Eastern vs Western Front (was: La-7 vs ???)

[Christer Bergström]

Franek,

“Luftwaffe was unable to manage their resources properly, partially due to decisions of government”

That goes without saying. I have to say that no single decision made by the Nazi government had a more disastrous impact on Germany’s war resources than the decision to invade the Soviet Union. That decision alone deprived Hitler of his possibility to bring the war to a successful conclusion, and wasted the bulk of Germany’s war effort, plus - of course! - millions of Russian and German lives. (Please - no discussions on the reason to the German invasion of the USSR! Please save that to a political forum, we all know that the clique who believes that Hitler acted in defence when he invaded the USSR has some followers among the members on the TOCH board, but please spread that gospel somewhere else!)

Franek, yesterday you asked me to show you only one example of an air battle in the summer of 1944, where the Germans were so outnumbered. I gave you a whole row of examples - and I refrained from using German sources, since it is a well-known phenomenon that the pilots of one side often exaggerate the number of enemy aircraft which they engaged (and often "forget" to mention that other friendly units participated in the same combat). Since you didn’t comment on that in your last post, I assume that you are satisfied with those random examples - two of which showed air battles where there were between 50 and 60 Allied aircraft against each Luftwaffe aircraft involved.

If you allow me to quote one of the German fighter pilots who experienced this while flying over Normandy in 1944, Hans-Ekkehard Bob told me:

“I often found myself alone pursued by eight or ten Mustangs, and was able to survive only by mobilising all my flight skills, twisting and turning around small woods and church towers in low-level flight. I was aided by the lacking skills on behalf of the American pilots, since each one of them wanted to shoot me down, and thus they blocked each other.” Bob has included that in his memoirs too.

Prien quotes III./JG 3’s War Diary on 13 June 1944:

“Die zahlenmässige Überlegenheit des Gegners, abgesehen von der technischen, ist derart gross, dass Starts in Schwarm- oder Staffelstärke zu untragbaren Verlusten führen. . . . Eigene Verbände werden in kürzester Zeit in Luftkämpfe mit überlegenen Feindkräfte, die laufend Verstärkung erhalten.“ (Prien, ”III./JG 3“, German edition, p. 364.)


I know that you asked for only one example, and I gave you several, but although I can’t write the whole history of the air war over Normandy here, I’ll provide you with just one more example of a single air combat which you wanted:

Let’s first listen to our friend Don Caldwell, who in his excellent “JG 26 War Diary” writes on page 292 (dealing with 27 June 1944): “134 Fw 190 and 196 Bf 109 sorties during the day, in thirty-five ordered missions. It is probable that a ‘mission’ in this context represented an effort by one Gruppe; a Gruppe mission thus contained an average of fewer than ten aircraft”.

In other words, an average of no more than nine German fighters participated in each mission on 27 June 1944.

The largest single mission performed by the Luftwaffe over France on 27 June 1944 probably was that which involved I. and II./JG 27 in the evening, with approximately 20 Bf 109s. These were attacked by the Thunderbolts of 353 FG, and then Thunderbolts of 56 FG joined in, followed by the Mustangs of 352 FG and 355 FG. It is possible that the Mustangs of 339 FG also participated in the onslaught on I. and II./JG 27’s little formation, since this fighter group claimed a victory against a German fighter in the same area and at the same time, while there are no records of other German fighter units in the vicinity by the same time. However, it doesn’t matter whether I. and II./JG 27’s little formation was battered by four or five different US fighter groups; what matters is that the Bf 109 pilots stood no chance and lost nine Bf 109s (the Americans claimed 14 victories) while they only managed to shoot down two US fighters. (See Clark, book, p. 94, and CD for 27 June 1944.)


All best,

Christer Bergström