The AAF's Contribution to Victory

With the conclusion of the war, AAF leaders could look back with pride. From an initial contingent consisting of Eaker and six other officers with no aircraft, the U.S. forces in northwest Europe had grown to almost a half a million men supporting thousands of fighter and bomber aircraft. Only twelve B-17s had mounted the AAF's first heavy-bomber raid of World War II, over Rouen, France, on August 17, 1942. By late 1944, the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces were routinely mounting operations number- ing thousands of fighters and bombers. Adjusting strategy, tactics, and doctrine to practical experience, the Americans had driven the Luftwaffe from the sky.

Strategic bombardment and the quest for air superiority were inextricably linked. Allied leaders expected and took air superiority over the Normandy battlefield. To achieve that goal, the Allies had to entice the Luftwaffe into battle. The AAF soon discovered that when the American heavy bombers flew their missions, the Luftwaffe rose to fight. Thus the AAF not only bombed targets, but also battled the German air force for command of the air and defeated it. In addition, after the Normandy invasion, Allied airmen flew thousands of sorties in support of the ground forces, greatly contributing to their speedy advance. The cost was staggering: the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces alone lost almost 49,000 men killed or missing and presumed dead. But their great efforts had secured the skies over Europe and hounded the enemy forces on the ground.

The strategic bombing campaign, waged by the heavy bombers of the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, varied in its effectiveness. Although the heavies damaged the German ball-bearing industry in the missions against Schweinfurt, the Americans were unable to continue intensive, sustained attacks against the industry and the Germans both dispersed their factories and drew on existing supplies. In the attacks against the German fighter aircraft plants, a similar pattern developed: the Germans dispersed their plants and, despite wild fluctuations in output, fighter air- craft production continued. The heavy bombers were most successful in their missions against the enemy's petroleum industry and in disrupting the transportation network. The Americans repeatedly bombed the oil fields in enemy-occupied territory and almost completely destroyed the synthetic oil industry in Germany. Although the enemy showed extraordinary resourcefulness in moving supplies, by the spring of 1945 Allied air power had bombed the German economy into a shambles and virtually paralyzed the transportation network. The Army Air Forces' achievements against Nazi Germany vindicated much of its prewar doctrine, proved its evolving tactics in strategic and tactical air war, and laid the foundation for a strategic air arm in the postwar period.