A ?? RE: B17s in North Africa/Tunisia;

[NickM]

Guys:

I was re-reading some of my material RE: the air war in Tunisia & North Africa & I was surprised by the fact that the LW & the RA had to start dealing with fairly large formations of B17s---in fact it almost seems that they had a bigger problem that the LW units based on the Channel coast that were dealing with the 8th AF--I think that I heard that much of the materiel that was supposed to go to the 8th AF got rerouted to support the effort in Tunisia.
Another thing was the fighters in Tunisia didn't seem to have had a lot of luck against 'the heavies', as opposed to JG2 & JG26's efforts---at least after Egon Mayer finally hit upon the 'head on attack' as a tactic.

So anyways, here's my question: Didn't the experiences & the 'lessons learned' of the JG2/JG26 effort against the heavies get relayed to fighter units in the Med & Tunisia? What was the cause of their somewhat poor showing against B17/B24s?


thanks ahead of time & thank you for your indulgence;

NickM

[S Heisey]

Hello Nick,

I'm probably the last one on this board to accurately answer your question but, I'm currently reading "Messerschmidts Over Sicily" by Johannes Steinhoff and I believe you'll find some of your answers there. If you are referring to late 1943 in that region it seems that the fighter commands were not or could not get supplies, planes and/or experienced pilots as they had at the earlier (and more successful) times of the war along with moral and fatigue seemed a combination to ensure failure. Thats my best guess. I'm sure you'll get more (and better) information soon from the board.

thanks
Scott

[Jack Sanders]

Hi Nick!

I haven't read much on the Tunisian campaign, but here are some thoughts. Only 4 Groups of B-17s participated in the campaign (2nd, 97th, 99th and 301st) and they operated either in large escorted formations attacking defended targets or small formations attacking undefended ones. It was therefore very difficult for the outnumbered Luftwaffe pilots to attack them, due to a combination of a lack of B-17s and the good protection afforded to those that were in theatre. To add to this, the only unit in Tunisia with any experience of attacking B-17s was II./JG2, which didn't even stay for the entire campaign. The other units, which had participated in the North African or Russian campaigns, rarely attacked large bomber formations at all, so this is likely to have caused significant difficulty. Finally, all Luftwaffe fighters, except those of II./JG2, were Bf 109s, which were less heavily armed that the Fw 190s.

Jack

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Another big difference between the Channel and Tunisia was that in the latest theater, the Luftwaffe had an Army to support, and to protect from Allied fighter-bombers. Most of the mission flown were of a tactical nature, while on the Channel front German fighters concentrated rather against B-17 raids, and were not much concerned by RAF Circuses at this stage of the war (RAF day raids were not hitting strategically important targets).

For me North Africa is closer to Eastern Front than the Channel in term of Luftwaffe goals, successes and failure. The German pilots had plenty Allied tactical aircraft to chase and more or less were unefficient against Allied heavies, that punished them by blasting many Axis aircraft on the ground.