[drgondog]

Ruy - I was priveleged to meet and correspond with Galland from the early 80's until he passed away - his perspective would not align with yours re: P-47 broke the back of the Luftwaffe. I deeply respect your opinion as I did Galland's.

It is not entirely fair to address this subject based on his comments to me, some of which I included as postscript to my own book - but here are the points that he stressed about the Mustang.

1. It was superior to the P-47 in every respect except roll rate and possibly dive but as both were excellent in dive it mattered little to the Fw 190 and Me 109.

2. Because of its superior range, it had a huge footprint in which to apply its superior performance, as well as a high and low altitude. At the end of 1943, the 354thFG proved a NASTY suprise which basically spelled doom to the ZG units forming up out of range of the P-47's and had the range to roam in front of the bomber stream and harass Luftwaffe units trying to form up. December 1943 ops were the beginning but the 354th made a contribution out of proportion to its size in January and February 1944.

3. The Luftwaffe WAS being stressed in 1943 but not as much as the 8th AF, particularly in the Fall when the 8th had to severely reduce deep penetrations w/o fighter escort. The Luftwaffe owned the sky in central, southern and east Germany.

The most successful tactic for the Luftwaffe was to form heavily armed (lower performance) Fw 190s' plus Me 110 and Me 210's out of reach of the P-47 and crucify the B-17's and B-24's. The P-51 destroyed that tactic and both the 354th and 357th FG made significant contributions during Big Week.

4. While the P-47 was formidable it did not have the range to challenge the Luftwaffe over most targets the Luftwaffe might want to defend. The Mustang did - and subsequently permitted no respite for the Luftwaffe to regroup and train replacements or form up unmolested over target areas.

5. While the large attrition of Luftwaffe leaders started in 1943 (actually in 1942 in all theatres) , it was more piecemeal until the late January - May 1944 timeframe - and it was the Mustang that dominated the attrition in those crucuial battles of March, April and May that shredded the Luftwaffe of its leaders.

6. Galland was emphatic that the Mustang changed the tide (from his perspective) in the Air Battle for Europe over Germany - and that his own leadership (Goering) failed to realize the potential danger of not taking on the fledgling USAAF Fighter Units when they were inexperienced and dealing hard blows to 'thin them out' in the 1943 period, or even meet them over the Channel and force them to drop their drop tanks..

From my own observations, the last point he made was valid up to a point - and more to the point of delaying the inevitable as we did not have any interruptions to our supply of new pilots that entered combat with at least 250 hours of fighter time... and the Germans never had the strength in 1944 to meet even 50% of the escort fighters early in the mission

I view the Air War in Europe in at least three phases -1.) Battle of Britain and subsequent stalemate in which the Luftwaffe owned air superiority over the Continent and Brits owned the Isles; 2.) USAAF Strategic Bombing Initiative from late 1942 (I discount the RAF night attacks as a huge drain to the Luftwaffe) through Big Week, 1944 - as the Middle Game' in which tactics and critical mass resulted in huge Battles favoring the Luftwaffe and forcing the US to recognize that long range escort was necessary to execute Strategic Daylight Bombing against critical German industry, and; c.) The Defeat of the Luftwaffe and Aerial Superiority from March 1944 through Bodenplatte - in which the leaders and infrastructure of the Luftwaffe was relentlessly hunted down.

In the latter phase, it was a full Allied effort, including USSR and Britain and US - but the Mustang dominated that last phase... and the Spitfire once again was able to participate over German targets and the P-47's had the range to go to Berlin and beyond in the latter half - but not the 1st half where most of the German leaders were KIA.

I have had more than a couple of conversations with Steinhoff and Galland and Krupinski and others. As individuals none of them 'feared' the Mustang (or Spit ot P-47, etc) but ALL to a man, recognized the difference the Mustang brought to the air war over Europe.

Roy - this is not a 'winnable' argument by weight of facts by simple reson that the P-47 did not in fact continue the US air war against the Jagdwaffe alone...and there were many reasons 8th AF converted every Fighter Group except the 56th from P-47/P-38 to P-51.

To me it is impossible to define the time in which one can specifically say 'Luftwaffe defeated here- everything else after that was mopping up' but my personal belief is that it was Feb-May 1944.

Warm Regards,

Bill