|
|
The US VIII Fighter Command was originally formed as part of the huge 8th Air Force, with the role of attempting to protect the heavy bombers as they carried out their daylight bombing campaign against Germany. This book follows the command from its painful early days, operating with a small number of fighter groups equipped with aircraft that struggled to carry out their role, through its growth into an immensily powerful fighter force, with Mustang fighters capable of reaching just about anywhere in Germany and holding their own against the best the Luftwaffe had to offer.
This is a clear example of a battle in which technology made a massive difference. When VIII Fighter Command entered combat it suffered from a lack of suitable aircraft. Some groups inherited the Spitfire from their RAF days, giving them a very capable but short range fighter. From the range of US fighters available in 1942 it operated the P-38 Lightning and P-47 Thunderbolt. The P-38 had the range, but was at its best at lower altitudes, which made it very effective in the Pacific, but less so at the higher altitudes battles were fought at in Europe. The P-47 was more capable, but at the start lacked range. During the early years of the battle a repeated theme is of bomber formations being mauled when their shorter ranged escorts had to leave them. At this early stage the odds of a bomber crew surviving an entire tour were very low, thus the massive publicity given to the crew of the Memphis Bell when they became one of the first two B-17s to do so. As time went by the P-47 was given more fuel, and in particular drop tanks, letting it get further into Germany, but the clear turning point was the arrival of the Merlin powered P-51B Mustang, a genuine air superiority fighter with the range to get to Berlin. The ever increasing size of VIII Fighter Command also played a key part in the battle, with ever larger formations of US fighters available to escort the bombers.
The story is told at several levels, so we get detailed accounts of life in the fighter units, following a large number of American and German pilots through the battles, as well as looking at the higher level command decisions that shaped the battle, and the technological changes that had such a big impact on the fighting.
We get good material on how the Germans adjusted their tactics, with increasingly heavily armed fighters required to deal with the rugged B-17s. This included rocket firing aircraft, and the formation of storm groups, equipped with armoured Fw 190s that were meant to be used to ram German bombers as a last resort (although only after the pilot had bailed out). Once again the arrival of the P-51B caused havoc with these tactics, as the heavier armed aircraft were slower and struggled against the P-51. Towards the end we see the entry into combat of the Me 262 jet fighter, an aircraft with a great deal of potential but also serious flaws. Ironically the jet engines that gave the Me 262 its impressive top speed were also its weakness – they were unreliable, and couldn’t change speed quickly, making the Me 262 vulnerable when taking off and landing (the point where a formation of conventional fighters had to be used to protect them when they landed). For every example we get of an Me 262 leaving a US fighter in the dust, there is another example of one being lost in an accident or being caught by surprise and shot down.
One surprising feature of the USAAF is how many of its senior commanders insisted in sticking rigidly to pre-war doctrines as if they were proven facts rather than untested theories. This includes the original idea that the heavy bomber could defend itself against fighter attack, the opposition to using heavy bombers to support the D-Day landings and in this case the way in which fighter aircraft should be used. We see this change when Doolittle took command of VIII Fighter Command, and switched from rigid close escort to far more aggressive tactics aimed at giving his fighters the freedom to hunt the Luftwaffe. One interesting result of this was a temporary reduction of morale amongst the bomber crews, who felt that they had gone from being a precision weapon to simply being bait for the fighters. However we see this change after Doolittle’s aggressive tactics helped reduce the threat from German fighters, and thus the loss rate amongst the bombers. However we also see the limits of being over-aggressive – Doolittle was a big supporter of using his fighters to carry out low level attacks on German airfields. Time after time we see these attacks resulting in higher losses of US pilots than aerial combat. Although large numbers of German aircraft were destroyed on the ground, German aircraft production actually peaked in 1944, so they were never short of fighters - it was pilots and fuel that the Germans needed. The Germans made the same mistake with Operation Bondeplatte at the start of 1945, where they carried out a massive series of attacks on Allied airfields, and in the process largely destroyed themselves, losing a huge number of experienced pilots. Although they did destroy a large number of Allied aircraft on the ground, they were replaced from the massive stockpiles within a week, and their pilots survived to fly the new aircraft.
This is an excellent history of the fighter campaign over Europe, with a good mix of detailed combat accounts, technological developments and the story of the strategic and tactical developments on both sides. We see how VIII Fighter Command helped win air superiority over Europe in time for D-Day, then retain it for the rest of the war, allowing Allied strategic bombers to operate with increasing freedom and giving the tactical forces the freedom to support the troops with limited interference from German fighters.
Chapters
1: The Most Important Day
2: War on the Horizon
3: Fledgling Fighters
4: Yanks in the RAF
5: Starting Over
6: Opponents
7: VIII Fighter Command Struggles to Survive
8: The Battle Gets Serious
9: Against the Odds
10: Carrying On
11: Mission 115 – The Day the Luftwaffe Won
12: Reinforcement
13: End of the Beginning
14: Jimmy Doolittle Arrives
15: Blakeslee Takes Command
16: One-Man Air Force
17: Big Week
18: “I Knew the Jig Was Up”
19: The Battle of Germany
20: Liberating Europe
21: The Battle of Normandy
22: Oil – The Knockout Punch
23: The Road to Bodenplatte
24: Death of the Luftwaffe
25: A Clean Sweep
Author: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 464
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2023