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The D-Day landings were supported by one of the largest air operations of the entire Second World War, with four Allied air forces involved, and the two strategic bombing forces sending hundreds of bombers to attack German gun batteries and coastal defences.
The author lays out their cards right at the start – these operations were a near total failure, and his aim is to find out what should have happened, and why it didn’t. It’s fair to say that this is the general view of the pre-invasion air attack on the German beach defences – most accounts of the fighting only mention in passing that the bombs aimed at the beach defenses almost all over-shot, hitting empty countryside instead.
We start with a look at the four Allied air forces involved in the D-Day attack – RAF Bomber Command and 2nd Tactical Air Force and the US 8th Air Force and 9th Air Force. These were very powerful forces, but the two strategic bombing forces weren’t equipped for precision attacks on small targets. Their commanders were also very unwilling to actually take part in the campaign, believing that even a few days away from the bombing of German industry would be a waste. The heavy bombers are generally said to have been too inaccurate for this sort of work, although the detailed examinations of the attacks suggest that the target marking, normally carried out by Mosquito pathfinders, was also inaccurate.
On the US side the blame is placed on Doolittle’s staff officers, who, concerned about the danger of hitting the incoming invasion fleet, decided to order the bomb aimers to delay the bomb release by a crucial few seconds, thus ensuring that most bombs would fall inland, behind the German defences. The decision was made late on 5 June, and almost certainly without any consultation with higher authorities. The army commanders were certainly surprised and disappointed when they discovered what had happened a few days later, as it had lef the German defences largely untouched.
The one beach where the bombing was effective was Utah Beach, which was attacked by the medium bombers of the US 9th Air Force. Although these aircraft were smaller than the US heavy bombers, they were hardly nimble fighter bombers – the B-26 Marauder was about two thirds of the size of the B-17. However they operated in a different manner, flying lower, bombing visually more often, and attacking parallel to the beach. This might suggest that the big problem for the heavies wasn’t the change in bombing delay, but the decision to stick to their normal bombing techniques – flying high, often bombing blind, and with only the lead bombardier in any formation actually attempting to aim, while the rest dropped on his signals.
This is a significant study of this aspect of the D-Day invasion, giving us enough detail to see just how badly the bombing part of the invasion plan failed, and a clear idea of why the American part of the operation failed.
Chapters
Chronology
Attackers’s Capabilities
Defender’s Capabilities
Campaign Objectives
The Campaign
Analysis and Conclusion
Further Reading
Author: Steven A. Bourque
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 96
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2022