Allied air mastery over invasion coast stops Luftwaffe, helps secure beachhead
London, England –
Seven days of air superiority over the Normandy beachheads played a vital part in making possible the successful start of the invasion of Europe. In those crucial seven days, Allied fighters and bombers flew 56,000 sorties, smashed 42,000 tons of bombs against the German defenders and destroyed 397 enemy planes.
The Luftwaffe, weakened by the long assault on replacement factories in Germany and years of combat against the ever-increasingly powerful U.S. and British air forces, was swept completely from the skies those first few nervous days. Even the German radio admitted that the Nazis seldom dared move troops or supplies except at night.
Douglas transports began the invasion five hours before H-Hour when they roared across the Channel. In eight hours, they dropped an army of 35,000 to 50,000 airborne troops behind German lines by glider and parachute.
After dawn, a train of them, 50 miles long and nine planes wide, rushed good, guns, artillery, ammunition and reinforcements.
On the second day, engineers were needed. Again, the transports took off to ferry over men to build the first Allied airstrip in France. From the second day on, the C-47s flew wounded back to England.
Meanwhile, Allied fighter-bombers and medium bombers were throwing an almost impenetrable air blanket over the beachhead. Fighters flew cover, smashed troop concentrations and hit strongpoints. Medium bombers severed the last Seine bridges to cut off Nazi reinforcements. Heavy bombers raised havoc with targets farther behind the front.
The completeness of Allied air superiority was made possible in part by the tremendous pounding given Germany by the Allied air forces for long months before.
In May, Americans and British hit Nazi Europe with 154,380 tons of bombs, averaging more than 200 tons an hour, day and night, for the entire pre-invasion month.
Well over half the U.S. fighters, bombers and transports participating in the long pre-invasion assault as well as the actual invasion of Fortress Europe are equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines and Hamilton Standard propellers.