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Agreed - his 'deputy' was General Brereton CO of 9th AF and the battleground because Leigh-Mallory refused point-blank to release IX FC to support USSTAFE operations - and Spaatz's mandate to destroy the LW Pre-invasion, not 'over the invasion battlefield'.Hi
Leigh-Mallory was the Air Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) from 15th November, 1943 (previously he had commanded Fighter Command) not just 2 TAF. So he was a senior Allied commander with both British and US air organisations under his command and had a USAAF deputy commander.
Mike
The percentage reduction in losses is simply due to the vast increase in size of the 8th AF. If you look at the absolute values, you will see that the German fighters were actually shooting down more bombers in absolute terms up until D-day. The sudden drop in losses in June is not due to the sudden collapse of the Luftwaffe just in time for the invasion as is claimed by some but by the diversion of Luftwaffe fighter groups to the front line. The positive impact of invasion on AF casualties was admitted by none other than General Eaker in a White House meeting held on 18 June 1945 discussing the invasion of Japan.ETO combat sorties flown from Table 118; ETO total losses (heavy bombers, medium & light bombers, fighters) attributed enemy aircraft from Table 159; monthly sortie loss percentage calculated in Excel.
Code:Total Losses Month Sorties to E/A Pct. ---------------------------------- Jan 1944 15,183 197 1.30% Feb 1944 24,425 243 0.99% Mar 1944 31,950 234 0.73% Apr 1944 43,434 516 1.19% May 1944 67,979 397 0.58% Jun 1944 96,096 284 0.30% Jul 1944 74,878 150 0.20% Aug 1944 77,976 163 0.21% Sep 1944 57,384 241 0.42% Oct 1944 52,596 135 0.26% Nov 1944 52,299 131 0.25% Dec 1944 61,089 211 0.35% Jan 1945 47,577 121 0.25% Feb 1945 68,365 56 0.08% Mar 1945 111,472 144 0.13% Apr 1945 79,402 119 0.15%
There is a clear and unmistakable reduction in the percentage of sorties lost to German fighters.
I don't have access to any of those books, but to my understanding Leigh Mallory would have taken orders directly from Eisenhower, not Portal. You refer to your book, but I'm trying to understand what primary historical material such as memoranda and so forth are available. Those would go along way to supporting your points. Overall, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, I'm concerned with unnecessary extemporization on this subject.The single digit salute comment was hyerbole. That said, Leigh-Mallory would not budge until ordered by Portal to stand down
Look to Carl A Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, To Command The Sky, Forged in Fire, to name a a few - IIRC Boylon's USAF Study 136 is also a good reference.
The underlying issue was the nomination of Leigh-Mallory to command the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, including 2TAF and Brereton's Ninth AF. Apparently he assumed two major concets as fact. 1.) That as AEF Air Force commander, he would have total control of ALL US/UK air assets (including Bomber Command and USSTAFE) to prepare for the invasion, and b.) that destruction of the LW could not be achieved before the Invasion.
I made the comment about the P-51B in my last book, because it formed the basis for the argument that Spaatz proposed as crucial to Pointblank. In fact Spaatz wanted to conrol of all US fighter assets in UK inluding the now arriving P-47D and P-38J Fighter Groups during the Strategic Bombing Campaign. The issue became a major issue in the burgoining organizational battles Eisenhower was confronted with as the newly appointed SHEAF.
Spaatz did Not have a problem answering to Tedder, but was adamant that he would ask to be replaced if ordered to stubborn 8th and 15th AF combat. operations to Leigh-Mallory. Everyone except Roosevelt were at one time or another brought in for this turf war.
I'm not offended. Look to USAF Study 136 for a single focus of citations and actual documents reposing in USAF HRC and NARA.I don't have access to any of those books, but to my understanding Leigh Mallory would have taken orders directly from Eisenhower, not Portal. You refer to your book, but I'm trying to understand what primary historical material such as memoranda and so forth are available. Those would go along way to supporting your points. Overall, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, I'm concerned with unnecessary extemporization on this subject.
Jim
Excellent! Thank you. I presume this coverers off all of the points you've made?I'm not offended. Look to USAF Study 136 for a single focus of citations and actual documents reposing in USAF HRC and NARA.
HiThis is the only page in that document that relates to anything that Portal had to Mustangs, in that Arnold requested Portal to provide RAF Mustang fighter support for bombing missions. Portal's response was to suggest that the Americans should increase the nimber of bombers or accept a higher rate of loss. It does not specifically mention the RAF supporting these missions. I'm pretty certain that the number of RAF mustang squadrons was pretty low at that point (October 1943).
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If you are asking about the combined library I cited, I woud say that is a good assumption. That said, while all of those referenced books are well documented regarding sources and citations I don't recall finding a letter or smoking gun of exchange of high level memorandums of all the points discussed in Spaatz or Eaker or Eisenhower or Doolittle biographies. What you will find are 'quotes' of recollections, and well documented footnotes referencing context and others in discussions and meetings.Excellent! Thank you. I presume this coverers off all of the points you've made?
jim
The reference I posted above is from Study 136. It's not "searchable" until OCR'd. without the actual memos to which you refer, I'm not sure there was any agreement, per se, perhaps there was but I cannot discern that from what I have extracted above.If you are asking about the combined library I cited….
Boylon's Study 136 is available to download from USAFHRC. It is by far the best scholarship of the development and introduction of Long Range Escort….
The reference you posted above was the agreement between Arnold and Portal to assign existing RAF Mustang III arriving between November and December 31, 1943 to USSTAFE control. This was as near as I can tell, the genesis between AEAF and USSTAFE flare up (L-M and Spaatz)…
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| Mustang III | Imports | Imports | On Way | On Way | Strength | Strength | Loss | Loss | To USAAF | 9th AF sorties | Tons on | Fighter | |
| Month | UK | Med | UK | Med | UK | Med | UK | Med | Cumulative | Fighter | Bomber | Target | Kill claims |
Sep-43 | 3 | 12 | |||||||||||
Oct-43 | 74 | 75 | 56 | 1 | 804 | 427.05 | |||||||
Nov-43 | 90 | 119 | 115 | 1 | 1568 | 1571.65 | |||||||
Dec-43 | 105 | 130 | 227 | 1 | 415 | 2067 | 1474.58 | 9 | |||||
Jan-44 | 53 | 153 | 158 | 2 | 36 | 370 | 1711 | 1546.00 | 42 | ||||
Feb-44 | 46 | 14 | 112 | 26 | 201 | 3 | 35 | 1966 | 3881 | 3368.90 | 69.5 | ||
Mar-44 | 3 | 11 | 65 | 56 | 299 | 14 | 8 | 35 | 5080 | 4067 | 5219.08 | 50 | |
Apr-44 | 16 | 54 | 40 | 76 | 304 | 14 | 22 | 35 | 7914 | 7346 | 10213.18 | 98 | |
May-44 | 56 | 14 | 42 | 70 | 344 | 23 | 35 | 2 | 35 | 21074 | 11947 | 17905.12 | 85.5 |
Jun-44 | 51 | 30 | 4 | 44 | 404 | 73 | 82 | 7 | 37 | 29990 | 11687 | 23059.02 | 196.5 |
After D-day the RAF became much more involved. For a total picture RAF losses need to be considered.When considering the Luftwaffe fighter performance in message 326, consider the number of serviceable Luftwaffe single engined fighters, the following is the average of 3 dates per month from the quartermaster returns, Jan – 1057, Feb – 1205, Mar – 1149, Apr – 1167, May – 1195, Jun – 1000, Jul – 1045, Aug – 1088, Sep – 1430, Oct – 2108, Nov – 2383, Dec – 1945. In rough terms the available fighter force doubled, the number of US aircraft shot down by them more than halved between April and December. And yes fuel shortages played a part in the number of combats and even serviceable figures, easy to keep things working when usage declines.
I understand that Germany had been at war longer than the Americans and that a lot of kills were carried over from the war in Spain but I just don't believe that German pilots had anywhere near as many kills that they claim. It's not just Erich Hartman's 352 kills but Erich Rudorffer had claimed 13 kills in a single mission and Werner Molders had his 100th kill by the middle of 1941. The criteria for a kill must have not been too strict. I wonder if they got credit for a kill by just thinking about it.Any American kid who becomes interested in World War 2 fighter pilots quickly learns that Richard Bong was the American Ace of Aces, with 40 enemy planes to his credit. And that seems like an impressively large number, perched proudly above numbers like 38 (Tom McGuire), 34 (David McCampbell), and 28 (Francis Gabreski). But then our young lad will do some more research, and discover some numbers which look something like this (with some variation in the exact numbers attributed to some of the individuals):
Top fighter aces by nationality
Country
Pilot
ScoreBritain James Johnson
38United States Richard Bong
40Soviet Union Grigory Rechkalov
65Finland Ilmari Juutilainen
94Japan Tetsuzō Iwamoto
94Germany Erich Hartmann
352
It turns out that, among all the major nations involved in the war, America's greatest ace had the lowest score of them all, except for Britain. (But some say that another British ace had 50, but that has not been confirmed.)
Our lad might then wonder, Why were the American and British aces' scores so low compared to the rest? Were the German pilots that much better than anyone else?
Further digging, however, will lead to the discovery that pilots from different countries flew under very different conditions. Most notably, German, Japanese, and Soviet pilots were expected to fly until they died or the war ended. American and British pilots only served for a defined tour of duty and then were rotated home. Also, the American system included taking the best of the returning pilots and allowing them the opportunity to become trainers, thus imparting their hard-won wisdom to the new pilots coming up. Finally, some pilots operated in theaters where there were substantially more enemy planes in the air (a situation that is euphemistically described as "target-rich"). This was especially true on the Eastern Front in Europe.
In other words, there is more to those scores than meets the eye. And since there are still many things about flying conditions in those days that I don't know, I'm opening up a conversation about a comparison not just of pilot skill, but of training practices (both in details and in overall philosophy), as well as other topics that relate to how well (or poorly) a nation's pilots were treated. For example, the U.S. invested considerable equipment and manpower—including search aircraft and submarines—in rescuing downed American pilots in the Pacific. (A future President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, was a beneficiary of this program.) Japan had nothing comparable to it.
What else may have both contributed to the success of American (and British) pilots, while at the same time have kept their scores lower than if the system had been more like the German system?
In 1943 like USAAF the RAF planned to use P-51 in the tactical air force. As of end 1943 the idea was the heavy bombers would make their direct contribution for about 2 weeks before the invasion, that became 3 months. Meantime the quality and quantity of the day attacks was steadily increasing. A crucial point of the pre D-day training was joint exercises of troops and aircraft, it turned out there was a lot of on the job learning in June. More than the fighters Spaatz wanted light and medium bomber support, striking targets and at times to help heavy bomber raids, which delayed invasion support bombings. And of course no one knew how much effort was needed on the V weapons sites. It is clear the heavy bombers needed the fighter support, whether the light and medium bomber support was needed is much more uncertain, as is whether keeping the smaller bombers as purely invasion support would produce a better result. The command structure insisted Overlord was the major must succeed operation while the AEAF, the specific invasion support air power, was being told their priority was to be more indirect, via supporting the heavy bombers, remembering as of mid February D-Day was around 11 weeks away. While Spaatz made sure the 9th Air Force complied I do not know how much effect it had on 2nd TAF.
Excellent points, although I don't think Davis conclusion was unfair. 8th AF had operational control of 9th AF Fighter Command, including all P-38/P-47 and P-51 equipped Groups. All were dedicated to relay and target support - mostly to VIII BC - while relatively few LW were engaging 2TAF. The killing was done along the bomber routes and targets, not the Lowlands and western France. 9th AF FC reverted back to Mallory control near the end of May and the pause of the Oil Campaign.The Davis conclusion, "Spaatz was destroying airplanes, killing German pilots, and bombing factories while the tactical airmen wanted to conduct training exercises." is unfair, the shorter range allied airpower was doing plenty of combat, while dealing with new units that needed training (by themselves and with troops) before entering combat and the commanders would be in the firing line if the ground/air systems broke down in combat, or lots of friendly fire incidents, or worse contributed to the failure of the operation.
Geoffrey - excellent research as always.From Cross Channel Attack, in December 1943 "The "numbers racket" of shuffling allocations of landing craft around the globe, a half dozen here, a half dozen there, had begun and it would not end until late in 1944." The first casualty was operation Buccaneer, the invasion of the Andaman Islands in the Indian ocean. Also
""The point was perhaps best made by a cable which General Marshall sent in December [1943] to all theater commanders and defense commands. "The landing craft situation is critical," General Marshall wired, "and will continue to be so for some time to come. Any possible increase in production is far behind the increasing demand for landing craft. You are directed to make every landing ship and craft available for and apply them to the maximum battle effort." The word went around the world: to Cairo, Algiers, Tehran, Chungking, Southwest Pacific Area, Fort Shafter (Hawaii), Noumea (New Caledonia), Quarry Heights (Canal Zone), Anchorage, and Adak Island (Alaska). Every craft saved was precious; wherever it was on the globe its fate was tied up with the fate of OVERLORD."
The price for Overlord to happen was high in terms of foregoing other operations around the world, the price of an Overlord failure would be world changing.
The US army in UK was reduced to the 5th and 29th infantry divisions in December 1942, the build up for Overlord began with the arrivals of 3rd Armoured and 101st Airborne in September 1943 and by end February 1944 there were 16 divisions present including 1st and 9th infantry, 2nd Armoured and 82nd Airborne from the Mediterranean, by end May 1944 it was up to 20 divisions. The 9th Air Force had 5 fighter groups by end February, 7 by end March, 11 by end April and 18 as of 9 May. The 8th AF went from 11 operational and 1 non operational fighter group at the start of 1944 to 14 operational fighter groups on 30 April 1944, with the 479th with P-38 going operational on 26 May.
The individual army and air units needed training as well as training in combined operations. Remembering Overlord was meant to happen in May.
I do not know the answer to this but given the planning of P-47 to 8th AF and P-51 to 9th it would be interesting to see what that did to unit training in the US before transfer, how much air to air versus air to ground.
In early 1944 General Spaatz was offering to do enough damage that the Luftwaffe day fighter force would be compelled to engage and suffer heavy casualties, the fight would be at long range making it more expensive for the USAAF and would mean less training time available in army support and create troubles mounting raids on France due to a lack of available fighters (and bombers). Air support was considered quite important during the first few days of the invasion before the allies could land lots of heavy weapons and their ammunition.
The prerequisites for a successful invasion were reduction of German army effectiveness and mobility, and Luftwaffe ability to intervene. If you like "Leigh-Mallory" was offering bomb the French transport system and Luftwaffe airfields in France, if the Luftwaffe does protect them then there will be heavy fighting closer to allied airbases, if little defence is offered then the prerequisites are met, little army mobility and Luftwaffe aircraft trying to intervene from bases in Germany or similar distances. Meantime training and using the aircraft marked as army support so they are ready to play their part in degrading German army combat effectiveness. General Spaatz was trying for the first successful long range bomber strategy in WWII, on all levels, bomb damage, aircraft lost. It assumed the Luftwaffe would not win and if losing not change until it was too late to switch to a viable conservation of force strategy in anticipation of the summer battles. Spaatz had to win bigger than Leigh Mallory to make the strategy worth it in terms of assisting Overlord, in terms of Luftwaffe strength it was the other way around. Overlord was far more important.
That is why I consider the Davis remark unfair.