[Six Nifty .50s]

When the escorting fighters were totally cut loose from the bombers, the fighters were not performing the escort function. They were instead freelancing, not unlike a basketball player who competes mainly to increase his personal score, and who seems to believe that he can defeat the other team by himself.

Some of the best-known fighter pilots appeared to place more emphasis on personal achievement than team goals. They may have said otherwise, but actions speak louder than words.

Some pilots in the USAAF and Luftwaffe felt that "releasing the hounds" was not the best solution to a long term problem. The main effect was that a small majority of fighter pilots greatly increased their tally of enemy aircraft shot down, or strafed on the ground. Unfortunately, it also caused more own losses than necessary.

Better to keep the dogs on a leash, they said, because the whole point of escort fighters was: prevent enemy fighters from interfering with the air strikes. It did not matter how many enemy fighters were shot down. But it did matter when the enemy broke through the escorts, or found a hole in the coverage because some of the escorts were off on a hunting trip.

The escorts could not fly too close to the bombers either. They required some flexibility as Adolf Galland and Hubert Zemke rightly noted, but just how far away they should be allowed to stray was a major point of contention.