[colorado tanker]

We're in the middle of "Big Week," where the Army Air Force will make daily raids on aircraft related industries with a large fighter cover. Bomber Harris had to be bludgeoned into supporting the effort by bombing the same targets at night. The goal was to knock the Luftwaffe out of the war.

It didn't happen, although Luftwaffe losses were sizable. As has been the pattern, the damage to the industry wasn't as great as we thought/hoped.

The best news is that, in contrast with the Schweinfurt raids, with fighter cover our losses were in the acceptable range. The other good news is that what is left of the Luftwaffe fighter force in Western Europe is being pulled back to Germany to take on the bombers closer to home. We'll have air superiority over Normandy.

[henkster]

Big Week did all of that. The Luftwaffe was not able to interfere with the Normandy invasion. However, Big Week was not a cakewalk. It put a lot of stress on the American aircrews and ground crews to make this effort. American losses were also high, and crew morale had some rough spots. But we could take the losses. The Luftwaffe could not.

[Tax-chick]

Thanks, that’s all very informative.

I’ll be out all day tomorrow and miss the war news. Maybe I can catch up on Sunday.