Test in the West

Allied airmen in Britain gave a perfect and prophetic demonstration of their power. Heavy night bombers, heavy day bombers, night-&-day medium bombers, long-and short-range fighters struck as a single weapon with a single purpose--the invasion of Western Europe.

Only one thing was lacking: actual invasion. Motor torpedo boats snarled along the Channel coasts of France and the Lowlands. A convoy of warships and troop ships appeared in mid-Channel, where German reconnaissance was sure to see them. The Germans saw, too clearly. Judging this display for what it was--a climax to extensive invasion maneuvers in Britain -- the Luftwaffe sent up few planes to be shot down by lurking Allied airmen. But, through a night and the following day, the R.A.F. and the U.S. Eighth Air Force attacked a selected strip of French coastland, and targets behind it, exactly as they will do on the day of real invasion in the West.

Pattern of Power. The aerial preparation began many days before the 24-hour blow at the coast. Part of this pattern of power was the R.A.F.'s series of night raids on Berlin and other German targets in the preceding fortnight, on Munich and Mannheim-Ludwigshafen last week. So was a strong daylight raid by U.S. Fortresses on Stuttgart. The immediate purpose of these raids was local destruction, but they also furthered the campaign to whittle away German fighter forces and pin them down far from the coasts.

Fortresses, medium bombers and fighter bombers meantime attacked Nazi ports, railways, airdromes and aircraft maintenance centers in France and the Lowlands harder and more often than ever before. Then, on the climactic night, the R.A.F. Bomber Command suddenly diverted fleets of its far-ranging heavy bombers from Germany to the Channel coast. They hit Boulogne, a port on the hump of northern France nearest to Britain, one of the logical invasion routes.

Next day medium bombers hit Boulogne. Other formations, including Fortresses, bombed and strafed every airfield from which German planes could have taken off to repel invaders. Swarms of fighters, on escort and on independent sweeps, took and held absolute command of the sky above the coastland. Behind the coastal area, near Paris, Fortresses and escorting Thunderbolt fighters staged a great raid with a double purpose: to bomb an aircraft-engine works and to engage the only sizable force of German fighters which appeared over France that day.

At the day's end some 1,800 U.S. and British planes had flown over France. Eighth Air Force planes alone had flown more than 1,000 daylight sorties (individual missions). The Allies had lost ten planes; the Germans had lost 16 and would have lost many more if they had dared to, or been able to, accept the challenge.

That night, on scores of airdromes, pilots and crews compared notes, adduced new facts and reappraised some old ones about comparative German and Allied air strength. One fact was paramount. At the place and time of this particular test, the Luftwaffe was helpless; Allied air power was supreme.

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