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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0967.PDF
MAY 17TH, 1945 FLIGHT 537 The U.S. Eighth Air Force Lt. Qen. Doolittle Reviews Its Contribution to the Defeat of Qermany: Timely Advent of the Long-range Fighter Escort AN outline of the work done by the U.S. Eighth Air /-% Force during the war was given by its commander, •*• -*• Lt. Gen. James Doolittle, at a Press conference in London last week, when he said that all claims of enemy aircraft destroyed by fighter pilots were confirmed by movie cameras in the aircraft's wings, and, after talks in Germany with German prisoners and their own released prisoners, they were satisfied that their method of analys- ing and checking claims by bomber crews had resulted in figures for enemy aircraft so destroyed which were '' on the lean side." The "Eighth" had put in 995 days in the air attack in Germany and had destroyed a total of 15,439 enemy ircraft; fighters had shot down 5,231 and destroyed 4,207 on the ground, while bomber gunners had shot down 6,001. Additionally, 3,073 enemy aircraft had also been destroyed on the ground by bombing. Their own losses had been 43,742 fighter pilots and bomber crew listed as killed or missing in action and 1,923 others seriously wounded. Some 300,000 men and women had served in the "Eighth," which had operated more than 2,400 bombers and 1,200 fighters from 60 airfields, and had consumed 1,044,202,950 U.S. gallons of aviation fuel, which was equivalent to 869,821,058 Imperial gallons. They had dropped 4,377,984 bombs of various kinds and 27,556,978 small 4-lb. incendiaries. This represented 701,300 (U.S.) tons of bombs on enemy targets in Europe, of which 531,771 tons had been dropped on Germany. In addition, 1,444,280,000 leaflets had been dropped on night operations. Altogether 616,900 aircraft had been dispatched on all kinds of operations, and during the past 12 months they had averaged 1,200 aircraft dispatched every day and dropped a ton of bombs every minute. They could have kept up sorties at the rate of 1,200 bombers and 800 fighters daily and, when necessary, could put as many as 2,000 bombers and 1,200 fighters into the air at a time. "Our first objective was the defeat of the Luftwaffe," said Gen. Doolittle. "It was our mandate from the Allied joint chiefs of staff and the keystone upon which all hopes and plans for successful invasion of Europe were built. Seeking- Air Battles ^ - " We began and pressed this campaign in daylight for two reasons: We believed it the most effective way to hit the many widely scattered and frequently isolated aircraft plants, and we deliberately intended to precipitate large- scale air battles, because inflicting heavy losses on the German Air Force in being was essential to air supremacy before invasion. "The Eighth began its campaign outnumbered heavily. The German fighters were equal or superior to any Ameri- can planes; their pilots were capable, well trained and experienced, and some of them were based as close to us as the Pas de Calais. As early as July and August of *943> we had cut into the* German aircraft industry and their combat strength sufficiently to force their replace- ment potential temporarily below their current replacement needs. In the fall and winter of 1943-44, improved Ger- man tactics and more lethal armament increased the Luft- waffe's toll of our bombers on deep penetration missions until we faced a very grave crisis. Neutralisation of the Luftwaffe was not only a campaign against a powerful enemy force but a race against time. It had to be done in time to permit land invasion during the favourable summer weather of 1944. Losses approaching a prohibitive rate on deep penetration into Germany threatened to restrict these operations so as to question our ability to make our deadline, and this gave us many bad nights. But early in 1944, the long-range fighter, which had been continuously in development, came into the air battle of Germany in sufficient numbers to win for us in this period of our greatest crisis. The eflect of all this was manifest on D-Day, when the Luftwaffe didn't seriously contest the invasion, because it was unable. " Apart from large destruction of German planes in com- bat, it is very conservatively estimated that Eighth Air Force bombardment of German aircraft factories during the first five months of 1944 alone kept at least 5,000 enemy fighters from reaching the front. This came at a time when it hurt the Germans most. Oil Campaign "After D-Day we concentrated on our next and most important objective, destruction of the enemy's means to wage war effectively on the ground. By November, 1944, the fuel shortage created by aerial bombardment forced the Luftwaffe to fly operational sorties only in the most favourable circumstances "The oil campaign began, as far as we were concerned, on May 12th, 1944. It was a continuing contest between Allied air power and all the resources of the Germans. At Leuna, west of Leipzig, the enemy's largest synthetic oil plant had to be attacked 18 times by the Eighth and three times by the R.A.F. Each attacking bomber was the target of at least 437 88mm. and larger rapid-fire, heavy anti-aircraft artillery cannon. A smoke screen 30 miles in perimeter covered the area. It was the most heavily defended single industrial plant in all of Germany. " Allied bombardment halted all production there on five separate occasions. Each time the Germans applied thousands of repair men to the job and resumed some pro- duction in time—but never normal capacity. The manager of the Leuna Werke told one of our intelligence officers who went there a few days after its capture by the First U.S. Army that in addition to the 11,000 people employed in operating the plant, 4,000 men were assigned to the plant solely for repair of bomb damage and reconstruction. "So, here as everywhere, it was a continuing contest between bombardiers and reconstruction battalions. Unless the Germans were willing to end all resistance, they could not afford to stop repairing and rebuilding the plants which made resistance possible. By September of 1944 the enemy's gasoline production was down to about one-fifth of the pre-attack level, about half of what he needed as a stringent minimum for full-scale defensive effort. At Leuna alone, by the plant manager's estimate, Allied bombard- ment denied the German army 59,190,750 U.S. gallons of gasoline between May 12th, 1944, and mid-April, 1945— when the plant was captured. "Ordnance sources say it takes 54,000 U.S. gallons ot gasoline per day for one armoured division in the field. Hence it might be said that bombardment of this one plant alone was equivalent in effect to immobilising 12 armoured divisions for three months. In the early months of this year, material deficiencies and transport and communications difficulties not only reduced the enemy's effectiveness far below the potential of the troop strength he still had left, but it materially reduced the will to resist and hastened the enemy troops' realisation that the end was near. " Attacks on German rail facilities, usually co-ordinated with immediate objectives of'the Allied ground forces, were
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