The Great Crusade

In the final hours of June 5, 1944, a vast aerial armada assembled in the skies over Britain. More than 900 C-47 aircraft and 100 gliders, carrying approximately 17,000 airborne troops, set out for the Normandy invasion area. RAF night fighters provided escort and later attacked ene- my guns and searchlights, while other British aircraft dropped strips of metal foil to confuse the German radar operators. The armada soon en- countered trouble. Fog and cloud cover, and, later, enemy antiaircraft fire, broke up many of the airborne formations. Even the trained pathfinders had trouble locating the drop targets. As a result, the airborne forces were widely scattered over the French countryside. Nevertheless, they captured Sainte-Mere-Eglise, helped secure exits from the beachhead, guarded the southern flank of the invasion area, and spread confusion among the Ger- man defenders.

Early the next morning, 1,083 B-17s and B-24s attacked the German defenses on the Normandy beaches. Led by radar-equipped pathfinder aircraft, the heavies flew over the beaches at right angles and dropped 2,944 tons of bombs.

Taking off before dawn, medium and light bombers staged last-minute attacks against enemy gun batteries on Utah beach and later in the day switched to other targets, such as communications centers, command posts, and supply depots. The fighter-bombers protected the cross-channel movement, helped neutralize beach defenses, flew close air support sorties for the troops on the beaches, and attacked the enemy's ability to use the roads leading into the battle area. To support the ground troops, IX Engineer Command landed units on Utah beach on D-Day and on Omaha beach on D-Day plus 1. Within sixteen days, Allied air power had five fighter-bomber groups based in Normandy; by June 30, nine all-weather airfields had been completed and seven more were under construction.

From D-Day until the end of July, the Ninth Air Force concentrated on flying missions against the enemy in cooperation with the ground forces and on transferring tactical air units to the continent as quickly as possible. On June 22, the Allies used all available fighter-bombers to launch a massive bombing assault against German fortifications and troops defending Cherbourg. The city fell on June 27 and within three weeks supply ships began using the harbor.

By the end of July, eighteen fighter-bomber and reconnaissance groups were on the continent and an efficient radar control system had been established on the beachhead. Meanwhile, medium and light bombers, still operating from Britain, bombed bridges over the Seine and Loire Rivers, attacked railway yards, and destroyed German fuel and ammunition supply points along the entire Normandy front. As the battle continued, the fighter-bombers attacked German strong points, troop formations, self-propelled artillery, tanks, and armored cars.

Heavy bombers did their part to support the invasion throughout June and July. Almost every day that the weather permitted, the heavies bombed airfields, bridges, choke points, marshaling yards, rail targets, construction and supply sites, and oil refineries.

But even with the heavy air support, the ground offensive began to stall, particularly in the hedgerow country around Saint Lo. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, commander of the First Army, devised a plan to use bombers to blast a hole through the German lines and allow the Allied forces to break out of the invasion area. Designated Operation Cobra, the attack began on the morning of July 25. Over 1,500 heavy bombers, 380 medium bombers, and 550 fighter-bombers dropped hundreds of tons of bombs in the Cobra area, killing German soldiers, burying equipment, destroying tanks, cutting telephone wires, and disrupting communications with the German forward echelons. The U.S. ground forces, taking advantage of the confusion and demoralization of the Germans, broke out of the hedgerow country. Although the air attack was marred by short rounds that killed and wounded U.S. soldiers, it still made an important contribution to the over- all success of Cobra.

As the breakout from the hedgerow country proceeded, the Americans intensified their efforts in close air support. To better carry out the ground support mission, the Army Air Forces established two tactical air commands (TACs): the IX TAC, under Maj. Gen. Elwood R. Quesada, and the XIX TAC, under Brig. Gen. Otto P. Weyland. Later, in September, a third organization, the XXIX TAC, was formed under the command of Brig. Gen. Richard E. Nugent. These tactical air commands were partnered with and supported the First and Third Armies and the 6th Army Group, respectively. In an innovative move, the Allies installed radios in fighter-bombers and tanks that allowed direct communication among the aircraft and the tanks. Operating from newly created airstrips in Normandy, the fighter- bombers provided continuous air support for the Allied armored forces.

At first, the IX Troop Carrier Command remained in Britain airlifting supplies and. when necessary, airborne troops to the continent. However, the speedy advance of the Allied ground armies, the scale of combat, the distances involved. and the demand for supplies all placed a severe strain on the air transport system. Therefore, in October, the IX Troop Carrier Command began moving units into the Le Mans and later the Chartres areas of France.

The strategic air forces, while supporting the invasion, also continued when possible to fly strategic bombing missions. On June 8, Spaatz issued an order to the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces specifying that their primary strategic mission was to deny oil to the German armed forces. USSTAF assigned to the Fifteenth Air Force the crude oil refineries near Ploesti, Vienna, and Budapest, along with the synthetic petroleum plants in Silesia in Poland, and the Sudetenland. The synthetic oil plants in central and eastern Germany were delegated to the Eighth Air Force, along with the crude oil refineries near Hamburg, Bremen, and Hanover. RAF Bomber Command joined in the effort by bombing synthetic oil plants in the Ruhr valley.

Within a week of Spaatz's order, the Fifteenth Air Force bombed the major Hungarian refineries, all of the production plants in Yugoslavia, and almost all of the Italian refineries. At Ploesti, the Fifteenth faced anew German defensive measure. As the enemy detected the incoming bombers, they used the warning time to light hundreds of smoke pots around the oil fields, thus concealing the area before the U.S. bombers arrived. This tactic forced the aircrews to resort to blind bombing through the smoke.

Because of its commitments to the invasion, the strikes at the German terror weapons, and poor weather, the Eighth Air Force did not launch a mission against the oil targets until June 18, when fifteen combat wings of B-17 s attacked eleven oil installations in northwestern Germany. Two days

later, the Eighth dispatched a massive force of more than 1,300 heavy bombers and 729 escorting fighters against the oil targets at Hamburg, Harburg, Ostermoor, Misburg, Politz, and Magdeburg. The USSTAF continued to fly these missions whenever possible into the autumn of 1944.

In an effort to cross the Rhine, the Allies launched a major ground and airborne assault known as Market-Garden. "Market" referred to the air phase of the assault and "Garden" to the ground phase. Market began the night of September 16/17 when 282 aircraft from RAF Bomber command attacked flak defenses and airfields at Leewarden, Steewijk- Havelte, Hopsten, and Salzbergen, all of which were within easy striking distance of the drop and landing zones. Later in the morning, the Eighth Air Force sent more than 800 B-17s to attack antiaircraft positions along the routes the troop carriers would follow. After the bombers, 1,546 air- craft and 478 gliders carrying troopers from the U.S. 82d and 101st Air- borne Divisions and the British I Airborne Division converged on the drop zones. Throughout a period of three days, approximately 20,000 airborne troops, including the Polish I st Independent Parachute Brigade, landed on a narrow, sixty-mile-long drop zone in the Netherlands. They tried to capture bridges at Eindhoven, Veghal, Grave, Nijmegen, and Arnhem and hold them until British infantry and armored forces could punch their way through, relieve the airborne forces, cross the Rhine, and advance into Germany. Although the airborne forces captured several of the bridges, the attack failed because of fierce German resistance and the presence of two German tank divisions in the area.

As the Allied armies advanced in the autumn of 1944, they faced a logistics nightmare. Existing port and transportation facilities were strained to the breaking point, and with winter coming the problem would only get worse. The Germans had left the port of Brest in ruins, and other enemy- held ports faced a similar fate. Encountering that situation, Eisenhower nevertheless looked toward the port of Antwerp and gave it a paramount place in Allied strategy. On September 22, Eisenhower held a meeting of his chief commanders and primary staff officers to discuss the current operational situation and future strategy. He ordered Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery, the commander of 21 Army Group, to clear the Scheldt Estuary and capture the port of Antwerp and he directed Bradley to continue his move toward Cologne and Bonn and to strengthen his left flank, which bordered the British Second Army. These plans affected the Ninth Air Force and its tac- tical air commands.

IX and XIX TACs immediately expended a greater effort on the Ger- man rail system west of the Rhine. In addition, Ninth Air Force units assisted Montgomery in the capture of Antwerp. They also played an important role in the attack on Aachen, the gateway to the Ruhr valley. During this assault, the fighter-bombers of IX TAC flew nearly 6,000 close air support missions against pillboxes, strong points, artillery and troop concentrations, gun positions, command posts, and airfields.

Medium bombers and fighter-bombers also devoted time and effort to attacks on the German transportation system. In addition to rail-cutting missions, they made successful attacks against bridges at Cologne, Remagen- Dumpelfeld, Norvenish-Modrath, Ahrdorf, and Euskirchen.

Fighter-bombers also struck at marshaling yards almost every day they were able to fly and kept a lookout for targets on the highways and railroads. Although they destroyed hundreds of trucks, armored vehicles, tanks, locomotives, and railway cars, they were unable to isolate particular battle areas completely. The Germans exhibited an extraordinary ability to make rapid repairs on damaged rail lines, yards, and bridges. This ability, coupled with a dense network of rails that allowed for the use of alternate routes and weather that frequently grounded Allied aircraft, caused immense frustration for Allied leaders. The strategic forces, besides conducting the oil campaign, waged a bombing offensive against German ordnance depots, tank assembly plants, and motor vehicle factories. Specifically, the Allied leaders ordered attacks on seven plants that produced medium and heavy trucks: Ford at Cologne, Saurer at Vienna, Daimler-Benz at Gaggenau, Bussing at

Brunswick, Borgward at Bremen, Adam Opel near Berlin, and Daimler- Benz at Mannheim. By the end of September, the Eighth Air Force had inflicted heavy damage on these targets, and that encouraged the Allies to intensify their efforts in October. Although air attacks damaged the facilities and caused a decline in motor vehicle production, ordnance production continued and the output of tanks actually rose.

In the early autumn of 1944, the Allied air forces intensified their efforts against Germany's railways and waterways. The heavy bombers at- tacked marshaling yards in Cologne, Münster, Mainz, Saarbrücken, Munich, Vienna, and Essen, among others. The tactical air forces, flying out of eastern France and Belgium, cut railroad lines at more than 1,000 points and destroyed about a thousand locomotives. RAF Bomber Command tried to break the canal embankments along Germany's vital waterways, but once again the enemy proved effective at making repairs.

redder believed that the attacks against the German transportation network were too haphazard, and on October 28 he convened a meeting of Allied air leaders to revise priorities. They continued to give the oil campaign preeminence, but elevated in importance the destruction of the German transportation network over displacing tanks, trucks, and ordnance depots.

Soon the Eighth Air Force assembled more target information on the enemy rail centers and during the first two weeks in November bombed marshaling yards and repair facilities in Koblenz, Frankfurt, Hamm, Hamburg, Ludwigshafen, Minden, Neunkirchen, Oberlahnstein, Rheine, and Saarbriicken. For their part, the tactical air forces continued to bomb moving traffic and cooperated with the strategic air forces in bombing the marshaling yards.