Looking Backward

The air assault on Nazi Europe was still growing in weight and speed (see chart). The record of sorties flown in a single day by Allied planes rose to 8,000. The greatest U.S. air fleet ever launched on a single mission sent 1,000 heavy bombers and 1,200 fighters against three synthetic oil plants in the Leipzig area. This was air power in force to fit the fondest visions of Mitchell and Douhet--and more accurately employed than they had even dreamed in their day.

But the D-day of invasion was approaching, and on D-day one major phase of the world's first great air campaign would end. In that phase, air power alone had attacked Germany in the west.

After D-day there would still be strategic bombing--Lieut. General "Tooey" Spaatz's day bombers would perhaps be as busy as they are now and Air Chief Marshal "Bert" Harris would still send his heavies deep into Germany by night. But the strategic bombers would no longer have the show entirely to themselves, to put their theories, tactics and tools to the only real test. What they had accomplished by that day would have to stand as the interim report on air power used as a single weapon against a big and highly developed industrial nation.

No Knockout. There could be no formal report, of course, yet top airmen Tedder, Spaatz, Harris, Anderson, Eaker, Brereton and the rest must be turning over in their minds what such a report should be. It would be short of the claims of Billy Mitchell, but in the main it would nonetheless be favorable to the air arm.

True, Germany had not been knocked out by air. But equally true was the fact that air power had not been given either the scope or the time to swing for that knockout with its full weight.

In the fullest sense, air power was just beginning to work. Only since February 20 had the Allies been able to mount "saturation offensives" against the enemy. Even now the air forces operating against German-held Europe were barely reaching their planned full strength; months of operation, perhaps six or seven months, would be required to prove whether Germany might be driven to surrender by air attack alone. Now the airmen knew they could not have that time. Meanwhile airmen could report three successes already achieved:

P:The invasion would probably not be possible at all, except for the degree of air supremacy the Allies now enjoy, and the damage wreaked on German industry and transport.

P:German aircraft production has been slashed. The Luftwaffe's reserve strength and its ability to fight a continuing battle have been vastly cut.

P:The western air campaign has contributed heavily to the great Russian advance in the east; Joseph Stalin himself has acknowledged it.

Might-Have-Been. As they pondered these results, airmen were not dissatisfied. but they still had their wistful "if only" or "might-have-been."

Originally the strategic bombers had based their plans for defeating Germany on a broad program of precise, ruthless destruction of key industries. But the bombers for that plan were not delivered. A dribble of U.S. bombers came to the European theater; the rest were diverted, many for the pressing needs of the campaigns in Africa and Italy, some to the Pacific and elsewhere. For a long while U.S. air forces in Europe were about eight months behind scheduled strength.

In one sense, the dribble was worse than none. The bombers that did go into action caught a surprised enemy off guard, shocked him and punished him. But the full pace of attack could not be maintained. The enemy learned how to defend himself. He revised his plane production, developed new tactics, improved his ack-ack barrage, shifted the weight of his air strength westward.

Looking back, some of the firmest strategic bombermen believe that 600 heavy bombers, in April 1943, would have enabled the Eighth Air Force to cripple German industry before the Nazis could rearrange their defenses.

Now the number needed for the job may be 1,000, or 1,500, or more. The weapons are at hand. But D-day is, too. The final test of air power will not come in this war.

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