forces. This was an

aspect of warfare-the airplane as enemy of the tank-that even the

13
A Bepublic P47D Thunderbolt shown with two sq}lb bombs and an erternal fuel

tank, a typical offensive load carried in the 1944 campaign across France.

formidable Fuller had failed to prophesy. In opposing offensive

mobile armor, as in North Afric4 the fighter-bomber was of limited

use. Now, as German armor typically lay in defensive ambush, or

retreated in tight columns, the rocket- or bomb-loaded fighter

proved devastating.

The Ninth Air Force and the Second Tactical Air Force had vast

quantities of fighter-bombers. IX TAC, for example, had twentyfour squadrons of Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, while 2 TAF h;d

eig_hteen squadrons of Hawker Typhoons. Both were beefy, powerful aircraft, capable of absorbing -onsiderable battle damage and

still returning to base. Of the two, the P-47 was the more survfuable,

in part because it had a radial piston engine. The Typhoon had a

liquid-cooled engine and "chin'i radiator installation that was vulnerable to ground fue. Affectionately known as the Jug the P-47,

on occasion, returned to base not merely with gaping holes from

gnfmy defenses, but with whole cylinders blown off its engine.

Pilot memoirs reveal that while the P-47 was regarded with affection and even fierce loyalty, the Tiffie (as the Typhoon was dubbed)

had earned an uncomfortable respect and awe bordering on fear.

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Both fighter-bombers had for their time, prodigious weaponscarrying capabilities. Both could lug up to a Z000Jb bomb load, one

1,0001b bomb under each wing. Typically, however, both operated

with smaller loads. A P-47 would carry an external belly fuel tank

and one 500-lb bomb under each win& many were also configured

so that the plane could carryr air-to-ground rockets, typically ten

S-in HVARs (high-velocity aircra{t rockets). P-47s on an armed

reconnaissance mission would usually operate three flights, two

armed with a mix of bombs and rockets, and the cover flight

carrying only rockets. Over 80 percent of the bombs dropped by

P-47s during the European campaign were 500-lb weapons; less

than 10 percent were L,0001b bombs, and the difference was made

up by smaller Zffi-lb fragmentation bombs and napalm. While

acknowledging the spectacular effects and destructiveness of rockets, the AAF considered bombs more effective for "road work" due

to accuracy problems in firing the solid-fuel weapons.

The British, on the other hand, preferred rockets, the Typhoon

carrying eight having 60Jb armor-piercing warheads. Possibly this

difference of opinion stemmed from launching methods; the P-47s

The Hawker Typhoon was a most lomidable srvlng-role nghtel, proving itself a

match lor the Bl 109 and FW 190. From [LDay onward, it would make its leput+

tion as a destloyer of Nazi armor and motorized transpon

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used "zero length" launchers while the Typhoons used launch rails.

It could be expected that the rails would impart greater accuracy,

stabilizing the rocket immediately after ignition until it had pickdd

up sufficient speed for its tail fins to stabilize it. (There is, however,

an interesting report from Montgomery's 2Lst Army Group that

questions the aUeged success that British air-to-ground rockets

enjoyed against tanks and motorized transport.)

Besides their bomb and rocket payloads, the P47 and the Typhoon both boasted powerful gun aimaments. The Typhoon hid

four 20mm Hispano cannon. The P-47 carried eight .50 cal. machine

gu-ns with 400 rounds per gurL and it proved "particularly successfu1" against transports. The machine guns occasionally even caused

casualties to tanks and tank crews. The .50 cal. armor-piercing

bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting

off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricochetl

ing around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding

the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating

ammunition storage. This seemed surprising at first, given the

typically heavy armor of German tanks. Yet Maj. Gen. |. Lawton

"Lightning Joe" Collins, Commander of First Army's VII Corps,

was impressed enough to mention to Quesada the success that

P-47s had strafing tanks with .50 cal. machine gun fire.

Of course, other fighter-bombers operated in Normandy and

across Europe, notably the Lockheed P-38 Lightning North American P-51 Mustang and Supermarine Spitfire. With the exception

of the Lightning-(which had a concenirated armament insiallation that made it a formidable strafer), all of these proved disappointing. Their liquid-cooled engine systems were quite vulnerable

to ground fire, and thus they were used far less for ground attack

and much more for air superiorily operations.

Allied Air over the Botilefietd

Virtually immediately the tactical fighter-bombers of the IX TAC

and 2 TAF made their presence felt orithe land battle. For the first

four days of the invasion, thev flew from their bases in southern

England, but the first rough aii'strips were available for use on the

Continent onJune 10. Eventually Allied fighter-bomber strips numbered thirty-one in the British zone and fifty ln the Americln. Two

problems quickly manifested themselves in these early operations

at the front. The peculiar thick dust of Normandy piay-ed havoc

t6
with the inline engines of the Spitfire and Typhoon, until mechanics

fitted special air filters to the aircraft and engineers watered down

the runway surface. Second, these forward strips were perilously

close to enemy positions and came under frequent shelling. In one

case, Typhoons operating from a forward strip attacked German

tanks and fortifications a mere L,000 yards away from the runway/

an operation calling to mind more the experience of the Marines

and Army at Guadalcanal or at Peleliu than the European campaign.

The ordeal of the German Panzer-Lehr Division offers a good

example of the fate awaiting German ground forces in Normandy.

Ordered north to confront the invasion, the armored division got

underway in the late afternoon of June 6, and came under its first

air attack at 0530 on the 7th near Falaise. Blasted bridges and

bombed road intersections hindered movement, particularly of

support vehicles. So intense were the attacks along the Vire-Beny

Bocage road that division members referred to lt as a Jabo

Rennstrecke-a fighter-bomber race-course. Air attack destroyed

more than 200 vehicles on June 7 alone. Despite the rainy weather,

which had threatened the Allies' landing on the beachhead fighterbombers continued to strike at the Panzer-Lehr Division, to the

dismay of German soldiers who had hoped the worsening weather

would offer some respite. This was just the beginning of an ordeal

that would last throughout the French campaign; Panzer-Lehr was

in for some more rough times in the near future.

This division was by no means alone in its trials. The2dSS P anzer

Division Das Reich made its way from Toulouse to Normandy,

encountering serious delays en route and, in typical SS fashion,

responding by murdering and otherwise brutalizing the civilian

population of France. Once the division crossed the Loire, it had a

taste of real war; as Max Hastings relates,

. . . questing fighterbombers fell on them ceaselessly. The convoys of the

Das Reiclr were compelled to abandon daylight movement after Saumur

and Tours and crawl northwards through the blackout . . . . [During a

change of command] an Allied fighter bomber section smashed into

the column, firing rockets and cannon. Within minutes . . . sixteen trucks

and half-tracks were in flames . . . . Again and again, as they inched

forward through the closely set Norman countryside, the tankmen were

compelled to leap from their vehicles and seek cover beneath the hulls

as fighter bombers attacked. Their only respite came at night.

While darkness offered some protection to the besieged Germans, it did not grant total immunity. The 2 TAF used twin-engine

17
De Havilland Mosquitos as night battlefield interdiction aircraft,

sometimes having the "Mossies" bomb and strafe under the light of

flares dropped from North American Mitchell medium bombers.

Later in the European campaign, when the German night air attack

menace had largely disappeared the AAF used Northrop P-61

Black Widow night fighters in a similar role. Overa[ howeve], their

inability to successfully prosecute night attacks to the same degree

as daytime attacks frustrated air and ground commanders alike.

Bradley's air effects committee noted that there was "never enough"

night activity to meet the Army's needs.

Intelligence iaformation from Ultra set up a particularly effective

air strike on June 10. German message traffic had given away the

location of the headquarters of Panzergruppe Wes[on June 9, and

the next evening a mixed force of for$ rocket-armed Typhoons and

sixty-one Mitchells from 2 TAF struck at the headquarters, located

in the Chateau of La Caine, killing the unit's chief of staff and many

of its personnel and destroying fully 75 percent of its communications equipment as well as numerous vehicles. At a most critical

point intheNormandybattle, thery the Panzer group, which served

as a vital nexus between operating armored fbrces, was knocked

out of the command, control and cbmmunications loop; indeed, it

had to return to Paris to be reconstituted before resuming its duties

a month later.

A Dispirited Rommel

Field Marshal Rommel's reaction to being pinned to the ground

by Allied tactical air was a repetition of the feelings he had expressed duringthe darkdays of 1942, when scourgedbytheDesert

Air Force. Already by june 9, Admiral Ruge was writing that "the

air superiority of the enemy is having the effect the Field Marshal

had expected and predicted: our movements are extremely slow."

The next day, Rommel wrote to his wife: "The enemy's air superioritlz has a very grave effect on our movements. There's simply

no answer to it." In walks with Ruge, Rommel continued to complain about the invasion situatiory-"especially the lack of air support." Ruge concluded that "utilization of the Anglo-American air

force is the modern type of warfare, turning the flank not from

the side but from aboiri." The situation tume"d increasingly bleak

By fuly 5, during a dinner party, a "colonel of a propaganda battalion" remarked that soldiers were constantly asking "Where is the

18
The Nolthrop P61B Black Widow was used for night attack missions. O,ften $is

intruder would attack under the light of flares dropped from other ahcrft-a risky

businees but one followed in Korca and Vieham as well,

Luftwaffe?" In staff discussions about the future-as if one reallv

existed for the Third Reich-Rommel and Ruge concurred that "th-e

tactical Luftwaffe has to be an organic part of the army, otherwise

one cannot operate," which showed how little the two men understood the evolution of Allied air power over the previous three

years of the war. It was precisely because Allied air power was nof

subordinate to the armies that it was free to use mass and concentration to achieve its most productive ends-and thereby help the

Allied armies the most.

Ironically, Rommel's complaints at this time mirror those of the

British and American army leaders of 7947 and 1943, respectively.

The field marshal grew increasingly testy about air matters; during

breaKast onJuly 16, he was "incensed" at the presumptuousness of

a Luftwaffe staff officer who intemperately accused the German

army of not taking fullest advantage of Luftwaffe attacks throughout the war. The next day, as Rommel drove to his headquarters

after a quick trip to an SS armored unit, two 83 Group Spitfires

19
strafed him, killing his driver, wounding a passenger, and causing

their car to plunge off the road, out of control. Rommel, thrown

out, narrowly escaped death from a fractured skull. With that, the

Desert Fox's war effectively ended. He returned to Germany for

treatment and recuperatioi, dying by his own hand that Ocfober

when implicated-rightly or wrongly-in the officers' plot to assassinate Hitler, a plot that tragically went awry. Allied tactical air

had removed from command the German commander best suited

by experience and leadership to oppose the ground forces building

up to the breakout from the Normandy lodgement area.

The Heovy Bomber in Air Support

Once ashore at Normandy, the Allies experienced a serious

setback from the terrain. Farmers' fields were bordered by thick

hedgerows, a bocage that proved a natural boon to German defenders, affording them cover while forcing the Allies to follow predictable paths of advance around it. One of the most difficult problems

of hedgerow fighting was preventing tanks from riding up over the

hedge and exposing their vulnerable undersides to antitank fire.

The solution was disarmingly simple. An inventive sergeant fitted

"tusks" to the prow of a tank, which pinned the tank to the hedge

and held it in place as the engine punched it through in a shower

of dirt. This "absurdly simple" device (in Bradley's words) freed the

Army's armored forces for a fast-moving mobile breakout across

France.

Any breakout from the lodgement area would require the insightful and creative use of air power, including bomber aircraft

such as the American B-17 and B-24 and the British Halifax and

Lancaster operating in a troop-support role. Altogether there were

six major raids by heavy bombers in support of breakout operations

in Normandy. The first of these involved 457 Halifax and Lancaster

bombers from RAF Bomber Command on July 7, in support of

Montgomery's assault on Caen. The second was an even larger raid

by1,676heavy bombers and 343light and mediumbombers onJuly

18. On the 25ttr, American bombers of the Eighth and Ninth Air

Forces struck at Saint-L6, preparatory to the First Army's breakout.

A fourth attack on the 30th supported the Second British Army

south of Caumont. Then an Anglo-American raid on August 7-8

supported the attack of the First Canadian Army toward Falaise

20
from Caery and the sixth raid again supporting the attack on

Falaise, followed on August 14.

Overall, the Allied high command considered these raids successful, and German soldiers caught in them testified to their

devastating (if shortJived) impact upon morale. Field Marshal

Hans von Kluge, Rommel's successor, complained that bomb-carpetsburied equipment, bogged down armored units, and shattered

the morale of troops. Unfortunately, the tenain disruption worked

both ways: it hindered the attacker as much as the defender, and,

in fact, bought the Germans time to regain some composure and

dig in for the follow-on attack. If such air attacks were to be useful,

they had tobe followed immediatelybya follow-onground assault.

When this occurred, Allied ground troops found German defenders dazed and prone to surrender.

The Price of Victory

Unfortunately, heavy bomber missions could cause serious

problems. The first two strikes on Caen resulted in numerous

"collateral" casualties to French civilians. Sometimes friendly

troops were victims of misplaced bomb strikes. In the Normandy

campaign, as in other campaigns, air and land forces had to get used

to working together. Bradley remarked after the war that "we went

into France almost totally untrained in air-ground cooperation." It

is difficult to accept this statement at face value because the air and

ground forces worked together with an unprecedented harmony.

Nevertheless, in the very early stages of Normandy some "disconnects" did occur between the air and land communities. Friendly

troops experienced attacks from Allied fighter-bombers. To minimize this danger, air and ground commanders arranged for

friendly forces to pull back in anticipation of an air strike against

German positions. But if communication failed and the strike did

not come off, troops found themselves fighting twice for the same

piece of real estate as German forces moved backinto the gap. Soon

commanders learned to follow-up air strikes with artillery barrages

so that friendlv infantrv and armor forces could close with the

demoralized enemy befbre he recovered and redeployed. Within

six weeks after the Normandy landing air and land forces were so

confident of working together that fighter-bombers routinely operated as close as 300 yards to American forces. This was not true,

2t

l
unfortunately, of strategic bomber operations, as the strikes of late

July and August cl early-indicated.

The most publicized example of the difficulties of operating

heavy and medium bombers in support of ground {orces came

during the preparatory bombardment for Operation Cobra" the

breakthrough attack at Saint-Ld that led to the breakout across

France. The Cobra strikes killed slightly over 100 GIs and wounded

about 500. Without a doubt, the strikes were badly executed, and

serious command emors were made. The first came on J:ul'y 24, a

cloudy day, when Cobra had been initially set for launch. A postponement order reached the Eighth Air Force Commander, Lt. Gen.

James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, too late: the Eighth's bombers were

already airbome. Most crews wisely refrained from bombing due

to weather and refurned to base. Some found conditions acceptable

and did drop. Friendly casualties occurred in three instances. When

another plane in the formation was destroyed by flak, a bombardier

accidently toggled his bomb load on an Allied airstrip, damaging

planes and equipment. A Iead bombardier experienced "difficulty

with the bomb release mechanism" and part of his load dropped,

causing eleven other bombardiers to drop, thinking they were over

the target. Finally, a formation of five medium bombers from the

Ninth Air Force dropped seven miles north of the target, amid the

30th Infantry Division. This latter strike inflicted the heaviest

casualties-2S killed and 131 wounded-on the first day that Cobra

was attempted.

The next day, in better weather, there were three more friendly

bombings, all by B-24s. First, a lead bombardier failed to synchronize hisbombsight properly, so that when he dropped-and eleven

other bombers dropped on his signal-a total of 470 100-lb highexplosive bombs fell behind the lines. Then a lead bombardier

failed to properly identify the target and took the easy way outbombing on the flashes of preceding bombs. A total of 352 260-lb

fragmentation bombs fell in friendly lines. In the third case, a

command pilot overrode his bombardier and dropped on previous

bomb flashes; previous bombs had been off targe[ but within a safe

"withdrawal" zone. The pilot'sbombs fell within friendlv territorv.

All of the above errors were incidental to the real causes of tlie

tragic bombings-the restricted size of the bomb zone and confusion over whether the air attack would be flown perpendicular or

parallel to the front lines. The Armywanted a parallelattackso that

short bombs would not land in friendly territory. (Actually, this

approach would not guarantee an absence of fri6ndly casuilties.)

a,l
The AAF, concerned about the run-in to the target and enemy

antiaircraft fire, preferred to fly a perpendicular approach. AAF

bomber commanders also recognized that the "heavies" were not

as precise as the fighter-bombers. They asked Bradley to keep

friendly troops at least 3,000 yards from the bomb line; Bradley

compromised on a minimal distance of 1,200 yards, with a preceding fighter bomber attack to cover the next 250 yards so that, in fact,

the heavy and medium bombers would strike no closer than 1,450

yards-a distance a heavy bomber would cover in approximately

fifteen seconds. A distinct aiming point and a split-second precise

drop were thus critical.

Despite Bradley's later claims that the AAF was enthusiastic over

the strikes, evidence indicates that the strategic bomber people

were anything buf enthusiastic. In general, the strategic bomber

commanders-British as well as American--$elieved that anv diversion from their strategic air campaign against the Nazi heartiand

weakened their effort. The AAF leadership also had strong feelings-communicated directly to Eisenhower-that the Cobra

bohbings were questionable because they would involve the dropping of a large quantity of bombs in the shortest possible span of

time in a restricted bombing zone. However, the AAF was overruled and the operation went forward. Whenever American bombers executed a perpendicular rury Bradley alleged that it violated a

previous decision. After the short bombings of July 24, Bradley had

ordered an immediate investigation of why the strike group had

flown a perpendicular course. The AAF replied that such a course

had been previously agreed upon, and ground forces had been

informed. Shortly before his death, in his autobiography, A General's Life, Bradley charged that the "Air Force brass simply lied,"

though earlier writings had been far more temperate. One wonders

whether this bold statement merely reflected the hardening of age.

In any case, Bradley reluctantly concuffed with AAF plans for

another attack on July 25 (though he has stated he did so because

he was over an "impossible barrel"). During this series of strikes

occurred the most sensational casualty of Cobra. Lt. Gen. Leslie J.

McNair, formerCommander of ArmyGroundForces andcurrently

the "commander" of the fictional "tit Armv Group," was killed in

his foxhole by a direct bomb hit as he waited^ to observe the

follow-up ground attack. McNails death and the other friendly

casualties infuriated the ground forces, perhaps in part because

they remembered the general's vociferous criticism of the air support organization in 1.942-43. Strangely, the tragedy seems nct to

25
have harmed ground-air relations at higher command levels.

Though Bradley has stated that Eisenhower informed him that

strategic bombers should no longer be used to support ground

forces, this is not evident from Eisenhower's written comments. In

fact, American "heavies" continued to be used in troop support

missions, notably in the German winter offensive. Eisenhower's

comments after Cobra's bombing were far less critical than might

have been expected:

The closeness of air support given in this operation, thanks to our

recent experiences, was such as we should never have dared to attempt a year before. We had indeed made enormous strides forward

in this respect, and from the two Caen operations [the strikes of July

8 and 181 we had learnt the need for a quicker ground follow-up on

the conclusion of the bombing, for the avoidance of cratering and for

attacks upon a wider range of targets to the rear and on the flanks of

the main bombardment area. Our technique, however, was still not

yet perfected, and some of our bombs fell short, causing casualties to

our own men. UnJortunately, pert'ection in the employment oJ comparutiaely new tactics, such as this close-support carpet bombing, is attainable

only through the process ol trial and error, and these regrettable losses were

part of the ineoitable price of experience [emphasis added].

Though the preparatory bombing was tinged with faulty planning sloppy execution, and bad luck, Operation Cobra itself was a

masterful operation. We will probably never know precisely who

was responsible for the shortbombings. Certainly,, the AAF was not

entirely to blame. John J. Sullivan's incisive examination of the

Cobra operation rightly concluded that there was no duplicity on

the part of the AAF (much less "lies"), and that, in fact, the AAF had

been most reluctant to undertake the operation at all. The ground

conunanders did not take adequate precautions to protect their

troops, and thus, Sullivan concluded, Bradley and his fellow

ground conunanders bore "full responsibility" for the bombing

casualties to exposed troops. Yet, in fairness, the airmen must share

some responsibility-from Tedder and Leigh-Mallory who did not

supervise the operation as thoroughly as they should have,. to the

individual aircrews who botched their runs.

While there is plenty of blame to go around one must temper

criticism of the Cobra strikes with an appreciation for the losses on

the ground duringthe bitter hedgerow fighting and the effect of the

bombing on the German forces. The relatively minor casualties

incurred by friendly bombing and the bombing's unqualified success in shattering German resistance (even Bradley was forced to

admit that Cobra "had struck a more deadly blow than any of us

26
dared imagine") illustrate how petty the uproar surrounding the

bombings really was. Unfortunately, in the postwar folklore of

air-land operations, too often the short bombing is the only aspect

of Cobra that gets attention. Thus, it is refreshing to read Eisenhower's reasonable, mature, and admirable judgment quoted

above. The European Theater commander never lost sight of the

most important result the Cobra bombing devastated German

forces and paved the way for the breakthrough that would trigger

thebreakout and rollbackthe Wehrmachtto the German homeland

itself.

Cobro: Key to Breokout

The main weight of the Cobra bombings fell opposite Maj. Gen.

f. Lawton Collins's VII Corp+ on Lieutenant General Fritz Bayerlein's already battered Panzer-Lehr Division. The initial confusion

of theJuty24 strikeshadmisledthe German defendersinto thinking

that they had withstood and repulsed an American attack They

were not prepared for the whirlwind that descended on the 25th.

The bombing, Collins recollected, "raised havoc on the enemy side."

Though VII Corps, hurting from the accumulated short bombings

of two days, did not make Ereat progress in its ground attack on

the 25th, Collins shrewdly realized that the German command and

control structure had been badly disrupted by the air attack, and

he planned a full-scale assault for the next morning. There began

the genuine breakthrough. Combat Command A of the 2d Armored

Divisiory ably supported by Quesada's IXTAC andbuildingonthe

accomplishment of the 30th InfantryDivision (whichhad taken the

brunt of the short-bombings), cut through enemy defenses. Breakthrough now became breakout. The stage was set for the drive

across Northern Europe.

Bayerlein left a remarkable account of the effects of the Cobra

bombing and ground assault on his already war-weary command.

In response to postwar interrogation he wrote:

We had the main losses by pattern bombing, less by artillery, sftll less by

tanks and smaller arms.

The actual losses of dead and wounded were approximately:

by bombing 50%

bv artillerv 30%

bvotherweapons 2O%

27
fl ar.."of Friendly Bombings [ffiel Bombing pattern over cerman territory

--- 

Demarcation between American and German positions

-.-.- Target zone, including narrow fighter-bomber zone

Operation Cobra: The Bombing Pattern
The digging in of the infantry was useless and did not protect against

bombing . . . . Dugouts and foxholes were smashed, the men buried, and

we were unable to save them. The same happened to guns and tanks . .

. . It seems to me, thata number of menwho survived thapattern bombinq

. . . surrendered soon to the attdcking infantry or escap6d to the rear.

The fust line has [sic]been annihilated by thebombing. . . . The three-hour

bombardment on 25.7-afier the smalier one a day bilore-had exterminating morale effect on the troops physically and morally weakened by

continual hard fighting lor 45 days. The long duration of the bombing

wrthorrt any possibility for oppositiory created depressions and a feeling

of helplessness, weakness and inferiority. Therefore the morale attitudi

of a great number of men grew so bad that they, feeling the uselessness

of fighhng surrendered, deserted to the enemyor escaped to the rear, as

far as they survived the bombing. Only partiiularly si.ong nerved and

brave men could endure this strain.

The shock effect was nearly as strong as the physical effect (dead and

wounded). During the bombardment. . . some of the men got crazy and

w_ere unable to carry out anything. I have been personally on 24.7 and

25.7 in the center of the bombardment and could experience the tremendous effect. For me, who during this war was in every theater committed

at the points of the main efforts, this was the worst f ever saw.

The well-dug-in infantry was smashed by the heavy bombs in their

foxholes and dugouts oi killed and buried by blast.-The positions of

infantry and artillery were blown up. The *hote bombed area was

transformed into fields covered with craters, in which no human being

was aIve. Tanks and guns were destroyed and overturned and could no-i

be recovered, because all roads and passages were blocked. . . .

Very soon after the beginning of the bombardment every kind of telephone communication was eliminated. As nearlv all C.p..s lCommand

Posts] were situated in the bombed area, radio #as almost impossible.

The communication was limited to [motorrycle] messen-gers,- but this

was also rather difficult because many roads were interrupted and

driving during the bombardment was very dangerous and required a lot

ot hme.

By any standard, the Cobra bombing had an extraordinary effect

on the German defenders, and as the official Army historv of the

Normandy campaign acknowledges, the Cobra bbmbing constituted the "best example in the European theater of 'carpet bombing."'This, of course, does not mean that the subsequent campaign

on land was a pushover, for throughout the war; the decimated

Panzer-Lehr Division and many other battered Nazi units showed

an amazing resiliency, reforming, recuperating/ and continuing to

fight. Nevertheless, the Cobra operation did put the German army

in France on the skids. Ironically, it would be a Nazi command

29
decision which would set the stage for total German destruction in

Northem France.

TocAir Omnipofent:

Morloin ond the Foloise-Argenlon Pocket

Mortain and Falaise, like Wadi el Fa14 Guadalajara, and more

recently Mitla Pass and the Kuwait City-Basra Road, have come to

symbolize a particular form of warfare: the destruction of closely

packed columns of troops and vehicles by constant and merciless

fighter-bomber strikes in concert with action on the ground. Any

chance of withdrawing with troops/ equipment, and vehicles in

good order was lost to the Wehrmacht due to the violence of the

breakout from the beachhead at Normandv, and Hitlels order to

von Kluge to stand firm in Normandy. As a result of Hitler's

directivg the Wehrmacht launched a general offensive against

Mortain, the weakest spot in the Allied line, on August 7. It failed

amid stubborn resistance on the ground and intensive fighterbomber attacks.

Next Allied forces began to batter the enemy ground forces

caught in the Falaise-Argentan pocket-fighting characterized by

combined infantry-armor-artillery-air attacks directed against

units desperately attempting to escape easfward. Though some

German forces did escape through the ever-narrowing gap, they

did so without equipment and in a state of disarray and almost

complete demoralization. By the end of August, Allied forces had

liberated Paris, advanced to the Seine, won the Battle of France, and

set the stage for the Battle of Germany. Ahead lay some particularly

bitter fighting-notably Montgomer;/s botched airborne invasion

of Holland and the ferocity of the German counterthrust in the

Ardennes. But as of the end of August, only the most ardent Nazi

would still have faith in an ultimate German victory.

The attack on Mortain was allegedly revealed- by Ultra-the

Allies' breaking of the German codes-so that the American forces

were able to set up their defense in advance of the German thrust.

This might be called the "myth of Mortain." In fact, Ultra did not

offera forewarningenabling the defenderstoprepare for the attack

On August 2, Hitler had ordered von Kluge to prepare for an attack

westward to the coastline, but this earlyindication of trouble ahead

did not make its way from the Allied intelligence organizations to

Bradley's 1.2th Army Group. On the evening of the 6th, orders went

30
l-""r"r*ra @

--- 

Demarcalion between American and German positions

The Mortain Counterattack

(Siluation as ol 1200 hours, August 7)
out for five Panzer divisions to attack through Mortain (which had

already fallen to American troops) ninety minutes later-at 1.830

hours. Ultra did not send out this message until midnight, but the

German attack had itself been delayed in the field until iust after

midnight. The AIIied signals arrivei immediately before'the German attaclg offering the Americans no time whatsoever to make

extensive plans or redeployments for the assault.

Bradley, in his autobiographyA General's Lr/e is understandably

testy about allegations that Mortain was predetermined by Ultra

intelligence. His argument that he waged the battle withoutbenefit

of forewarning is borne out by the account of former Ultra intelligence analyst Ralph Bennett, who refreshed his own recollections

by extensive research into the actual Ultra messaEes themselves.

Bennett has stated that German update information during the

Mortain fighting furnished "cheerful reading" to the analysts, but

added little, if anything, to the information Bradley and

Montgomery already had in the field from their own combat intelligence operations.

When the Ultra message did come iry Bradley ordered "all-out"

air support the following morning, by which time the American

30th Infantry Division was locked in desperate and stubbom combat with the German tanks. Even here Ultra played only a minor

role, since the midnight attackwould have triggered a day of Allied

air support anyway, from battlefield requests. During this fighting

the rocket-firing Typhoons of the RAF's 2 TAF had the responsibility of defending the ground forces and attacking German columns,

while the AAF's Ninth AF flew interdiction and air superiority

sorties. For the Mortain operatiory the Luftwaffe centralized its few

fighter resources and attempted to intervene over the battlefield,

but the deep cover American air superiority sweeps gobbled them

up as they took off, and "not one" (as Lieutenant General Hans

Speidel dismally recalled) appeared over the battlefield. The skies

over Mortain belonged to the RAF. The weather was poor in the

early mornin& but as the day went orL the overcast lifted and

patches of blue appeared. As the weather improved, Typhoons

. swarmed over the area, so many, in fact, that some got in each

other's way, and several mid-air collisions apparently resulted. A

morningrecce flightlocated German tanks nearSt. Barthdlemy/ and

thereafter, between the first engagements fust after noon) and late

afternoon, Typhoons flew a total of 294 sorties over the battlefield.

Typhoon pilot John Golley left a graphic account of operations

at Mortairy particularly the battle between 245 Squadron (which

32
was especially active) and the 1 SS Panzer Division on the road near

St. Barth6lemy. Their fust attacks sprayed the tan-ks and transports

with rocket and cannon fire and a thin haze of smoke and dust

spread slowly over the Norman countryside. The Typhoons broke

off as they exhausted their ammunition and rockets, returning

again and again to their strip to refuel and rearm. So intensive were

the sortie rates that 245 Squadron, ever afterward, referred to

August 7 as "The Day of the Typhoon."

German commanders were shocked at the magnitude of the air

attacks at Mortain, which would be repeated before the month was

out at Falaise. On the ground, the 30th Infantry Division stood firm,

repulsing the German forces that did close to engage them. Air had

saved the day at Mortain, at least preventing a local German success

that might have prolonged the campaign in France. As Eisenhower

reported:

The chief credit in smashing the enemy's spearhead however. must Bo

to the rocket-fuing Typhoon planes of the Second Tactical AirForce. They

dived upon the armored columns, and, with their rocket projectiles, on

the fust day of the battle destroyed 83, probably destroyed 29 and

damaged 24 tanks in addition to quantities of "soft-skinned" M.T. [Motorized Transportl. The result of this strafing was that the enemy attack

was effectively brought to a halt, and a threat was turned into a great

victorv.

During lhe battle of Mortain, Typhoons devastated German tank and mechanized

columns attempting to reach the French coast. Above is the result of one such

attack.

33
With the Nazi spearhead smashed, Mortain degenerated into a

five-day slugfest. Foolishly, for a time the Germans continued to

Press toward Avranches, a move Bradley subsequently termed

"suicidal," for Collins's VII Corps was in position to attack the

German flanks. Elements of the 2 SS Panzer Division, operating

south of the devastated 1 SS Panzer Division, besieged Hill 312 in

whose shadow Mortain is nestled. The defendert a ]one battaliorL

stood firm. Supported by Allied air (induding supply drops) and

artillery, this battalion heroically held out until relieved by the 35th

Division on August L2. Mortain cameto an end. Inthe fightingafter

August 7, the 2 SS Panzer had joined the rapidly growing roster of

German armored formations shattered by Allied combined air-artillery-armor assault. Major General Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von

Gersdorfi the chief of staff of the German 7 Armee, subsequently

agreed that the continuation of the counterattack toward

Avranches was a "mistake." Contributing to the German failure was

the overemphasis of attacking north, between Mortain and Vire

rather than farther south. In any case Mortain must be counted

among the most important battlis in the west and recognized for

what it was-a true example of air-land action. It set the stage for

the next and even greater disaster to befall German arms in

France-the battle of the Falaise-Argentan pocket. After Mortairy

the only course open to the Wehrmacht was headlong retreat

toward the German frontier. In that retreat, Allied tactical airwould

offer no respite.

Closing the Gop of Foloise

In retrospect, air was more critical-and under greater pressure-at Mortain than at the subsequent fighting in the Falaise-Argentan pocket. Mortain was an Allied defensive battle whereas

Falaise was an encirclement and an attempt to prevent the Germans

from escaping out of the trap eastward. As the perimeter dosed

dowry the pocket became a gap, and the Allies struggled to close it.

The Falaise campaign probably began on August 7, the same day

a$ the German counterattack at Mortair; when Canadian troops

launched a ground assault called Totalize toward Falaise. For the

next two weeks, Allied troops-British, Americary and Polishharassed the German forces caught inside the pocket until finally,

on August 21, the gap was closed.

34
But by that time, what could have been a great encirclement

echoing some of the pivotal battles on the Eastern Front had become

something less-a victory, but one qualified by the number of

German forces that had been able to flee throughthe gap. The fact

that enemy forces did escape outraged American commanders,

from the even-tempered Eisenhower and Bradley to the mercurial

Patton. They saw il as yet another example of bid generalship by

Montgomery who pressured the pockef s western end, squeezing

the cermans out eastward like a tube of toothpaste, rather than

gapp.jng the open gap. Pattory ever aggressive, pleaded with

braclley for_ clearance to cut across the narrow gap, in front of

retreating German forces, from Argentan north-to Falaise. But

Bradley wisely demurred, recogni2ing that the outnumbered

Americans might be "trampled" by the German divisions racing for

the gap. "l-much preferred," Brailley recollected subsequentl!, ',a

solid shoulder at Argentan to the possibility of a brokin neik at

Falaise."

. 

Eventually, the Canadians pressed south from Falaise, the

Americans north from Argentan, and both sought to narrow and

!9t" t9 gap by reaching the road network acrols and beyond the

Dives River, atTrury St. Lambert,Moissy, andChambois. fheroads

lgyol i led-toward Vimoutiers, funneling German forces into predictable killing grounds. Polish forces fbught an especially proIonged and bitter strugJqle at Chambois that bchoed Mortaints lone

battalion. On Augr.rst tg, the Poles seized Chambois (soon dubbed

"Shambles"), establishing defensive positions on Mont Ormel, to

the northeast. Here was an ideal vantage point to call in artillery

and air strikes on the German forces streaming across the Dives and

past their positions.

Exfremely bitter fighting broke out between Polish and retreating German forces, but the Poles were able to retain control until

the gap closed on August 2L. The countryside around the Dives and

Ome rivers was generally opery with sporadic patches of forested

areas. The high ground acrbss the Dives-specifically Mont Ormel-furnished an unparalleled vista of the entire gaparea. In the

third week of August iS44 this vista was maned b"y ihe near-conslant bursting of bombs, rockets, and artillery the ever-present

drone oJ fighter-bombers and small artillery spotters (th-e latter

elpecially feared and loathed by German forcel), the corpses of

thousands of Gerrnan personnel and draft animals, and thetrurning

and shattered remaini of hundreds of vehicles and tanks. It was i

scene of carnage without parallel on the Western Front.

JJ
:t;' Les champeaux

St. Lambert ! Moissy ./

,ue eois./^?.YI

/Le Bourg

St. Leonat

rr+++++r Train Tracks i;!.t-!i,sj woooranos

The Falaise-Argentan Pocket
In the days before the closing of the Falaise gap, the 2 TAF

averaged 1,200 sorties per day. The air war was particularly violent

from August 15 through the 21st. Typhoons and Spitfires attacked

the roads leading from the gap to the Seine, strafing columns of

densely packed vehicles and men. Under repeated attack" some of

the columns actually displayed white flags of surrender, but the

RAF took "no notice" of this since Allied ground forces were not in

the vicinitp and "to cease fire would merely have allowed the

enemy to move unmolested to the Seine." Typhoons typically

would destroy the vehicles at the head of a road columry then

leisurely shoot up the rest of the vehicles with their rockets and

cannon. When they finished, Spitfires would dive down to strafe

the remains.

Because the Luftwaffe was absent over the battlefield, Broadhurst directed 2 TAF wings to operate their aircraft in pairs. Thus,

a "two ship" of Spitfires or Typhoons could return to the gap after

being refueled and rearmed without waiting for a larger formation

to be ready to return. This maximized the number of support sorties

that could be flown, and, indeed pilots of one Canadian Spitfire

wing averaged six sorties per day. Nothing that moved was immune from what one Typhoon pilot recollected as "the biggest

shoot-up ever experienced Uy a iocket Typhoon pilot." An6i=her

recalled the flavor of attack operations:

The show starts like a well-planned ballet: the Typhoons go into echelon

while turning then dive on their prey at full throttle. Rockets whistle,

guns barlg engines roar and pilots sweat without noticing it as our

missiles smash the Tigers. Petrol tanks explode amid torrents of black

smoke. A Typhoon skids away to avoid machine fue. Some horses

frightened by the noise gallop wildly in a nearby field.

Nor was Falaise strictly a 2 TAF operation; the AAF was also

heavily committed. Over the duration of the Falaise fighting air

strikes gradually moved from west of Argentan to north, to east,

and finally to east of the Dives River. One strike by P-47s on August

13 gives a graphic indication of the sizes of German forces open to

attaclc

That morning 37 P-47 pilots of the 36th Group found 800 to 1,000 enemy

vehicles of all types milling about in the pocket west of Argentan. They

could see American and British forces racing to choke off the gap. They

went to work Within an hour the Thunderbolts had blown up or burned

out between 400 and 500 enemy vehicles. The fighter-bombers kept at it

until they ran out of bombs and ammunition. One pilot, with empty gun

J/
chambers and bomb shackles, dropped his belly tank on 12 trucks and

left them all in flames.

All told, on L3 August, XIX TAC fighter-bombers destroyed or

damaged more than L,000 road and rail vehicles, 45 tanks and

armored vehicles, and 12 locomotives. Inside the pocket they reduced 10 enemy delaying-action strong points to rubble.

Four days later another Thunderbolt squadron, below-strength,

flew over a huge traffic jam, radioed for assistance, "and soon the

sky was so full of British and American fighter-bombers that they

had to form up in queues to make their bomb runs." The next day,

36th Group Thunderbolts spotted anotherlarge German formatiory

marked out by yellow artillery smoke. Since the vehicles were in a

zone designaied as a Britisi responsibility, XIX TAC sat back

"disconsolately" while 2 TAF launched a series of strikes that

claimed almost 3,000 vetr-icles damaged or destroyed. On August

19, one Spitfue wing put in a claim for 500 vehicles destroyed or

damaged in a single day; that same day, another Spitfire wing

claimed 700.

The Corridor of Deoth

Nothing and no one was immune from attack Colonel HeinzGunther Guderian, son of the victor of Sedan, was seriously

wounded when his Volkswagen was strafed and set ablaze by an

Allied fighter. Major General von Gersdorff was strafed and

slightly wounded by a P-38 Lightning at Chambois, and he subsequently reported that "The very strong low flying attacks . . .

caused high losses . . . . units of the Army were almost entirely

destroyed by low flying attacks and artillery." One country road

eastward from Moissy earned the grim sobriquet Ie Couloir de Ia

Mort: the Corridor of Death. At niEht, intruder aircraft attacked

river crossings and ferries over the Dives. At least 10,000 German

soldiers died, and 50,000 fell prisoner. Nearly 350 tanks and selfpropelled guns, nearly 2,500 other vehicles, and over 250 artillery

pieces had been lost in the northern section alone of the Falaise

pocket. Von Gersdorff stated that armored divisions that did withdraw from the gap had "extremely low" strength. For example, the

I SS Panzer haionly "weak infaritrv" and noianks or artillirv; the

2 Panzer had one battaliory no tanks, and no artillery; the i2 SS

Panzer had 300 troops and no tanks; the 116 Panzer had two

battalions, twelve tanks, and two artillerv batteries; and the 21

38
Panzer had four battalions and ten tanks. As historian Max Hastings has showry these figures were by no means unique; four other

SS Panzer Divisions could muster no more than fifty tanks among

them. (Wehrmacht armored divisions typically possessed an organi",ational strength of L60 tanks, and approxjmately 3,000 other

vehicles.) The carnage of the battlefield was truly incredible and

sickened many fighter-bomber pilots over the site. Eisenhower,

touring the gap area two days after it closed, encountered "scenes

that could only be described by Dante." Perhaps the twisted allegories of Hieronl.rnous Bosch would have been more fitting a choice,

for Dante, at least, offered hope.

With the conclusion of the battle of the Falaise gap came the

denouement of the battle of Normandv. These Alliediutcesses did

not end the war, which would rage on ior another nine months. But

Normandy triggered the ultimate defeat of NaziGermany. Though

much has been written by critics about the remarkable ability of the

Wehrmacht to rejuvenat-e and reform itself, and about the itoughening" and "thickening" of German resistance in the weeks and

months ahead, not enough attention is paid to the flip side of this:

iVheye was that strength coming from? German forces were being

hastily transferred from the Russian Front (brightening the prospects of an eventual Soviet triumph in the East) and frbm within

the critical bone marrow of the Third Reich itself. Hitler and his

minions were spending capital they did not have. The toughening

of the resistance at the Western Front was the thickenihg of a

crust-a crust that the Allies would slice through in the fall and

winter of 194d45, exposing the vulnerable Nazi heartland underneath.

The legocy of Air Power of Normondy

By the end of the Normandy campaign, all the elements and

relationships for the rest of the tactical aii war in Europe were in

place: forward observers and controllers, occasional airborne controllers, radar strike directiory "on-call" fighter-bombers, armored

column cover, night intruders, to name just a few. In only thirty-six

months, the Allies had recovered from the disappointment of a

Brevity and Battleaxe to orchestrate an unprecedented invasion and

breakout. Normandy was neither the victory of a single branch of

arrnt nor the victory of a single nation. Instead, it is the classic

example of complex combined arms, multiservice, coalition war39


fare. The battlefield triumphs of air power were part and parcel of

infantry-artillery-armor assaults onthe ground.It was true airland

battle.

The effectiveness of the Anglo-American air support at Norrnandy-and through the collapse of Germany as well-is beyond

questiory attested to alike by airmen, ground commanders on both

sides, soldiers in the field, and prisoners of war. A battalion commander in an armored regiment reported:

Our air cover has been excellent and has helped us out of many tight

spots. At El Boeuf they knocked out eight German Mark V [Panther] and

Mark VI [Tigerl tanks that were Biving us a great deal of trouble. They

also helped us at Tessy-sur-Vire by knocking out tanks. They are on call

by any unit down to a platoory calling through company and battalion,

and giving the location of the target. Then the ASPO [Air Support Party

Officerl contacts the air mver and gets a strike within a matter of minutes.

I have seen the air strike within three minutes after the call was made.

We like to know the air is there. We want it all the time.

Two other battalion commanders from the same regiment endorsed his remarks. VII Corps's "LightningJoe" Collins stated that

"we could not possibly have gotten as far as we did, as fast as we

did, and with as few casualties, without the wonderful air support

that we have consistently had."

According to Bradley's 12th Army-Group air effectiveness committee, fighter-bombers in particular proved valuable for a number

of missions, including operations within striking range of artillery.

Only when used against heavily constructed positions such as

casemated guns and pillboxes did they prove "not particularly

effective." Fighter-bombers were actually more accurate than longrange heavy artillery, specifically the 240mm howitzer and the 8-in

gun or howitzer. Armed with 5001b general purpose and 250-lb

fragmentation bombs, fighter-bombers-particularly the rugged

P-47-routinely conducted close-in strikes within 300 to 500 yards

of friendly troops.

Pure bombers were a different matter, however. Mediums (such

as the B-25, 8-26, and even the A-20 and its successor the Douglas

A-26 Invader) were considered as a mixed blessing. While they

were not as criticized as the occasionally errant "heavies," commanders felt that they lacked the stronE iontrol and communication relationship with medium bomber units that they had with the

fighter-bombers. Mediums were also seen as too inflexible: they

lacked the quickness, ease of response, and availability of the

fi ghters. Though heavy bombers were devastatingly effective in the

42
Cglrlbleakfhrorlgh, they had inherent disadvantages compared

with fighter-bombers, namely the problem of frienEly casdaldes

and the need-for a large safety area between friendly foices and the

target. All of this reinforced a generalized view from the ground

that air supportcould best be delivered by the fighter-bombEr. And

despite all the brouhaha of the early war years concerning dive

bombers, arguments favoring them for battiefield air suppo"rt had

disappeared bythe springof i.945, ashad arguments for siricialized

battlefield attack airiraft. The "attack" airpline was dead; long live

the fighter-bomber.

Yet, when confronted with dense light antiaircraft fire, fighterbombers did take losses. IX TAC lost alotal of eighty aircraft"from

July 25 through August 7,49 percent from flalg T"peicent to enemy

aircraft, 24 percent to small-arms fire, and 20 percent from unknown causes. Thus 73 percent-and possibly more nearly 90

percent-of combat losses came from some forrir of light or heavy

q_o-g"d fire. Undoubtedly the rugged construction alna dependability of the P-47's air-cooled -ngine prevented even further

losses, a luxurythe liquid-cooled Typhoon lacked. Wolfgang pickert, a General der Flak-Artillerie in'charge of the III Fi-ak korp+

reported that in "fighter-bomber weather .-. . the movement of large

vehicles during the hours of daylight was practically tantamou-nt

to their certain loss." But when lighfantiairciaft forces were present

in sufficient strength (a rarity in Normandy), "fighter-bomb-ers had

harctly any successes, or only with heavy losses." III Flak Korps had

one regiment in the Falaise pocket during the hectic withdrawal

eastward, and by good fortune it had ah unlimited supply of

lmmunilion due to its proximity to III Flak Korps ammunition

depots.-Pickert alleged that the-regiment "reporied that it had

inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and had put numerous

enemy tanks and planes out of actiory" though this ilaim does not

seem warranted from other accounts. Also, antiflak artillery fire

immediately prior to, or during air strikes benefitted Allied close

air support operations-a reminder of the necessity for air and land

forces to work together to achieve victory on the 6attlefield.

Even allowing for some exaggeration and duplicate claims, the

sortie claims of the Ninth AF and 2 TAF during the Normandy

fighting is most impressive.

43
Fighter-bomber sortie claims in Normandy

2 TAF 9AF Total

Sorties flown

Claims for motor transport destroyed

Claims for armor destroyed

Total claims

Claims per sortie

9,896 2,891. 72,787

3,340 2,520 1860 257 134 391.

3,597 2,6.14 6,251

0-36 0.92 0.49

No stronger endorsement of the air support in Normandy can be

found than Omar N. Bradley's letter to AAF Commanding General

"Hap" Amold at the end of September 1944. "I cannot say too much

for the very close cooperation we have had between Air and

Ground," Bradley wrote. "In my opinioru our close cooperation is

better than the Germans ever had in their best days."

Over the decades, the Normandy invasion and breakout has

become the classic example of Second World War combined-arms,

mechanized, airland, coalition warfare. Fortunately, the Allies

possessed not merely air superiority, but air supremacy, making

victory on the ground that much easier. The Allies had won the

critical battle for air supremact not over the beachhead, but in

several years of air war that had gutted the Luftwaffe. To those

inclined to minimize the value of air to the Normandy operatiory

the final word must come from Eisenhower himself.

In June 1944, John S. D. Eisenhower, Ike's son, graduated from

West Point-ironically on the same day that Allied forces stormed

ashore at Normandy. June 24 found the new lieutenant riding

through Normandy with his father, observing the aftermath of the

invasion:

The roads we traversed were dusty and crowded. Vehicles moved

slowly, bumper to bumper. Fresh out of West Point, with all its courses

in conventional procedures, I was offended at this jamming up of traffic.

It wasn't accordingto thebook. Leaning overDad's shoulder,I remarked,

"You'd never get away with this if you didn't have air supremacy." I

received an impatient snort:

"If I didn't have air supremacy, I wouldn't be here."

M
Suggesfed Reodings

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46