, Wings Over Normandy

Numerous books in English have been written on the June-August 1944 Normandy Campaign. However, most of these works focus on the ground campaign. The present edited volume comprising 13 hitherto unpublished academic essays turn the spotlight on the crucial role played by Allied airpower in the defeat of the Wehrmacht at Normandy. The contributors, coming from both civilian and military backgrounds, besides studying aerial battles also highlight the intricate linkages between air and ground campaigns which unfolded almost simultaneously. Of the 13 essays, five focus exclusively on the air campaign before D-Day and the rest of the chapters delineate the role of airpower during the Allied advance from the beachheads of Normandy to the Seine River.

Mike Bechthold, the editor of this volume, who teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University, comments that close air support (CAS) by the British and American aircraft did not result in destruction of significant numbers of German tanks and artillery. However, the Allied air forces through their interdiction and armed reconnaissance missions not only slowed the arrival of German reinforcements in the battlefield but also acted as eyes and ears of the Allied commanders. The German defenders were almost ‘blind’ just before the actual Normandy invasion. This was because, as Matthew Bone’s essay shows, the P-38s and P-47s along with Hawker Typhoons (equipped with rockets or bombs) destroyed the German radar installations along the coastline of Normandy.

The intimate connection between tactical use of airpower and the strategic air campaign is stressed in several essays. S. Mike Pavelec writes that while the Royal Air Force (RAF) doctrine was to go for area bombing of Germany to destroy German morale, the American emphasis was to disrupt the Nazi military factories. Stephen Moore shows the implementation of the ‘Transportation Plan.’ The RAF and the American aircraft between March and July 1944 created a ‘railway desert’ by destroying the French railroads around Normandy. So, German units had to move through the roads and came under attack by Allied Jabos (fighter-bombers). Hence, only a small trickle of German reinforcements could reach the Normandy battlefield and, even then, only in the night. However, there was a price to pay. As a result of collateral damage, some 70,000 French civilians were killed by the Allied aircraft.

As the Allied forces landed on the beaches as part of Operation Neptune, Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) by providing continuous aircover prevented any intervention by the Luftwaffe. The command arrangement, agrees Christopher Finn (an ex-RAF officer), was a bit defective. Nevertheless, it was successful and the AEAF suffered a mere 0.7 percent loss. When the Allied ground forces were combating the Wehrmacht, the Allied tactical air force had evolved a system for CAS of the ground forces which though not perfect was still an improvement upon the past. Tactical airpower was not distributed to individual army formations as in the First World War but rather grouped into air force organizations. Mobile teams with radios went forward with the ground forces to relay requests for air strikes back to the joint battle room. Paul Johnston, a Royal Canadian Air Force officer, writes that this system proved more than adequate against a gravely weakened Luftwaffe which was in no position to seriously threaten the Allied ground formations bursting out of the beaches.

Some of the essays also turn attention to the human element of air war. Flying bombers was dangerous especially in face of the Luftwaffe fighters and the dreaded 88-mm anti-aircraft artillery which straddled the German cities. Heather Venable, Associate Professor in the US Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College, argues that Lieutenant-General Carl Spaatz, Commander of the US Strategic Air Forces, underplayed the dangerous drop of crew morale in his command. Even the ground forces’ morale was shaped by the airpower. By making a case study of the 3^rd Canadian Division, Alexander Fitzgerald-Black highlights the positive morale effects of CAS. Air superiority raised the confidence of the Canadians during June 1944. However, friendly fire incidents, as happened on 8 August 1944, when American B-17s bombed the Canadians, resulted in a serious drop in morale. So, the fluctuation in morale of the soldiers was like a roller coaster.

Generally, historians agree that heavy bombers were suited for only strategic bombing of a hostile country’s cities and factories. Use of long-range heavy bombers for CAS was a misapplication of air assets that could often cause friendly casualties. This happened during Operation Goodwood (18-20 July 1944) as well as Operation Totalize (8-10 August 1944). But, this was not always the case. Christopher M. Rein’s essay argues that carpet bombing by the heavies of a section of the German frontline near Saint Lo during Operation Cobra (25-31 July 1944) proved effective in enabling the American breakout. But, area bombing by the heavy bombers was not always the solution. Its success depended on a host of other factors like terrain, weather, strength of the opposing ground forces, etc. In general, we can agree that for battlefield air interdiction, Jabos with their machine-guns and bombs were most effective.

The essays in the edited volume under review show that the successful Allied ground campaign would not have been possible without massive application of airpower. While strategic bombing by heavy bombers from 1943 onwards weakened the Nazi war economy, aerial supremacy made possible the landings at Gold, Juno, Sword, Omaha and Utah beaches respectively. Further, tactical airpower enabled Montgomery and Patton to break out of the beachheads into the interior of France.

To sum up, Airpower and the Normandy Campaign is an essential read for all serious scholars of the Normandy Campaign. The volume also has relevance for present day military practitioners as aerial interdiction remains an important task in the current era.

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Our Reviewer: Dr. Kaushik Roy is Guru Nanak Chair Professor, Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He is the author of numerous works in military history, such as Battle for Malaya: The Indian Army in Defeat, 1941–1942, The Army in British India: From Colonial Warfare to Total War 1857 - 1947, The Indian Army in the Two World Wars, Sepoys against the Rising Sun: The Indian Army in Far East and South-East Asia, 1941–45, and many more. He previously reviewed Civil War Infantry Tactics, The Clausewitz Myth, General George S. Patton and the Art of Leadership, The Russian-Ukrainian War, 2023, AI, Automation, and War, and Moshe Dayan: The Making of a Strategist.

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Note: Airpower and the Normandy Campaign is also available in e-editions.

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