A Concise History of the US Air Force - Air Force Historical Studies ...

scheduled by the Allies for late spring, diverted Eighth Air Force
bombers against transportation targets in France to isolate the invasion
area. In support of the invasion, Spaatz wanted to go after German oil tar-
gets to ground the Lufhyuffe and force the German army to park its vehi-
cles. Invasion commander General Dwight Eisenhower overruled him on
March 25, assigning USSTAF to interdict the landing area. VIII Fighter
Command under Kepner continued to strafe German airfields and other
ground targets through June.
When eight Allied divisions landed in Normandy on June 6,
1944, they did so under conditions of near total Allied control of the air,
courtesy of USSTAF-only two Lufhyuffe fighters appeared in the area
that day. In late July USSTAF bombers again proved critical to the ground
campaign as they blasted a hole through German lines at St. L6 for
Lieutenant General George Patton’s Third Army. Allied tactical air for-
ces, which included Major General Elwood Quesada’s IX Tactical Air
Command for the First Army and Major General Otto Weyland’s XIX
Tactical Air Command for the Third Army, provided protective cover and
close air support, in line with procedures established in North Africa, for
Allied armies sweeping across France toward Germany. At Argentan-
Falaise in August air power plugged the gap between encircling Ame-
rican anid Canadian armies, destroying hundreds of German armored
vehicles and aiding in the capture of fifty thousand German troops.
During the Battle of the Bulge in December, airlift, aerial interdiction,
and close air support helped turn a near-disaster into an Allied victory.
Eighth and Fifteenth Air Force attacks on Germany’s fuel indus-
try provided immeasurable help to the ground offensives, restricting
severely the ability of German ground forces to maneuver their armored
and mechanized units. Allied air superiority, a product of the Eighth Air
Force’s aerial campaign, had permitted the landings in Europe, the Allied
armies freedom of maneuver, and resupply without concern for the
Lufhyufs.. Germany had shown the world in 1939 and 1940 what close
coordination between tactical air power and ground armies could accom-
plish. The USAAF repaid the favor with a vengeance in the drive from
Normandy into Germany in 1944 and early 1945.
Eisenhower held first call on Spaatz’s strategic bombing force
through the summer of 1944, but allowed it to return to POINTBLANK
objectives with an assault on Germany’s oil production when it was not
bombing targets in France in support of ground units. ULTRA intercepts
confirmed that the USAAF had finally found a true chokepoint in the
German industrial economy. German armaments minister Albert Speer
predicted that continued attacks on it would have “tragic consequences.”
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