accompanied by strategic bomber raids
against the same targets. The bridge campaign, which aimed at isolating the
battlefield by cutting Seine bridges below Paris and Loire bridges below
Orleans, began on D minus 46. Here, fighter-bombers proved more efficient than
medium or heavy bombers, largely because their agility enabled them to make
pinpoint attacks in a way that the larger bombers, committed to horizontal
bombing runs, could not. The fighter-bombers also had the speed, firepower, and
maneuverabil-ity to evade or even dominate the Luftwaffe. Though ground fire and
(rarely) fighters did claim some attacking fighter-bombers, the loss rate was
considerably less than it would have been with conventional attack or dive
bombers. By D minus 21, Allied air forces were attacking German airfields within
a radius of 130 miles of the battle area and these operations too continued up
to the assault on the beachhead.
Air Support on the Beaches
During the June 6 D-Day assault itself,
a total of 171 squadrons of British and AAF fighters undertook a variety of
tasks in support of the invasion. Fifteen squadrons provided shipping cover,
fifty-four provided beach cover, thirty-three undertook bomber escort and
offensive fighter sweeps, thirty-three struck at targets inland from the landing
area, and thirty-six provided direct air support to invading forces. The
Luftwaffe's appearance was so minuscule that Allied counterair measures against
the few German aircraft that did appear are not worth mentioning.
Of far greater importance was the role
of aircraft in supporting the land battle. As troops came ashore at Normandy,
they made an unpleasant discovery all too familiar to the Marine Corps and Army
operating in the Pacific campaign. Despite the intensive air and naval
bombardment of coastal defenses, those defenses were, by and large, intact when
the invasion force 'hit the beach.' This was particularly true at Omaha beach,
where American forces suffered serious casualties and critical delays. Despite a
massive series of attacks by Eighth Air Force B-17s, B-24s and medium bombers in
the early hours of June 6, the invading troops were hung up on the beach. The
air commanders themselves had, in fact, predicted that the air and naval
bombardments would not achieve the desired degree of destruction of German
defensive positions. The Army's general optimism that air would cleanse the
beaches before its
