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Re: Luftwafffe pilot rotation
Just to follow up on Larry's comments about USAAF pilot limits, it was not missions, but hours flown in combat or operations. The orginal was 200, then 300 and eventually 400 hours. Guys who wanted to stay on ops would cheat, a lot, in their log books. When the P-51 became operational, there was, of course, a lot more hours on a single mission. In the book "1000 Destroyed", the author talks about the 4th's, Commander Donald Blakslee, guarding his log book with great care and only starting to count the hours when he crossed the enemy coast!
George Preddy, leading Mustang ace, also kept bumping up his hours until he had well over 500 before rotating home for a 6 week "rest".
The idea of rotating home was not only to give a pilot a rest, and they were not obligated to go back into combat--that was voluntary, but to have them impart their skills and experiences to pilots under training. Some liked that, others found it very booring and chaffed to get back into combat.
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