Air Harvest

For Allied aircraft no German target was now out of reach. Even fighter planes (P-51 Mustangs) ranged as far as western Poland on bomber escort duty and earned special congratulations from Lieut. General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz, commander of all U.S. strategic bombing forces in Europe. The German defensive air force was obviously weakened in numbers, if not in fighting quality. Relentless air pounding along the French invasion coast had created an almost deserted zone, 50 miles deep.

In London Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, reported that during the war 26,000 German and Italian planes had been shot down in combat, not counting the Russian front. In the very week of Sir Archibald's report, the western Allies flew an estimated 30,000 sorties over Europe; on the lightest day of that week, 3.600 U.S. and British planes were out.

Capsule Week. The week's operations were a capsule history of the whole air war on Germany. Industries, aircraft plants, airfields, synthetic oil plants, coastal installations, railway junctions and freight yards were combed over, in attacks from the Channel to the far Baltic coast.

Allied airmen were rounding out their first month of full-scale preparation for invasion, and the month's work had been expensive. From British bases alone the U.S. had lost some 300 heavy bombers--each with ten highly trained men aboard. The R.A.F. had lost nearly as many.

But 130,000 tons of bombs had been well & truly laid across Fortress Europe, and the bleeding Luftwaffe had lost some 700 fighters.

Everyday Task. For the crews of heavily armed U.S. daylight bombers the task of bringing the German fighter planes to battle was implicit in all the other missions. As one veteran U.S. air officer explained it:

"This week, we're looking for anything that can fly in Germany."

The Germans, for their part, avoided battle most of the time, fought only when Allied attacks struck too deeply at sensitive targets. Where they had once been able to put 600 fighters into the air to meet any heavy attack, their limit now appeared to be around 400. But the flyers who went up were the Luftwaffe's best; they fought with a skill and bitterness that earned them sober professional praise from their foes.

On the eve of invasion, Allied air commanders were well aware of the giant power under their control. They knew well what it could do--and not do.

Knockout When? Air power will maintain constant pressure on the Luftwaffe up to D-day and afterward. Against a foe who apparently hoards his remaining planes the Allies cannot expect to score a complete air knockout in advance.

But Allied airmen are prepared to protect invasion forces. They believe that Germany will have to commit all her hoarded air power almost immediately; that the real air knockout will probably follow swiftly.

Allied air power can and will sweep the invasion beaches; it cannot and will not sweep them entirely clean of heavy emplacements. They will have to be accounted for in the classical manner: gun against gun. But once landings are achieved, air power will furnish a protective umbrella for Allied troops, keep air supply lines open to advance units, cut enemy communications. Said an air general:

"We intend to make it utterly impossible for the enemy to move his forces in the daytime, and very unpleasant and dangerous at night."

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