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You are right. As I wrote in Jagdwaffe, Vol. 5, Section 2, “The War in the East 1944 - 45”:
“Contrary to popular belief, the Soviets only rarely possessed the same numerical superiority in the air as the Western Allies attained over the Normandy invasion area in the summer of 1944. . . . However, during Operation 'Bagration', the major Soviet offensive in June and July 1944 which resulted in the destruction of Army Group Centre, the Soviet commanders created a massive concentration of aircraft that vastly outnumbered those available to Luftflotte 6, the local air command covering the area occupied by Army Group Centre.”
When Bagration was launched, there were 7,790 Soviet aircraft in the region, as opposed to 836 aircraft in Luftflotte 6.
III./JG 11 arrived straight from operations over the Normandy landing area to reinforce Luftflotte 6, but the average level of pilot experience in III./JG 11was below that of most Eastern Front Jagdgruppen, and it therefore sustained some severe losses. III./JG 11 sustained 23 pilot casualties on the Eastern Front between late June and the end of August 1944. In comparison, this Geschwader's II. Gruppe, which remained in the West, sustained the same number of casualties while operating against the USAAF and RAF in the same period. In early September 1944, the badly depleted III./JG 11 was withdrawn from first-line service and its surviving pilots were given a period of rest in Germany while the gaps from the losses were filled by inexperienced replacements.
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