Those drop tanks extending the escort fighters ranges were an ingenious invention - they were developed by a British company and were made of papier-mâché, so that when the escorts jettisoned them over enemy territory their remains were useless to the German war effort. As opposed to all metal drop tanks, which would have provided lightweight metals for the Germans to repurpose.
Also the 8th was using them for about 6 months before some samples that had been sent to the. Evaluation teams at Dayton replied that they weren't acceptable for usaaf usage
@@ooyginyardel4835 I think it was impregnated paper rather than paper mache. They apparently started leaking as soon as they were full! The USAAF later modified German metal drop tanks as well. There is a vid on YT about it.
A friend, now dead, was an RAF pilot who flew the Mustang. One of his tasks, on 'days off' after D-Day was to fly from their airstrip in Normandy back to Tangmere to collect essential supplies, including Mail, fresh bread and a drop tank full of Beer. On working days he flew missions across Europe , escorting day bombers, and straffing targets of opportunity on the way home. He was given a copy of his gun camera film by the IWM not long before he died, showing the damage he did to lorries, planes and trains.
My father flew the B-24 in 8th Air Force, 1st half of 1944. He was shot down twice, once over England by the Luftwaffe who had followed the bombers, and once over the Continent. The Belgian Resistance helped him get back to England. He completed his 25 missions. He flew at least twice on D-Day. Once he was attacked by a jet, which failed to shoot him down. After returning Stateside he was an instructor in the B-25 Mitchell. When he first flew to England, his B-24 landed in Ireland. The crew were interned there 4 days. Another aircraft was flown in for them as their own plane had problems. The Irish let them continue on to England. Though "neutral" Ireland was helping the Allies behind the scenes. I don't know if airmen knew during the war how imprecise "precision bombing" was. He told me long afterward, "We bombed Brussels sprouts." He is buried in the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery. They would have put 2nd Lt. as his rank on the headstone, but I knew he had been promoted, and they engraved 1st Lt. on it as they should have.
P47 had all the highest ETO aces. Are you sure the the P51 killed the Luftwaffe? 47 & 51 had almost identical # of air to air kills, & 47 did when Ger. was stronger. Very surprised a museum would get this wrong.
My dad was in an 8th AF B-24 also (Flt Eng/TT). First out of North Africa, then out of Shipdham, England. His bomber collided with a German fighter head on over Hannover on 4/8/44. His leg was badly broken so he could not evade and he became a POW for about 13 months. Even with all that, he was still one of the lucky ones. He lived to 93yo.
@@steveturansky9031 I respect your father, but the truth is that the end result was the victory of Communism, an ideology that killed 100 million world-wide. See English journalist Douglas Reed on who was behind WW2. Truth is Hitler wanted to avoid war with the western powers. Mainstream historians all agree on this. His enemy --and ours---was Bolshevism in all its incarnations...
Shout-out to my grandfather, who was lead bombardier in his squadron of B-24 Liberators, my grandmother for entertaining the troops, my other grandfather for building B-17s and my other grandmother for mixing the explosives in the bombs grandfather #1 was dropping on factories in Germany. They all survived the war. Bombardier grandfather survived his entire combat tour of 25 missions and lived to be 92. He only told my brother and I two or three stories, but otherwise would not talk about the war.
Doolittle was more than just the Tokyo raid, he was a brilliant aviator and aeronautical engineer, he won numerous flying competitions, set numerous speed records when he was younger, was the first pilot to perform high-G maneuvers and also came up with the idea, and proved it, that a plan could be flown entirely by instrumentation, as well as numerous other innovations, or advocating for them, over his long aviation career. He is one of the only reserve officers in history to reach generals rank.
During the 1930s and again after the war Doolittle worked for Shell Oil Company, in aviation fuels. I spent the first 10 years of my career with Shell in the 1990s; one day in late 1993 the large American flag flying outside the Shell research center in Houston was lowered to half mast, and the explanation came over a site-wide email : "The flags in front of Westhollow have been lowered to half mast in memory of the death of Jimmy Doolittle, Shell Oil Company Vice President and US national hero."
My son and I were standing in front of the P-51 displayed at the Smithsonian in Washington. I was expounding my limited knowledge of this machine with emphasis on the UK’s integration of the latest Merlin engine that transformed its high-altitude performance. We were aware of a slight figure at our shoulder wearing a badged WWII leather flying jacket. He commented how he had flown in the Mustang over Berlin and was a 6 kills. On discussing the UKs involvement with the drop tank innovation he delighted to tell us of his experience when releasing these units. He said that on occasion he would pull the lever to drop the tanks and only one would release. The fighter would immediately roll heavily to the side with the tank still in place he said. Everyone steered clear of each other when performing this operation… A very impressive individual.
They had Allison V12s originally. It was hard to maintain them overseas as the number of planes in the UK grew and as we gained air superiority - we weren't losing very many planes, so they needed maintenance instead of replacement. The Merlin wasn't used until later, in 1944.
@@TehButterflyEffect1944 was when the Merlin powered P-51D entered the arena. But Merlin powered P-51Bs and Cs were operational in Europe from fall of 1943…
I bet someone will still argue that the German soldiers (generic for soldiers, airmen, sailors etc.) were supermen until the end of the war. And their equipment was superior. Not so fast. The German military was half by horse and half by car. Only American and British militaries were fully motorized (or if you want to be extremally picky 97% to 99% motorized). The biggest success of the bombing campaign was destroying German oil/fuel.
@@heaven-is-real there are a multitude of reasons, not one simple truth why they lost. They also severely over extended their forces and were over confident (all the yes men around Hitler didn't tell the truth about how bad it was actually getting) leading to combat disasters.
@@GrandPrixDecals😂 so the Post WW2 soviet propaganda claims, their nrs are at best inaccurate and their loss nrs are disingenuous. Furthermore the Soviets achievements are built off the back of the economic might of the US & British Empire.
When Doolittle took over the 8th, he changed their mission statement from "Protect the Bombers" to "Destroy Enemy Fighters." He also changed the credit for an air to ground kill, meaning a fighter destroyed on the ground was the same kill as an air to sir shootdown. Leaders such as Hub Zempke took their fighters to the ground and once the bombers turned for home the 47s and 51s beat the hell out of the German airfields.
@@JohnMalik arguably a flawed strategy. The one thing that Germans did not run out of during the conflict was fighter aircraft. Their production continued unabated, and even increased, until the very end. It was fuel and arguably experienced pilots that were the scarce resources for the Germans. Neither of these were threatened by airfield attacks. However, a fighter shot down had the chance of also removing the pilot. Ground attacks increased American fighter casualties significantly for no strategic benefit..
The Anglo-American bombing campaign caused the germans to keep a significant number of men and 88mm anti-aircraft/anti-tanks guns, as well as fighter aircraft, in Germany for air defence, depriving the German armies on the Eastern Front of those guns, aircraft and men at a critical time in the war deciding battles between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This crucial fact is rarely acknowledge about the air war over Germany and German occupied Europe.
Very well noted. In fact in the greatest documentary series of them all. the World at War, Albert Speer acknowledged that. The Soviets were always asking for a 2nd front--the Allied airforce had effectively given it to them.
@@jonathanledwidge9477 85% of the Wehrmacht were killed on the Eastern front. So no the Allied air force gave them nothing. But they did kill lots of civilians.
@@davidcolley7714over half of german fighter aircrafts were stuck with defending german sky against allied raids. Without those raids, those aircrafts would have been over the eastern and Mediterranean front.
@@davidcolley7714 It's the direct opposite. Most Luftwaffe fighter pilots were killed while fighting western allies. The number of kills achieved by top German fighter pilots against the Soviets (352 by the most successful) and the western allies (158, Marseille) could indicate to you that your claim might not be accurate. Probably the best source of info on this: www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0012_MURRAY_STRATEGY_FOR_DEFEAT.pdf
I just finished reading Masters of The Air great book and I couldn't put it down. I always knew General Jimmy Stewart flew with the 8th. Did not know how many combat missions he flew or that he eventually became squadron commander and also flew combat missions in Vietnam, RIP General Stewart. Recently watched the show Combat America done by Clark Gable and he also flew with the 8th. Thanks to all now serving, those who have, and those who will in the future. FLY NAVY!!!
Thanks for the shout-out to the Link Trainer, which my Dad operated teaching instrument flight, instrument landing, and radio navigation skills to pilots in basic training during the war. Much better to make and learn from your mistakes on the ground in a rotating (and banking, pitching and shaking) barrel than in the air in a valuable airplane. Link practice was deemed so valuable that everyone with pilot's wings-even Hap Arnold-had to re-certify on it every so often.
My grandfather was a Link Trainer. He wouldn't talk about his war service, feeling guilty for not being operational himself & seeing so many of his pupils killed!
Just curious, how realistic did it feel? Did they add a video screen, sound effects? Not trying to talk this thing down, just curious how far they went
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 the trainer was meant to train pilots to navigate and fly by instruments without visual cues, so no video display until after WWII.
Another factor was pilot quality. Ever wondered why there were German aces with hundreds of kills while the Western allies topped out around at 30? The Germans kept their top pilots flying and fighting whereas we withdrew them and sent them to train and share their experience and knowledge with pilots in training. The end result was the quality of the rookie was vastly superior to the German rookie. The attrition rate between airforces was vast. It was the reverse of the Battle of Britain when German pilots were at a much higher standard compared to allied airman, many that had 10 hours or so in Spitfires. By 1944 the Germans were tossing poorly trained rookies into the grinder.
Mostly true. Although in the Battle of Britain, British pilots generally had the same standard level of training as German pilots did. The difference was German pilots had more experience (many had fought in the Spanish Civil War, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and France), British pilots only had experience in France and Dunkirk. The Germans had also developed effective tactics during that time whereas the RAF were either catching up or were transitioning after their experiences in France. True, there were moments when 11 Group had to recruit new pilots very quickly with some as little as 10 hours flying experience. However the RAF did have many experienced pilots across the UK. 10 and 13 Group did assist Keith Park by sending/rotating some of their experienced pilots to 11 Group, Leigh-Mallory however refused to send any of 12 Group's more experienced pilots to help.
This is also what the Japanese did with their pilots in the Pacific Theater. You could pretty much see what happened with the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
I had the pleasure of going inside of B-17G at Planes of Fame in Chino, California and man, it's small inside. Hit my head 3x before I learned to stoop while I was in there. Very cramped, gave me a new perspective on what these fine young men went through. (This specific plane did not make it into the war, by the time it was ready, war ended)
Bomber crews were expected to do 25 missions and then would be sent home, sadly many crews never made it past 5. In 1943 the average bomber crew was expected to complete 8 to 12 missions before being shot down. Sometimes new replacement crews never came back from their first mission, they were known on the bases as "they came to dinner ", yet, they still went, brave indeed.
My grandfather was in the 405 pathfinders RCAF. His Halifax was shot down in july '43 he was on his second tour. Once as a boy my grandmother opened a drawer and said "those are your grandfather's medals, he was a very brave man" she never spoke of him again. She kept his picture up in her room till she passed l keep his picture on my wall to this day. They were all very brave men, thank you.
"Memphis Belle" completed 25 missions (allegedly?) before flying home to aid the war effort there. There's a good USAAF movie about it, as well as a dramatised Hollyweird version.
This was what Hitler or Tojo of Japan never understood about aerial warfare; it takes 2-3 years to make a competent pilot. You can make a Mitsubishi Zero from scratch within weeks, but it takes years to make a pilot great enough to pilot that effectively.
The Japanese lost more than just the carriers themselves when one went down. Attrition of aircrew and mechanics was unsustainable; replacement training was insufficient.
P-47s with drop tanks could have escorted the bombers during black week. The bomber mafia resisted escorts as the bombers were "flying fortresses". The P-51 was preferred by the USAF because it was cheaper than the P-47.
That's actually not true, not sure if this is coming from Greg again. The P-47 lacked requisite internal fuel until the D-25 with it's expanded 370 capacity. That wasn't available in numbers until after Overlord. Let me know if you'd like the fuller explanation.
I once read in Adolf Galand's memoirs that in 43, interrogations of US airmen was showing that the 8th air force was close to collapse. You touch on it here. I think it's under appreciated just how close things came to disaster.
The Brits warned them about daylight bombing raids as they experienced them.The American mafia wouldn't listen. They believed their bombers with all it's machine guns would prevail. Back fired on them badly. The P51 was defiantly a life saviour for the Americans and the Brits.
The Schweinfurt-Regensburg which resulted in a loss of 60 B-17 and nearly 100 damaged, many heavily damaged beyond repair. The cold calculus of daytime bombing without fighter escort told the 8th AF that this was unsustainable.
@@localkiwi9988 The Augsburg Raid, 17 April 1942. 12 Lanc's, 7 aircraft shot down, 5 badly damaged. And RAF heavies continued to operate in daylight until August 42. They would resume in June 44 after the USAAF cleared the sky. Lanc loss rate was about 50% higher than B17 while flying only at night for almost two years. 8th AF heavies shot down 6,098 enemy aircraft, Lanc's 320.
@@nickdanger38028th AF heavies shot down 6,098 enemy aircraft? I don't think so. They may have claimed 6,098, but they shot down nowhere near that number. Let me give you an example of their overclaiming. On April 17, 1943, the 8th AF raided Bremen in Germany, and lost 16 heavies, by far the biggest loss up to that date. They were unescorted, so none of the German fighter losses can be attributed to fighters. The US gunners claimed to have destroyed 63 German fighters. The true losses? Five aircraft, with one pilot MIA. And this was not an atypical result. US gunners usually overclaimed badly. The biggest cause of German fighter losses was US fighters, primarily P-51s, which came into service in December of 1943. Your claim that RAF heavies continued to operate in daylight until August 1942 gives the impression that they did so often. That's not the case. The Augsburg raid was one of only a handful of British heavy bomber missions which were flown by day.
@@nickdanger3802 1. First RAF raid to Berlin Aug 25 1940 First raid over Germany Sep 39 2. Sep 41 197 bombers to Berlin 3. Lancaster/Halifax 858039 Long tons dropped Mostly by night 4. USAAF 761802 long tons 5. 8325 RAF bombers lost in 68 Months 10152 USAAF bombers lost in 33 months not too good my friend 6. RAF in the war twice as long dropped more tonnage lost less men and Planes 7. Battle Of Britain 1690/2000 Germans shot down Hard to catch up Nick AND in operation Point Blank Spitfire Mark IXs had the major share in 2950 enemy destroyed by Mar 44 8. RAF Bombers larger load and heavier bombs B17 max bomb size 2000 lb B24 4000 lb but had to be slung externally 9 RAF 8000lb 12000lb 22000lb 10. US H/B losses 10152 Lanc losses 3349 50% of that is 1674.5 So the B24 lost 8477 is that right Nick? 11 The 8th shot down 6098 fighters that is very good.
I visited the 8th AF museum soon after it opened. The docent for my group was a bombardier on a B-17 that was shot down on their 6th mission. I spent the remainder of the war in a German POW camp. I wish I had written down his name.
IWM at Duxford has good stuff too and the U.S. cemetery at Madingley, near Cambridge, is a 'must visit' by way of paying due respect to those involved.
It's also worth mentioning that Carl Spaatz was trying to prove that the Air Force should be its own military branch, and strategic bombing was a way to show they could contribute meaningfully as an independent force, not shackled to being a close air support division. He was selling the strategic bombing for reasons beyond just damaging Germany.
It has been said that more Mustangs were lost to attacking trains that in aerial combat. The Germans even had special AA cars designed as regular ones.
3:52 - we get to the first ‘myth’ of the allied bombing campaign: earlier models of fighter planes had insufficient range ‘for the first year of the campaign’. This is wrong to two reasons: 1. The first year of the campaign - 1942 - was largely focused on targets within range of existing fighters as they were then configured. The spitfire had a good record in escorting bombing raids deep into France. The two american fighters at the time - the P38 and P47 had sufficient range to escort bombers to and from the German borders. 2. By the time of the disastrous Schweinfurt raids in maid-late 1943 next to no attention had been given to what would be very minor tweaks (and ones that the manufacturers of the spitfire and thunderbolt were already all over) to allow fighter escorts well into Germany. The problem was not a lack of available technology, but a lack of direction by the bomber mafia generals back in Washington and- their belief in ‘the bomber will always get through’ blinded them to the advances in fighter design and armament over the preventing 3 years of the european theatre of the war. The P47 had the internal plumbing already in place for external drop tanks, and there were two large tanks available, which even with very conservative fuel economy estimates would have gotten them within miles of Schweinfurt. They only needed a small tweak to get them all the way there, fight, back with a good reserve of fuel, and if anyone bothered to ask Republic at any stage before the Schweinfurt raids for that tweek, as subsequent and rapid e developments proved, they could have been provided well within time. The same goes for the spitfire. Jeffrey quill proved that it was possible to fly a Mk IX from London to Berlin and return with a single slipper drop tank. If the leading edge of the wings (on both sides of the gun ports) was used for extra internal tanks, that would have provided another 100+ imperil gallons of fuel (in front of the plane’s centre of gravity, which was important for longitudinal stability) - ie. more than enough to get to germany, fight and get back. The fact that the PR models already used a wet wing demonstrated that this was all very feasible by mid 1943.
*_"2. By the time of the disastrous Schweinfurt raids in maid-late 1943 next to no attention had been given to what would be very minor tweaks (and ones that the manufacturers of the spitfire and thunderbolt were already all over) to allow fighter escorts well into Germany."_* This isn't true. Actually, it's too generalised to be accurate. Drop tanks could not solve the P-47's range problem. The problem was that it could only be cured by increasing internal fuel. In the meantime, ground crews were slowly modifying the P-47 to carry underwing tanks and that involved cutting metal. It wasn't until late 1944 that it became a line modification. In the meantime, the internal fuel capacity and been increased from about 250 to 300 gallons. In other words, Republic were bloody slow coming to the party on what should have been an obvious one modification. The Spitfire was nobbled by Leigh Mallory.
The "tweaks" were actually quite major redesign to increase internal fuel for the P-47, which didn't happen until the D-25 in mid 1944. It also needed dive recovery brakes (D-30, IIRC). So no, it wasn't ready for long range escort until well after D-Day. Republic was slow on the uptake, as the long range escort requirement was defined by Arnold in early 1942. Eaker, your "bomber mafia" guy actually was the one who notified Arnold of the Mustang evolution and Arnold had to rattle the cage of Material Command to stop stonewalling the Mustang progress. Eaker was also the one to champion the acquisition of 20 long range Fighter Groups for bomber escort. Everyone seemed to clearly understand the limitations of the P-47, except greg.
Odd to show an Avro Manchester leading the RAF contribution to Op Big Week in 1944; they well were retired by then! That aside, the basic premise of the title I find simplistic. The defeat of the Luftwaffe was down to combined Allied action over a sustained period and across both the Western European and Soviet theatres, with American industrial potential rapidly outpacing German manufacturing and access to resources. Their shortage of pilots was matched by shortages fuel, lubricants, metal alloys and rubber, to name but a few. Nevertheless, Big Week certainly had an impact they never recovered from. And as you say the human side is hard now to understand. Just as it was far more deadly to be Bomber Command Aircrew then to have served as an infantry soldier in the trenches of WWI, the aircrews of the 8th showed the highest standard of sustained bravery and paid an immense price to secure our freedom. I salute them all.
It was more than just the P-51's ability to fly to Berlin and back with the extra fuel tanks. The P-51B/C and P-47D was also by the beginning of 1944 much faster and have better high-altitude performance than the Bf-109G-6 and Fw-190A-8 models common in Luftwaffe service in the same period. Because the Luftwaffe flew inferior aircraft, that's why they suffered grievous heavy losses in experienced pilots they never recoverd from.
@@MattKearneyFan1 Actually, The P-51B/C were the first to get the Packard Merlin V-1650-C engine. Those Mustangs were astonishingly fast (441 mph in early 1943!) and helped the P-51B/C become formidable high-altitude fighters by early 1944.
@@MattKearneyFan1 You're referring to the P-51A/A-36 models fitted with the Allison V-1710 engine, which only had a single stage supercharger and lacked high altitude performance. It was the B/C models that got the Packard Merlin engines that made it an astonishing high-altitude fighter.
This video perpetuates the myth that the P-51 enabled the long range escort missions when really it was the arrival of drop tanks - the P-47 could escort bombers to Berlin and back just like the P-51 could when drop tanks were used. In reality the bomber mafia was looking for a scapegoat for their earlier blocking of the development of drop tanks and made the excuse of the P-51 and Merlin engine as CYA for their careers and legacy.
This is the second effort from the Imperial War Museum that I've looked at. They are very good. The research is excellent. Scripts are written to available video. Important dates in the history of this war are not only remembered, they are explained in painstaking detail. The person or persons responsible for writing these videos deserve some credit. The second thing that really impresses me is the youth of the narrators. Were any of them born before 1995? They are very good, imo. And, as they work on this series, they begin to really dive down and learn about it. By the way IWM, I am the youngest son of a Dieppe Raid survivor in '42. One of the first Americans to charge up a beach under German Army fire. Dad was an American serving with the Essex Scottish, and was right there in that horrible place code-named Red Beach. No, he never said a word about it. Not to me anyway. I was far too young.
Early loses to the 8th were from head on attacks resulting in a turret being added to the B-17G. You can see it on the plane behind the woman commenting. In the long run bombers were intentionally or unintentionally used to as bait to lure luftwaffe fighters in to be destroyed.
I have seen little reference to, and even less information about, Allied vs Axis fuel quality. There must have been basic performance differences and knock-on effects on operational and maintenance issues, yet no detailed analysis to be found . . .
From early 1940 the US was supplying high octane avgas which allowed for increased boost. it was one of the key factors in the Battle of Britain. German C3 Fuel, Uber Octane or Synthetic Crap? th-cam.com/video/NJP7iouMwsE/w-d-xo.html
I have seen a couple of references to the Japanese quality as well. And you have raised an important point that most historians overlook. Both of them were cursed (and we were blessed with) low-quality fuel and fuel shortages. Neither one had high-octane fuel, we did in abundance. Both of them had run out of competent pilots, and I would assume that spare parts would have been an issue also. Most people, non-aviation types, don't understand how hard flying hours are on an airplane, the flight controls, the engines, and the hydraulic systems. Preventative maintenance is done before and after each flight. All aircraft have required maintenance at mandatory flight hour accumulation milestones. For instance, for the Chinook helicopter, the intervals are 25, 50, 75, and 100-hour increments on most components and shorter time spans on other components. The engines have a separate interval. At 200-hour intervals, the helicopter enters an inspection called a "phase" inspection. When 1000 flight hours have been accumulated, the helicopter has been reduced to its basic nuts and bolts and has been rebuilt from the tires through the rotor blades. And every time a flight control component is replaced, a maintenance test pilot has to fly that aircraft, after it has been inspected by a supervisor, to verify that the maintenance was done correctly and that the aircraft will fly properly. Add in the combat stress on the airplane, battle damage, and the lack of spare parts and lubricants, and then your Air Force will cease to exist.
Can anyone tell me the source of the clip at 3:37? One of the plane captains in the Composite group at the bottom of the chalkboard may be a (distant) relative and I'm keen to find out more! Is there any way to know which bomb group/sqdn is represented here?
It might be worth writing to the Imperial War Museum in London . It has a vast collection of photos, film and other papers. Since this is a IWM video it could be a good place to start Maybe a first contact via it's website? There will probably be a fee for the search. I suggest that the USAF has a similar Museum collection also.
The film clip(s) with the chalkboard of the pilots briefing - flight formation etc. - are from the wartime USAAF(?) documentary on the Memphis Belle as it completed a tour (it's second?). It used genuine footage, albeit not from the actual flight.
I'm sure of this source since the composite group lead pilot has my surname. I'm UK not US, so not a relative, but it's not a common name hence very memorable to see in this context.
Very well done. Thank you. The strategic decision to use daylight bombing missions as a way to destroy the Luftwaffe is little understood in America. In retrospect, it was a cold-blooded decision that cost many lives, but was probably unavoidable for the successful invasion of Europe.
Don't forget: if you ticked someone off your plane eas sent to the BACK of the formation, where 90% of losses occurred after the flak gunners were well-zeroed in.
What really killed the Luftwaffe was bombing the oil refineries. They couldn't be moved underground. At the end the wasn't enough fuel for the Panzers or the Luftwaffe.
What killed the Luftwaffe was the P-51. By the end of 1943, the USAAF in Europe had shot down 451 German fighters. 'Operation Argument', also known as 'Big Week', was a tactic intended to draw the Luftwaffe into a battle it could not afford and everyone knew it. In February, 1944, the P-47s shot down 233 German fighters, the P-51 got 89.5 and the P-38 got 32.5. In March, the P-47 got 175, the P-51 got 251 and the P-38 got 25. In April, the P-51 shot down a massive 329 German aircraft. The P-47 got 82 and the P-38 got 23. And the Mustangs did it with half the number of squadrons the P-47 had. The figures remained that way for the rest of the war. The P-51 also destroyed 30% more ground targets than the P-47. By mid year, Flak was more of a danger to US bombers than fighters were. It was only then that the fuel problem really started to bite but the Luftwaffe was already defeated. The P-51 ended the war with 4,950 German fighters shot down in 213,000 sorties. The P-47 shot down 3,082 in 423,000 sorties, so the hit rate of the P-51 was nearly three times as good and it did so without suffering exceptional casualties. The P-51 wrecked the Luftwaffe.
Hi iv just watched hard trashers videos on the bomber mafia, may be a coincidence but I feel you need to give him some credit... Keep up the good work!
sorry you are wrong . P47 thunderbolts were never going to be combat ready until apr/may 1943. yes the drop tanks should have been ready then but that is a different story
Drop tanks could never have solved the P-47's range problem. Only internal fuel could. The P-47C one held about 250 gallons of internal fuel and this was not seriously addressed until the -D25, which did not see service until May, 1944. When the USAAF flew its first raid on Berlin on 6 March, 1944, the bulk of P-47s flew with 476 gallons and a small number flew with 586 gallons. This was because a few had been re-plumbed to carry under wing tanks. But it takes approximately half the fuel in an external tank to get the other half there. The majority of P-47s couldn't get past the Dutch border. The second group couldn't get to Magdeburg. By contrast the P-51 carried 416 gallons and flew all the way to Berlin and back.
I would like to clear up some regrettable confusion about the range of the P-47 in 1944. There are two books written by American WW2 P-47 aces, Thunderbolt by Robert S. Johnson and Martin Caiden, and Zemke's Wolfpack by Roger Freeman and Hub Zemke. The book by Freeman and Zemke is more accurate. Col. Zemke was in direct contact with 8th Air Force generals and he was always trying to get better equipment to improve the P-47's performance. His book is full of complaints about how the P-47's shorter range meant that the longer range missions to Berlin were given to the P-51 groups. Johnson's book "Thunderbolt" contains strange inaccuracies about the P-47's range. In Chapter 16, Johnson says that on March 6 1944 "We flew the direct route to the German capital". Johnson says this right after saying that they had received new belly tanks that increased their range to such an extent that they flew missions all the way to Berlin. On the next page Johnson describes the combat for the March 6 mission and he says it took place "west of Hannover" which is nowhere near Berlin. Hub Zemke in his book also describes the March 6 combat and he says it took place above Dümmer Lake, also west of Hannover. There are several other times in Johnson's book where he says their fighter group flew missions to Berlin, but nowhere in the book does Johnson say that he flew over Berlin. I have found no such inaccuracies in Zemke's book.
Long range escort by P-51s started in Dec '43. They were escorting bombers to Berlin by March 1944. Meanwhile, Republic was still trying to get their P-47D-25 out the door, which they finally did by mid 1944, late to the party. The P-38 was, well Allison compromised, and fairly unreliable and inadequate for high altitude escort.
The P-38 Lightning was known for it's Incredible range in the Pacific. Since it wasn't enough to go deep into Germany and back I would like to know how much more range the Mustang had?
@@John14-6... in 1944 their new manifold was supposed to have solved the uneven charge mixture and detonation issue at high boost, and later engines were certainly stronger (cranks, rods, etc) but Wright Field still gave it poor marks. When 150 octane was being tested, the P-51 (Merlin) was fine at 75" and the P-47 tested well but the P-38L still had issues at 70" and Wright stated the Allison was the problem. Flight tests of the P-40N and P-40Q also showed engine problems at Wright field and Eglin proving grounds. The P-82 Allisons were maintenance nightmares in Korea - no intercooler, aftercooler or bacfire screens.
My Grandfather flew 61 missions for Bomber Command from the start of hostilities until the early morning of April 14th of 1941. They survived ditching in the Channel...I'm here.
“A typical interception in the fall of 1942 has been described by Johannes Naumann, at that time the an Oberleutnant in II/JG 26. The Gruppe was ordered to attack the bombers on their return flight as there was no chance of reaching them on their bomb run. The B-17’s were flying in a staggered formation at about 26,000 feet. The Focke Wulfs finally struggled up to 27,000 feet, only to see the American formation receding into the distance. The speed of the FW 190’s at that altitude was only a little greater than that of the bombers…No bombers were downed; none had even suffered visible damage.” Top Guns of the Luftwaffe p. 125 by Donald L. Caldwell
I remember a veteran interview on history channel, back when it was actually history, talking about getting to England in 43... He was told "we're experiencing 4% losses a mission... " He remembered clearly thinking..."4% by 25 missions..aw nuts!!..."
An important contribution of the attacks was that German fighters were pulled away from the Eastern front. This relieved much pressure from the Soviets, who did most of the fighting anyway.
The "second front" occurred in Malta, North Africa and the MTO, which caused the LW to divert their fighters from the eastern front. The addition of USAAF bombing efforts (1942-1944) from Britain did however cause the LW to send more and more fighters to the western front.
That jacket at 05.03 would not have sufficed in the summer. At 30,000 feet (10,000 metres) the air temperature is about minus 45 degrees centigrade irrespective of seasons. Year round the heavy protective suits were needed.
My Dad was a Rear gunner on the B-17, 8th Air Force over Africa. Chasing Rommel. He survived two crash landings. Credited with two German kills & had his seat shot from under him! I paralleled him in Vietnam 1968-69. I was a flight engineer on Ch-47 Chinook Helicopter. God protected me and my dad. True story!
The title makes me sad considering the source is so normally epic. The British Commonwealth Aircrew Training Plan, all those Lancasters built by said Commonwealth, all those Americans who prior to 1941 came up to Canada to get involved, the Merlin combined with the Mustang... and it all comes down to the 8th?
The video is accurate. Johnnie Johnson, the great British fighter ace, wrote "How we longed for a Spitfire which could fly to Berlin and back, so that we fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force could play our part in the great daylight battles of 1943 and 1944 fought over Germany between the Luftwaffe and the Eighth Air Force. But we had to be content with fighter sweeps over France and the Low Countries while the Mustang, with its radius of action of six hundred miles, fought the Messerschmitt 109s and Focke-Wulf 190s over the Reich and gained an ever-increasing dominance over the Luftwaffe from which it never recovered." (From the foreword of William Green's "Famous Fighters of the Second World War", page 7)
Germans had the same issues the Japanese had, they ran out of well trained experienced pilots by the midpoint of the war. Most of the experienced pilots were lost over Britain in the battle of Britain. Might be accurate to say the 8th finished them off, but the numbers don't paint a fair picture
@@patrickreilly2026 That's what one RAF fighter pilot said in someone else's book. The Mosquito had no such range limitations, despite having two of the same engines, to the point where it was one of the first allied aircraft to tangle with not only the jet-powered Me 262, but also the Dornier Pfail puller/pusher.
@@aaronleverton4221 and did the RAF use it as air superiority fighter like the Spitfire or Mustang? The answer is no so how does that invalidate Johnson's statement?
@@chrisfletcher86 they lost some but the BOB was nearly 4 years prior to Big Week. The Germans had maintained air parity at the very least up to then so it's hard to maintain that their pilot losses in 1940 caused the loss of air superiority in 1944.
The main problem was with both the British and American generals. They at first did not believe in the feasibility of long range fighters. General Arnold at one point stopped the development of drop tanks except for ferrying. The British thought that the Battle of Britain proved that short range fighters would always beat long range fighters. The British had a long range version of the Spitfire but that was a reconnaissance version.
No, Arnold was a proponent of long range escort and was a center piece of his meeting in early 1942. Material Command on the other hand were bogged down in quality control processes and ultimately more and more flight testing was moved to Eglin AFB to bypass Wright Field. Arnold was the one rattling their (MC) cage to make them comply with priorities. If you're quoting greg's videos, you should stop and do some research to challenge his false assertions. As for the Brits, they were the ones who insisted on longer range for the NAA proposal, while at the same time producing the MB.3 fighter with 1,100 mile range.
USAAF (Arnold) started directives for drop tanks in spring 1941, then made long range fighter escort a top priority (over bombers) in Feb 1942. By mid 1943, Arnold gave the ultimatum to have escort fighters extend range to Berlin within 6 months. Republic continued to fail to deliver until mid-late 1944. As for the Brits, they rendered specs for a longer range fighter in 1939. The MB.3 was the result although the Ministry forced it to have the Napier Sabre vs the Griffon. It had 1100 mile range, and approx 420 mi combat radius.
This video make it sounds like the German Air Force shut down so many American planes, but in fact, it’s not true most planes was shut down by ground anti-air guns
The American "Bomber Mafia" believed it had the solution to the precision bombing problem with the Norden bombsite. Their daylight precision bombing strategy was built around its theoretical capabilities. Unfortunately it simply didn't deliver the expected results in action. Bombardier training, bombsite quality issues, unknowable wind velocities/directions in the air column below the bomber, overcast weather, and many other factors made true precision bombing impossible.
SPAATZ: Which had the more effect in the defeat of Germany, the area bombing or the precision bombing ~ GOERING: The precision bombing, because it was decisive. Destroyed cities could be evacuated but destroyed industry was difficult to replace. SPAATZ: Did the Germans realize that the American Air Forces by intention did only precision bombing ? -5 GOERING ~ Yes. I planned to do only precision bombing myself at the beginning. pdf Goering Interrogation - Jewish Virtual Library
I don't remember the source, but I recall a good estimate that the Nazi's had to divert the equivalent of a whole army in men, fuel, ammunition and other resources to meet the 8th Air Force attacks. These resources could have been used elsewhere. Who knows what all those resources could have done in the east.
It was the 56th fighter group newly equipped with drop tanks that pioneered the tactics to lead the bomber formations to meet the Luftwaffe's head-on attacks, break them up and have top cover fighters pick the separated Luftwaffe fighters off in diving attacks. The 56th was equipped with P47Ds and initiated these tactics at a time when only two fighter groups were equipped with the new P51s. The difference in ranges of the P51 and P47Ds are less than is popularly believed. It was the belated availability of drop tanks that made escorts into Germany possible and should've been a focus of General Arnold whose job it was to require necessary equipment to be made available by US industry. With that said the P51 was a pilot friendly easily produced classic of a fighter and it's choice as the escort fighter of choice was the correct one.
Another greg story. If you do the research you'll find that Arnold was the one lambasting Material Command for their lack of progress. You'll also find that Republic didn't redesign the P-47 with more internal fuel (47D-25) and get them into the ETO until mid 1944. Combat range is dictated by internal fuel, something greg refuses to acknowledge.
One often overlooked factor in the Allies gaining air supremacy over Germany, was the use of leaded, high-octane gasoline. When the British first started using high-octane gasoline during the Battle of Britain, it improved the Spitfire's performance so much that the Germans thought they were facing a new version of the aircraft.
It wasn't the gasoline. Those were high compression engines, which were much more efficient at utilizing the energy in the fuel. The higher octane in the fuel prevented early/premature combustion in those high compression engines. Superchargers and turbochargers also made for big increases in engine horsepower.
It allowed 12 lb boost in the Merlin III, which was effective up to 10,000'. Engines needed to be inspected afterwards though, so use was limited in the faster Spitfire. The slow, heavy Hurricane on the other hand pushed the throttle through the gate all the time, because it had to. Fuel burn also increased 40% when full boost was used, limiting range/endurance.
I've read that while the German industry was producing aircraft at a high rate, it wasn't just he lack of pilots the held back the Luftwaffe but also a general lack of EVERYTHING required for the prosecution of a war. The British went to a war footing immediately and instituted the "war economy" while Lord Beaverbrooke took over aircraft production ( along with many others ) I don't think the German economy EVER had the mass to take on even the British by themselves. The British economy had far more manufacturing than the German in the 1930's
Political reasons kept existing fighter aircraft receiving long range drop,tanks. Aircraft manufacturers were discouraged developing of drop tanks to extend the range of their aircraft. Despite this Republic had fuel drop tanks developed anyway,but the army air corps didn’t want the drop tanks.
Arnold prioritized escort fighters as early as March 1942. Republic was simply late to the party, getting the Jug D-25 to ETO in mid 1944, while other fighters had already increased internal fuel much earlier. First long range Mustang missions in Dec 1943.
Some early D’s lost their tails in full throttle dives so they came up with a triangular fillet to go where I noted to add some strength to the top of the aft fuselage.
At 3:06 the young lady mentions that much of the bases built in England were by African-Americans. I don't wish to be accused of being a racist {believe me, I'm not}, but I don't believe this to be accurate. My Dad was sent to Iceland in June 1942 in the 824th EAB to finish the airfield at Reykjavik begun by the British and build Meeks and Patterson Airfields at Keflavik which partly today is the International Airport. He was put in a Replacement Depot 05/31/44 and sent to England to join the 820th EAB { it had built the field at Debach besides helping on other fields }, which was planned to be ashore on second tide of June 6th at Omaha Beach ( in fact a Reconnaissance element went ashore on the 7th, late, because of the events of the 6th ) . I spent many years researching Engineer Aviation Battalions to discover and expand upon whatever my Dad told me as a teen before his passing at age 60 of colorectal cancer. There were many EABS sent to England to construct airfields for the 8th USAAF. To my knowledge there were separate African-American EABs and in number they were few compared to the total.
Not enough mention of the P47, and to a lessor extent the P38, which preceded the P51. The P47 fought before the P51, when the Luftwaffe was much stronger. In regards to the drop tanks I thought you would have mentioned the paper mache, paper, drop tanks developed by the RAF. Also there was a lot of political noise coming from Stalin, who wanted Britain & the US to open a second front to ease the pressure on the Soviet forces.
The "second front" was opened in Malta and North Africa when the US was still watching 1940/41 and gained strength in Op Torch 1942 in response to Stalin's whining.
@@bobsakamanos4469 US, UK and others were fighting in the Pacific at the same time. In 1940, Russia was friendly with Germany, not opening a second front to help us and did nothing to help the Chinese against Japan, perhaps quietly helping Mao and the communists (to which I've never seen any reference). USSR did a lot of fighting (and dying) against Germany, but that was what they could do best, having no strategic bombing capability. Ivan and his comrades paid a high price for communism.
@@grandaddyoe1434 No, as per my statement, in 1940/41 the US was not yet in the shooting war. The second front was Malta and N.Africa. Yes, the Brits/Commonwealth/Dutch were fighting in the Pacific at that time (fall of Hong Kong in Dec '41 etc), but were ill prepared and lost much ground. AVG were mercenaries with China, not US forces, and they didn't start fighting until late Dec '41.
No wonder by Korean War and later Vietnam War, American military aviation always had upper hand. Control of sky gave US the freedom to fly close air support, air interdiction, air reconnaissance, strategic bombing, airborne and air assault missions. If American ground forces were surrounded, Americans can fly resupply missions, medical evacuations, operationally, it gave US military more tactical and strategic advantages the other sides can only dream of. Hence we live in the American Peace.
My grandfather was credited as having destroyed more German aircraft in WWII than any other combatant of all the services. He was the worst mechanic the Luftwaffe ever had.
Haha I hope you are joking. But if not, I totally believe there are people who don't believe in the war and might unpurpose do a bad job to not kill people.
A quibble. Drop tanks aren't so effective on a plane that doesn't have a huge internal fuel load. A P-40 or Spitfire could have carried big drop tanks but if they flew till they were empty they wouldn't have made it home. It took fighters with long inherent range: the P-38, P-51, and especially the later marks of P-47 with extra tanks behind the cockpit. All of them had a range on internal fuel greater than any European fighter of the era with the biggest drop tanks it could use. Tactics also played a part. Once the fighters were cut loose from the bombers they could cruise at their best speed and altitude instead of weaving around the bombers. The P-47, in particular, benefitted to such an extent that the Luftwaffe was already breaking before P-51s arrived in great numbers. Cheers!
Late production Spit IX's had 196 imp gallons of internal fuel. Some sorties in 1944 left Tangmere and ranged as far as germany with a 90 gal external tank, but you're right it was not a long range escort. It did however provide lots of escorts on the first and last (return) legs of bomber missions so that the chunky P-47 could take the second leg before releasing bombers to go it alone in 1943.
One of the reasons the bomber campaign didn't have the effect that was expected, was that Germany had an army of barely fed slaves labour to rebuild and man their factories.
“High altitude precision bombing” with world war 2 technology is an oxymoron. Your chance of hitting your target this way where effectively nil. In 1943 only 20% 8th airforce bombs got within 1 mile of their target. Night bombing was effectively as accurate as day bombing. By insisting on Day bombing all the us achieved was higher casualty rates for their bombers and crews.
@@michaelw2288 Once the 8th A/F went to 9000 metres to avoid flak the Norden Site lost its accuracy . And it was Harris' mantra to flatten everything No houses trains Buses roads sleep the German workers were buggered Just get the factories did not hurt them half as much. That was something that the USAAF never figured out.
Not true. On the first Schweinfurt raid in Aug. 1943 the surviving bombers hit the ball bering factory and the Regensburg bombers hit the Focke Wulf factory. The main problem was you had to have clear weather which was rare in northern Europe.
SPAATZ: Which had the more effect in the defeat of Germany, the area bombing or the precision bombing? GOERING: The precision bombing, because it was decisive. Destroyed cities could be evacuated but destroyed industry was difficult to replace. SPAATZ: Did the Germans realize that the American Air Forces by intention did only precision bombing ? -5 GOERING ~ Yes. I planned to do only precision bombing myself at the beginning. Precision is a scale, not an absolute. Lanc loss rate was about 50% higher than B17. WWII B-17 Combat Bombing Accuracy th-cam.com/video/jSDGQTXCeIE/w-d-xo.html
@@nickdanger3802 1. USAAF Heavy bomber losses 10152 for 761802 Long tons dropped Lancaster 3349 lost for 608612 long tons dropped 2. Lanc181 tons /plane lost US 75.03 tons /plane lost So the RAF was more than twice as efficient and if we separate the B17 and B24 it is even worse 3. Lanc 156000 sorties for 608612 long tons dropped gave an average of 8739 lb /sortie RAF sorties/missions differed from the USAAF in that the RAF had to hit the target or alternative to be classed as a sortie The USAAF classed a sortie as take off and land even if the Target/Alt was not hit. 4. The USAAF did not differentiate the B24 and B17 into averages /sortie 5. Personnel Lost according to Air Forces Statistical Digest WW2 stood at 95565 from all planes 6. I will endeavour to find out RAF/Friends losses
Where did the avgas come from ? "For the next important and powerful Merlin 66 engine, Rolls Royce finally decided to use the Bendix-Stromberg Injection carburettor. The American Bendix-Stromberg pressure carburettor was developed in the mid 1930’s and was in production from 1938. This carburettor was designed to operate as a fully pressurised fuel system that dispensed with the problematic float controlled fuel level with its emulsion tubes and diffusers. Negative G had no effect on fuel flow or carburettor function. The pressurised and metered fuel flow was delivered as a spray into the inlet air stream just in front of the supercharger inlet. This feature virtually removed the risk of carburettor icing, in fact the throttles and chokes of the injection carburettor did not need heating by hot oil or coolant circulation at all and their deletion removed several other problems associated with the previous provision of those heating circuits. Rolls Royce had been aware of the Bendix-Stromberg Pressure type of carburettor for several years and versions of the carburettor were used on many American engines including the Allison V-1710. Notably, Packard built their Merlins in the USA with a version of the Bendix PD16 from the very start of Packard Merlin production." ROLLS-ROYCE MERLIN CARBURETTOR DEVELOPMENT page
@@nickdanger3802 well nick, the Allison used the pressure carb in their -39 engine that was in the P-40. It had many issues and Rolls Royce wasn't ready to give up on their own solutions because of that. Once they started evaluation of the Bendix pressure carb, they made improvements to resolve some issues (fuel pump for example) and the Bendix-Stromberg folks copied that to upgrade their product.
I wonder how things would have been if North American had built P-40s for the RAF like they were originally asked to do instead of designing the P-51 instead.
Disaster. Brits were desperate for fighters in 1940 because Lord Nuffield had delayed construction of the Castle Bromwich Factory for Spitfire production. Had NAA agreed to build the P-40s, it would have taken them at least a year to refined the production engineering, since the Curtiss system was inefficient. Thank god that Kindelberger stood his ground (and GM and Material Command never forgave him).
@@bobsakamanos4469 Lord Nuffield did not delay the building of Castle Bromwich Source Morgan and Shacklady Spitfire the History page 97 So stop the pork pies
Some pre-existing RAF airfields were handed over to the USAAF such as Duxford and Bassingbourn but basically we built ours and the americans built theirs. 😊
Bomber Losses, Germany and Northern Europe HC Deb 07 July 1943 vol 390 cc2062-3 6. Mr. Stokes asked the Secretary of State for Air how many British bombers were lost over Germany and Northern Europe during the month of June; and whether he can give a corresponding figure for the same month for losses suffered by American bomber aircraft over the same area? Sir A. Sinclair 276 British and 82 American bomber aircraft operating from this country were reported lost over Germany and Northern Europe during June, 1943. Mr. Stokes Would my right hon. Friend agree that the total for the year is of the order of 1,430? Sir A. Sinclair My hon. Friend must put that Question down.
Those drop tanks extending the escort fighters ranges were an ingenious invention - they were developed by a British company and were made of papier-mâché, so that when the escorts jettisoned them over enemy territory their remains were useless to the German war effort. As opposed to all metal drop tanks, which would have provided lightweight metals for the Germans to repurpose.
They were made of paper mache because they were cheap to produce and disposable.The Germans had all the aluminium they needed from shot down bombers.
Also the 8th was using them for about 6 months before some samples that had been sent to the. Evaluation teams at Dayton replied that they weren't acceptable for usaaf usage
Serious question: How did they hold av fuel, or any liquid for that matter, without getting soggy and falling apart? What were they coated with?
@@ooyginyardel4835 I think it was impregnated paper rather than paper mache. They apparently started leaking as soon as they were full! The USAAF later modified German metal drop tanks as well. There is a vid on YT about it.
A friend, now dead, was an RAF pilot who flew the Mustang. One of his tasks, on 'days off' after D-Day was to fly from their airstrip in Normandy back to Tangmere to collect essential supplies, including Mail, fresh bread and a drop tank full of Beer.
On working days he flew missions across Europe , escorting day bombers, and straffing targets of opportunity on the way home. He was given a copy of his gun camera film by the IWM not long before he died, showing the damage he did to lorries, planes and trains.
My father flew the B-24 in 8th Air Force, 1st half of 1944. He was shot down twice, once over England by the Luftwaffe who had followed the bombers, and once over the Continent. The Belgian Resistance helped him get back to England.
He completed his 25 missions. He flew at least twice on D-Day.
Once he was attacked by a jet, which failed to shoot him down.
After returning Stateside he was an instructor in the B-25 Mitchell.
When he first flew to England, his B-24 landed in Ireland. The crew were interned there 4 days. Another aircraft was flown in for them as their own plane had problems. The Irish let them continue on to England. Though "neutral" Ireland was helping the Allies behind the scenes.
I don't know if airmen knew during the war how imprecise "precision bombing" was. He told me long afterward, "We bombed Brussels sprouts."
He is buried in the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery. They would have put 2nd Lt. as his rank on the headstone, but I knew he had been promoted, and they engraved 1st Lt. on it as they should have.
The p51 is one of my favorite ww2 planes so one fly at an airshow years ago
Impressive story of a brave man!
P47 had all the highest ETO aces. Are you sure the the P51 killed the Luftwaffe? 47 & 51 had almost identical # of air to air kills, & 47 did when Ger. was stronger. Very surprised a museum would get this wrong.
My dad was in an 8th AF B-24 also (Flt Eng/TT). First out of North Africa, then out of Shipdham, England. His bomber collided with a German fighter head on over Hannover on 4/8/44. His leg was badly broken so he could not evade and he became a POW for about 13 months. Even with all that, he was still one of the lucky ones. He lived to 93yo.
@@steveturansky9031 I respect your father, but the truth is that the end result was the victory of Communism, an ideology that killed 100 million world-wide. See English journalist Douglas Reed on who was behind WW2. Truth is Hitler wanted to avoid war with the western powers. Mainstream historians all agree on this. His enemy --and ours---was Bolshevism in all its incarnations...
Shout-out to my grandfather, who was lead bombardier in his squadron of B-24 Liberators, my grandmother for entertaining the troops, my other grandfather for building B-17s and my other grandmother for mixing the explosives in the bombs grandfather #1 was dropping on factories in Germany.
They all survived the war. Bombardier grandfather survived his entire combat tour of 25 missions and lived to be 92. He only told my brother and I two or three stories, but otherwise would not talk about the war.
My gramps flew Liberators too. Italy. 53 sorties
Doolittle was more than just the Tokyo raid, he was a brilliant aviator and aeronautical engineer, he won numerous flying competitions, set numerous speed records when he was younger, was the first pilot to perform high-G maneuvers and also came up with the idea, and proved it, that a plan could be flown entirely by instrumentation, as well as numerous other innovations, or advocating for them, over his long aviation career. He is one of the only reserve officers in history to reach generals rank.
During the 1930s and again after the war Doolittle worked for Shell Oil Company, in aviation fuels. I spent the first 10 years of my career with Shell in the 1990s; one day in late 1993 the large American flag flying outside the Shell research center in Houston was lowered to half mast, and the explanation came over a site-wide email : "The flags in front of Westhollow have been lowered to half mast in memory of the death of Jimmy Doolittle, Shell Oil Company Vice President and US national hero."
My son and I were standing in front of the P-51 displayed at the Smithsonian in Washington. I was expounding my limited knowledge of this machine with emphasis on the UK’s integration of the latest Merlin engine that transformed its high-altitude performance. We were aware of a slight figure at our shoulder wearing a badged WWII leather flying jacket. He commented how he had flown in the Mustang over Berlin and was a 6 kills. On discussing the UKs involvement with the drop tank innovation he delighted to tell us of his experience when releasing these units. He said that on occasion he would pull the lever to drop the tanks and only one would release. The fighter would immediately roll heavily to the side with the tank still in place he said. Everyone steered clear of each other when performing this operation…
A very impressive individual.
They had Allison V12s originally. It was hard to maintain them overseas as the number of planes in the UK grew and as we gained air superiority - we weren't losing very many planes, so they needed maintenance instead of replacement.
The Merlin wasn't used until later, in 1944.
@@TehButterflyEffect1944 was when the Merlin powered P-51D entered the arena. But Merlin powered P-51Bs and Cs were operational in Europe from fall of 1943…
We? When were you there?@@TehButterflyEffect
We? ‘My son and I…’ ?
When? Circa 1995-6.
Oh, and I forgot to add that to get the hung-up tank to release they rocked the Mustang violently from side to side until off it went….
I bet someone will still argue that the German soldiers (generic for soldiers, airmen, sailors etc.) were supermen until the end of the war. And their equipment was superior. Not so fast. The German military was half by horse and half by car. Only American and British militaries were fully motorized (or if you want to be extremally picky 97% to 99% motorized). The biggest success of the bombing campaign was destroying German oil/fuel.
Good reason to have horses don't you think? I love it when people think there is only one reason that the Allies won and/or the Germans lost.
the german tanks ran out of gas
@@heaven-is-real there are a multitude of reasons, not one simple truth why they lost. They also severely over extended their forces and were over confident (all the yes men around Hitler didn't tell the truth about how bad it was actually getting) leading to combat disasters.
The Soviets won the war and we were a side show. Look at the numbers.
@@GrandPrixDecals😂 so the Post WW2 soviet propaganda claims, their nrs are at best inaccurate and their loss nrs are disingenuous. Furthermore the Soviets achievements are built off the back of the economic might of the US & British Empire.
When Doolittle took over the 8th, he changed their mission statement from "Protect the Bombers" to "Destroy Enemy Fighters." He also changed the credit for an air to ground kill, meaning a fighter destroyed on the ground was the same kill as an air to sir shootdown. Leaders such as Hub Zempke took their fighters to the ground and once the bombers turned for home the 47s and 51s beat the hell out of the German airfields.
And some of them paid the price...see Gabby Gabreski.
@@JohnMalik arguably a flawed strategy. The one thing that Germans did not run out of during the conflict was fighter aircraft.
Their production continued unabated, and even increased, until the very end. It was fuel and arguably experienced pilots that were the scarce resources for the Germans. Neither of these were threatened by airfield attacks.
However, a fighter shot down had the chance of also removing the pilot. Ground attacks increased American fighter casualties significantly for no strategic benefit..
The Anglo-American bombing campaign caused the germans to keep a significant number of men and 88mm anti-aircraft/anti-tanks guns, as well as fighter aircraft, in Germany for air defence, depriving the German armies on the Eastern Front of those guns, aircraft and men at a critical time in the war deciding battles between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This crucial fact is rarely acknowledge about the air war over Germany and German occupied Europe.
Very well noted. In fact in the greatest documentary series of them all. the World at War, Albert Speer acknowledged that. The Soviets were always asking for a 2nd front--the Allied airforce had effectively given it to them.
I assure you it’s widely known.
@@jonathanledwidge9477 85% of the Wehrmacht were killed on the Eastern front. So no the Allied air force gave them nothing. But they did kill lots of civilians.
@@davidcolley7714over half of german fighter aircrafts were stuck with defending german sky against allied raids. Without those raids, those aircrafts would have been over the eastern and Mediterranean front.
@@davidcolley7714 It's the direct opposite. Most Luftwaffe fighter pilots were killed while fighting western allies. The number of kills achieved by top German fighter pilots against the Soviets (352 by the most successful) and the western allies (158, Marseille) could indicate to you that your claim might not be accurate.
Probably the best source of info on this: www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0012_MURRAY_STRATEGY_FOR_DEFEAT.pdf
I just finished reading Masters of The Air great book and I couldn't put it down. I always knew General Jimmy Stewart flew with the 8th. Did not know how many combat missions he flew or that he eventually became squadron commander and also flew combat missions in Vietnam, RIP General Stewart. Recently watched the show Combat America done by Clark Gable and he also flew with the 8th. Thanks to all now serving, those who have, and those who will in the future. FLY NAVY!!!
Thanks for the shout-out to the Link Trainer, which my Dad operated teaching instrument flight, instrument landing, and radio navigation skills to pilots in basic training during the war. Much better to make and learn from your mistakes on the ground in a rotating (and banking, pitching and shaking) barrel than in the air in a valuable airplane. Link practice was deemed so valuable that everyone with pilot's wings-even Hap Arnold-had to re-certify on it every so often.
My grandfather was a Link Trainer. He wouldn't talk about his war service, feeling guilty for not being operational himself & seeing so many of his pupils killed!
Just curious, how realistic did it feel? Did they add a video screen, sound effects? Not trying to talk this thing down, just curious how far they went
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 the trainer was meant to train pilots to navigate and fly by instruments without visual cues, so no video display until after WWII.
7:58 the link trainer borders on looking "cute" that it looks like a kiddie ride at a carnival, but it did it's job
Was surprised when I read more airmen died in Europe than
Marines in the Pacific .. both paid a heavy price for the Europe of today
Another factor was pilot quality. Ever wondered why there were German aces with hundreds of kills while the Western allies topped out around at 30? The Germans kept their top pilots flying and fighting whereas we withdrew them and sent them to train and share their experience and knowledge with pilots in training. The end result was the quality of the rookie was vastly superior to the German rookie. The attrition rate between airforces was vast. It was the reverse of the Battle of Britain when German pilots were at a much higher standard compared to allied airman, many that had 10 hours or so in Spitfires. By 1944 the Germans were tossing poorly trained rookies into the grinder.
Mostly true. Although in the Battle of Britain, British pilots generally had the same standard level of training as German pilots did. The difference was German pilots had more experience (many had fought in the Spanish Civil War, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and France), British pilots only had experience in France and Dunkirk. The Germans had also developed effective tactics during that time whereas the RAF were either catching up or were transitioning after their experiences in France.
True, there were moments when 11 Group had to recruit new pilots very quickly with some as little as 10 hours flying experience. However the RAF did have many experienced pilots across the UK. 10 and 13 Group did assist Keith Park by sending/rotating some of their experienced pilots to 11 Group, Leigh-Mallory however refused to send any of 12 Group's more experienced pilots to help.
This is also what the Japanese did with their pilots in the Pacific Theater. You could pretty much see what happened with the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
I had the pleasure of going inside of B-17G at Planes of Fame in Chino, California and man, it's small inside. Hit my head 3x before I learned to stoop while I was in there.
Very cramped, gave me a new perspective on what these fine young men went through. (This specific plane did not make it into the war, by the time it was ready, war ended)
Bomber crews were expected to do 25 missions and then would be sent home, sadly many crews never made it past 5. In 1943 the average bomber crew was expected to complete 8 to 12 missions before being shot down. Sometimes new replacement crews never came back from their first mission, they were known on the bases as "they came to dinner ", yet, they still went, brave indeed.
My grandfather was in the 405 pathfinders RCAF. His Halifax was shot down in july '43 he was on his second tour. Once as a boy my grandmother opened a drawer and said "those are your grandfather's medals, he was a very brave man" she never spoke of him again. She kept his picture up in her room till she passed l keep his picture on my wall to this day. They were all very brave men, thank you.
I knew a man from my apprenticeship Who did 70 night missions flying Lancasters as a Pilot Officer
Guy Gibson completed 172 missions before he even led the Dambusters raid.
RAF crews did 30 missions and their Pathfinder brothers did 45. They also suffered a higher casualty rate than USAAF crews.
"Memphis Belle" completed 25 missions (allegedly?) before flying home to aid the war effort there. There's a good USAAF movie about it, as well as a dramatised Hollyweird version.
Thanks for taking the time to make this video, very informative ❤. (ignore the haters)
This was what Hitler or Tojo of Japan never understood about aerial warfare; it takes 2-3 years to make a competent pilot. You can make a Mitsubishi Zero from scratch within weeks, but it takes years to make a pilot great enough to pilot that effectively.
Said the same thing elsewhere, we fought the best of the Luftwaffe in the early years. Even if the total shot down count paints a different story
The Japanese lost more than just the carriers themselves when one went down. Attrition of aircrew and mechanics was unsustainable; replacement training was insufficient.
Sounds like the training for Ukrainian F16 pilots
We?@@chrisfletcher86
The Japanese Navy did understand this. Tojo was army. You can't make a Zero or any airplane from scratch.
great video, many thanks to all those would helped to make/produce it
Just in time for the tv series, looking forward to these amazing stories brought to life!
P-47s with drop tanks could have escorted the bombers during black week. The bomber mafia resisted escorts as the bombers were "flying fortresses". The P-51 was preferred by the USAF because it was cheaper than the P-47.
That's actually not true, not sure if this is coming from Greg again. The P-47 lacked requisite internal fuel until the D-25 with it's expanded 370 capacity. That wasn't available in numbers until after Overlord. Let me know if you'd like the fuller explanation.
I read somewhere that the P51 cost $80k, the P47 €180k. But I've not seen a reference for this information.
Greg was spot on in his analysis of the P-47 drop tank situation. @@ME-xh7zp
@@markdavis2475 Ish, the P-47 was more expensive but it was more expensive but that wasn't a driving force in decision making during the war.
@@ME-xh7zp For Berlin. They could make it to Schwienfort.
Superb video and I’m proud to say I’ve flown in Sally -B twice .
I bought a print of her decades ago - a small contribution to keep her flying . . .
I once read in Adolf Galand's memoirs that in 43, interrogations of US airmen was showing that the 8th air force was close to collapse. You touch on it here. I think it's under appreciated just how close things came to disaster.
The Brits warned them about daylight bombing raids as they experienced them.The American mafia wouldn't listen. They believed their bombers with all it's machine guns would prevail. Back fired on them badly. The P51 was defiantly a life saviour for the Americans and the Brits.
The Schweinfurt-Regensburg which resulted in a loss of 60 B-17 and nearly 100 damaged, many heavily damaged beyond repair. The cold calculus of daytime bombing without fighter escort told the 8th AF that this was unsustainable.
@@localkiwi9988 The Augsburg Raid, 17 April 1942.
12 Lanc's, 7 aircraft shot down, 5 badly damaged.
And RAF heavies continued to operate in daylight until August 42.
They would resume in June 44 after the USAAF cleared the sky.
Lanc loss rate was about 50% higher than B17 while flying only at night for almost two years.
8th AF heavies shot down 6,098 enemy aircraft, Lanc's 320.
@@nickdanger38028th AF heavies shot down 6,098 enemy aircraft? I don't think so. They may have claimed 6,098, but they shot down nowhere near that number. Let me give you an example of their overclaiming. On April 17, 1943, the 8th AF raided Bremen in Germany, and lost 16 heavies, by far the biggest loss up to that date. They were unescorted, so none of the German fighter losses can be attributed to fighters. The US gunners claimed to have destroyed 63 German fighters. The true losses? Five aircraft, with one pilot MIA. And this was not an atypical result. US gunners usually overclaimed badly. The biggest cause of German fighter losses was US fighters, primarily P-51s, which came into service in December of 1943.
Your claim that RAF heavies continued to operate in daylight until August 1942 gives the impression that they did so often. That's not the case. The Augsburg raid was one of only a handful of British heavy bomber missions which were flown by day.
@@nickdanger3802 1. First RAF raid to Berlin Aug 25 1940 First raid over Germany Sep 39
2. Sep 41 197 bombers to Berlin
3. Lancaster/Halifax 858039 Long tons dropped Mostly by night
4. USAAF 761802 long tons
5. 8325 RAF bombers lost in 68 Months 10152 USAAF bombers lost in 33 months not too good my friend
6. RAF in the war twice as long dropped more tonnage lost less men and Planes
7. Battle Of Britain 1690/2000 Germans shot down Hard to catch up Nick AND in operation Point Blank Spitfire Mark IXs had the major share in 2950 enemy destroyed by Mar 44
8. RAF Bombers larger load and heavier bombs B17 max bomb size 2000 lb B24 4000 lb but had to be slung externally
9 RAF 8000lb 12000lb 22000lb
10. US H/B losses 10152 Lanc losses 3349 50% of that is 1674.5 So the B24 lost 8477 is that right Nick?
11 The 8th shot down 6098 fighters that is very good.
There’s an excellent 8th Airforce museum in Savannah Georgia. We owe those brave men big time.
Been there... there's a collection of unit histories that they can research for you...or at least tell you where to look
I visited the 8th AF museum soon after it opened. The docent for my group was a bombardier on a B-17 that was shot down on their 6th mission. I spent the remainder of the war in a German POW camp. I wish I had written down his name.
IWM at Duxford has good stuff too and the U.S. cemetery at Madingley, near Cambridge, is a 'must visit' by way of paying due respect to those involved.
It's also worth mentioning that Carl Spaatz was trying to prove that the Air Force should be its own military branch, and strategic bombing was a way to show they could contribute meaningfully as an independent force, not shackled to being a close air support division. He was selling the strategic bombing for reasons beyond just damaging Germany.
It has been said that more Mustangs were lost to attacking trains that in aerial combat. The Germans even had special AA cars designed as regular ones.
3:52 - we get to the first ‘myth’ of the allied bombing campaign: earlier models of fighter planes had insufficient range ‘for the first year of the campaign’. This is wrong to two reasons:
1. The first year of the campaign - 1942 - was largely focused on targets within range of existing fighters as they were then configured. The spitfire had a good record in escorting bombing raids deep into France. The two american fighters at the time - the P38 and P47 had sufficient range to escort bombers to and from the German borders.
2. By the time of the disastrous Schweinfurt raids in maid-late 1943 next to no attention had been given to what would be very minor tweaks (and ones that the manufacturers of the spitfire and thunderbolt were already all over) to allow fighter escorts well into Germany. The problem was not a lack of available technology, but a lack of direction by the bomber mafia generals back in Washington and- their belief in ‘the bomber will always get through’ blinded them to the advances in fighter design and armament over the preventing 3 years of the european theatre of the war. The P47 had the internal plumbing already in place for external drop tanks, and there were two large tanks available, which even with very conservative fuel economy estimates would have gotten them within miles of Schweinfurt. They only needed a small tweak to get them all the way there, fight, back with a good reserve of fuel, and if anyone bothered to ask Republic at any stage before the Schweinfurt raids for that tweek, as subsequent and rapid e developments proved, they could have been provided well within time. The same goes for the spitfire. Jeffrey quill proved that it was possible to fly a Mk IX from London to Berlin and return with a single slipper drop tank. If the leading edge of the wings (on both sides of the gun ports) was used for extra internal tanks, that would have provided another 100+ imperil gallons of fuel (in front of the plane’s centre of gravity, which was important for longitudinal stability) - ie. more than enough to get to germany, fight and get back. The fact that the PR models already used a wet wing demonstrated that this was all very feasible by mid 1943.
*_"2. By the time of the disastrous Schweinfurt raids in maid-late 1943 next to no attention had been given to what would be very minor tweaks (and ones that the manufacturers of the spitfire and thunderbolt were already all over) to allow fighter escorts well into Germany."_*
This isn't true. Actually, it's too generalised to be accurate. Drop tanks could not solve the P-47's range problem. The problem was that it could only be cured by increasing internal fuel. In the meantime, ground crews were slowly modifying the P-47 to carry underwing tanks and that involved cutting metal. It wasn't until late 1944 that it became a line modification. In the meantime, the internal fuel capacity and been increased from about 250 to 300 gallons. In other words, Republic were bloody slow coming to the party on what should have been an obvious one modification.
The Spitfire was nobbled by Leigh Mallory.
The "tweaks" were actually quite major redesign to increase internal fuel for the P-47, which didn't happen until the D-25 in mid 1944. It also needed dive recovery brakes (D-30, IIRC). So no, it wasn't ready for long range escort until well after D-Day. Republic was slow on the uptake, as the long range escort requirement was defined by Arnold in early 1942. Eaker, your "bomber mafia" guy actually was the one who notified Arnold of the Mustang evolution and Arnold had to rattle the cage of Material Command to stop stonewalling the Mustang progress. Eaker was also the one to champion the acquisition of 20 long range Fighter Groups for bomber escort. Everyone seemed to clearly understand the limitations of the P-47, except greg.
Dr. Hearn, I just love your work!
Odd to show an Avro Manchester leading the RAF contribution to Op Big Week in 1944; they well were retired by then! That aside, the basic premise of the title I find simplistic. The defeat of the Luftwaffe was down to combined Allied action over a sustained period and across both the Western European and Soviet theatres, with American industrial potential rapidly outpacing German manufacturing and access to resources. Their shortage of pilots was matched by shortages fuel, lubricants, metal alloys and rubber, to name but a few. Nevertheless, Big Week certainly had an impact they never recovered from. And as you say the human side is hard now to understand. Just as it was far more deadly to be Bomber Command Aircrew then to have served as an infantry soldier in the trenches of WWI, the aircrews of the 8th showed the highest standard of sustained bravery and paid an immense price to secure our freedom. I salute them all.
They also show an F6F Hellcat being shot down as a "German" plane.
But yes, those men were incredible. My grandfather was one of them.
They Luftwaffe never recovered from Operation Pointblank Nov 43 to Mar 44 Spits and P47s accounted for over 2000 enemy
It was more than just the P-51's ability to fly to Berlin and back with the extra fuel tanks. The P-51B/C and P-47D was also by the beginning of 1944 much faster and have better high-altitude performance than the Bf-109G-6 and Fw-190A-8 models common in Luftwaffe service in the same period. Because the Luftwaffe flew inferior aircraft, that's why they suffered grievous heavy losses in experienced pilots they never recoverd from.
The p51d was superior over the b and c in terms of the Merlin engine and extra guns
@@MattKearneyFan1 Actually, The P-51B/C were the first to get the Packard Merlin V-1650-C engine. Those Mustangs were astonishingly fast (441 mph in early 1943!) and helped the P-51B/C become formidable high-altitude fighters by early 1944.
@@Sacto1654 not all the early models had the Merlin. Some had the Allison engines
@@MattKearneyFan1 You're referring to the P-51A/A-36 models fitted with the Allison
V-1710 engine, which only had a single stage supercharger and lacked high altitude performance. It was the B/C models that got the Packard Merlin engines that made it an astonishing high-altitude fighter.
This video perpetuates the myth that the P-51 enabled the long range escort missions when really it was the arrival of drop tanks - the P-47 could escort bombers to Berlin and back just like the P-51 could when drop tanks were used. In reality the bomber mafia was looking for a scapegoat for their earlier blocking of the development of drop tanks and made the excuse of the P-51 and Merlin engine as CYA for their careers and legacy.
This is the second effort from the Imperial War Museum that I've looked at. They are very good. The research is excellent. Scripts are written to available video. Important dates in the history of this war are not only remembered, they are explained in painstaking detail. The person or persons responsible for writing these videos deserve some credit. The second thing that really impresses me is the youth of the narrators. Were any of them born before 1995? They are very good, imo. And, as they work on this series, they begin to really dive down and learn about it. By the way IWM, I am the youngest son of a Dieppe Raid survivor in '42. One of the first Americans to charge up a beach under German Army fire. Dad was an American serving with the Essex Scottish, and was right there in that horrible place code-named Red Beach. No, he never said a word about it. Not to me anyway. I was far too young.
Great video thanks for sharing.
When the 51 got the merlin engine, it was game over😮
6:45 the first mustangs were powered by Allison v-12s not Merlin’s the later versions all had Merlin engines
We owe so much to the allied air forces.. it must of been hell up there.. and on the recieving end... Respect.
Early loses to the 8th were from head on attacks resulting in a turret being added to the B-17G. You can see it on the plane behind the woman commenting. In the long run bombers were intentionally or unintentionally used to as bait to lure luftwaffe fighters in to be destroyed.
I have seen little reference to, and even less information about, Allied vs Axis fuel quality.
There must have been basic performance differences and knock-on effects on operational and maintenance issues, yet no detailed analysis to be found . . .
From early 1940 the US was supplying high octane avgas which allowed for increased boost. it was one of the key factors in the Battle of Britain.
German C3 Fuel, Uber Octane or Synthetic Crap?
th-cam.com/video/NJP7iouMwsE/w-d-xo.html
I have seen a couple of references to the Japanese quality as well. And you have raised an important point that most historians overlook. Both of them were cursed (and we were blessed with) low-quality fuel and fuel shortages. Neither one had high-octane fuel, we did in abundance. Both of them had run out of competent pilots, and I would assume that spare parts would have been an issue also.
Most people, non-aviation types, don't understand how hard flying hours are on an airplane, the flight controls, the engines, and the hydraulic systems. Preventative maintenance is done before and after each flight. All aircraft have required maintenance at mandatory flight hour accumulation milestones. For instance, for the Chinook helicopter, the intervals are 25, 50, 75, and 100-hour increments on most components and shorter time spans on other components. The engines have a separate interval. At 200-hour intervals, the helicopter enters an inspection called a "phase" inspection. When 1000 flight hours have been accumulated, the helicopter has been reduced to its basic nuts and bolts and has been rebuilt from the tires through the rotor blades. And every time a flight control component is replaced, a maintenance test pilot has to fly that aircraft, after it has been inspected by a supervisor, to verify that the maintenance was done correctly and that the aircraft will fly properly.
Add in the combat stress on the airplane, battle damage, and the lack of spare parts and lubricants, and then your Air Force will cease to exist.
Can anyone tell me the source of the clip at 3:37? One of the plane captains in the Composite group at the bottom of the chalkboard may be a (distant) relative and I'm keen to find out more! Is there any way to know which bomb group/sqdn is represented here?
It might be worth writing to the Imperial War Museum in London . It has a vast collection of photos, film and other papers. Since this is a IWM video it could be a good place to start Maybe a first contact via it's website? There will probably be a fee for the search.
I suggest that the USAF has a similar Museum collection also.
The film clip(s) with the chalkboard of the pilots briefing - flight formation etc. - are from the wartime USAAF(?) documentary on the Memphis Belle as it completed a tour (it's second?). It used genuine footage, albeit not from the actual flight.
I'm sure of this source since the composite group lead pilot has my surname. I'm UK not US, so not a relative, but it's not a common name hence very memorable to see in this context.
Search TH-cam for "The Memphis Belle. A story of a Flying Fortress". This clip is at 4:37
@@ncgriso Nice!! Thanks so much!
Great story - 💖 to those that served.
Very well done. Thank you. The strategic decision to use daylight bombing missions as a way to destroy the Luftwaffe is little understood in America. In retrospect, it was a cold-blooded decision that cost many lives, but was probably unavoidable for the successful invasion of Europe.
4:12 Hurray! For the first time _ever_ in the history of man, somebody has used the word 'decimated' correctly!! 😂🎉
10:16 - I wonder if he survived flying through that dirt-cloud?
If he didn't there wouldn't be any film to watch.😂
Another interesting documentary... Well done to all concerned... Roger... Pembrokeshire
With the help of Fighter Command and Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force?
Don't forget: if you ticked someone off your plane eas sent to the BACK of the formation, where 90% of losses occurred after the flak gunners were well-zeroed in.
What really killed the Luftwaffe was bombing the oil refineries. They couldn't be moved underground. At the end the wasn't enough fuel for the Panzers or the Luftwaffe.
Cough SAS
🤡🤡🤡🤡
What killed the Luftwaffe was the P-51.
By the end of 1943, the USAAF in Europe had shot down 451 German fighters. 'Operation Argument', also known as 'Big Week', was a tactic intended to draw the Luftwaffe into a battle it could not afford and everyone knew it. In February, 1944, the P-47s shot down 233 German fighters, the P-51 got 89.5 and the P-38 got 32.5. In March, the P-47 got 175, the P-51 got 251 and the P-38 got 25. In April, the P-51 shot down a massive 329 German aircraft. The P-47 got 82 and the P-38 got 23. And the Mustangs did it with half the number of squadrons the P-47 had. The figures remained that way for the rest of the war. The P-51 also destroyed 30% more ground targets than the P-47.
By mid year, Flak was more of a danger to US bombers than fighters were. It was only then that the fuel problem really started to bite but the Luftwaffe was already defeated. The P-51 ended the war with 4,950 German fighters shot down in 213,000 sorties. The P-47 shot down 3,082 in 423,000 sorties, so the hit rate of the P-51 was nearly three times as good and it did so without suffering exceptional casualties.
The P-51 wrecked the Luftwaffe.
Duxford is one of my favourite places in the world. Love your work, IWM.
My dad hung many a drop tank under the wings of P-51s, including those flown by aces MAJ Sam Brown and 1LT Norman Skogstad.
Another outstanding video! Extremely informative! Thank you!
Take a stroll up the walkway at the US museum at Duxford and you can see for yourself the overwhelming loss the 8th took.
Unacceptable losses.
Hi iv just watched hard trashers videos on the bomber mafia, may be a coincidence but I feel you need to give him some credit...
Keep up the good work!
The shots of them lads bailing out a downward spinning B17. ! Jesus wet. You wouldn't want it ay. ? 👊💛👊
Spinning induced centrifugal forces. Escape wasn't easy; many didn't.
Jesus wet?
Hmmm, never heard that one before.
They could have flown with drop tanks and p47s years earlier. The leadership was the problem.
sorry you are wrong . P47 thunderbolts were never going to be combat ready until apr/may 1943. yes the drop tanks should have been ready then but that is a different story
Drop tanks could never have solved the P-47's range problem. Only internal fuel could. The P-47C one held about 250 gallons of internal fuel and this was not seriously addressed until the -D25, which did not see service until May, 1944. When the USAAF flew its first raid on Berlin on 6 March, 1944, the bulk of P-47s flew with 476 gallons and a small number flew with 586 gallons. This was because a few had been re-plumbed to carry under wing tanks. But it takes approximately half the fuel in an external tank to get the other half there. The majority of P-47s couldn't get past the Dutch border. The second group couldn't get to Magdeburg.
By contrast the P-51 carried 416 gallons and flew all the way to Berlin and back.
I would like to clear up some regrettable confusion about the range of the P-47 in 1944. There are two books written by American WW2 P-47 aces, Thunderbolt by Robert S. Johnson and Martin Caiden, and Zemke's Wolfpack by Roger Freeman and Hub Zemke. The book by Freeman and Zemke is more accurate. Col. Zemke was in direct contact with 8th Air Force generals and he was always trying to get better equipment to improve the P-47's performance. His book is full of complaints about how the P-47's shorter range meant that the longer range missions to Berlin were given to the P-51 groups. Johnson's book "Thunderbolt" contains strange inaccuracies about the P-47's range. In Chapter 16, Johnson says that on March 6 1944 "We flew the direct route to the German capital". Johnson says this right after saying that they had received new belly tanks that increased their range to such an extent that they flew missions all the way to Berlin. On the next page Johnson describes the combat for the March 6 mission and he says it took place "west of Hannover" which is nowhere near Berlin. Hub Zemke in his book also describes the March 6 combat and he says it took place above Dümmer Lake, also west of Hannover. There are several other times in Johnson's book where he says their fighter group flew missions to Berlin, but nowhere in the book does Johnson say that he flew over Berlin. I have found no such inaccuracies in Zemke's book.
The P-51D Mustang did not appear in combat until May 1944. By then, the victory of the Allies had been a foregone conclusion by at least 18 months.
Long range escort by P-51s started in Dec '43. They were escorting bombers to Berlin by March 1944. Meanwhile, Republic was still trying to get their P-47D-25 out the door, which they finally did by mid 1944, late to the party. The P-38 was, well Allison compromised, and fairly unreliable and inadequate for high altitude escort.
The P-38 Lightning was known for it's Incredible range in the Pacific. Since it wasn't enough to go deep into Germany and back I would like to know how much more range the Mustang had?
It (Allsion engines) wasn't reliable at high altitudes.
@@bobsakamanos4469 Wasn't that the early models and later didn't they received better engines?
@@John14-6... in 1944 their new manifold was supposed to have solved the uneven charge mixture and detonation issue at high boost, and later engines were certainly stronger (cranks, rods, etc) but Wright Field still gave it poor marks. When 150 octane was being tested, the P-51 (Merlin) was fine at 75" and the P-47 tested well but the P-38L still had issues at 70" and Wright stated the Allison was the problem. Flight tests of the P-40N and P-40Q also showed engine problems at Wright field and Eglin proving grounds.
The P-82 Allisons were maintenance nightmares in Korea - no intercooler, aftercooler or bacfire screens.
My Grandfather flew 61 missions for Bomber Command from the start of hostilities until the early morning of April 14th of 1941. They survived ditching in the Channel...I'm here.
These videos are excellent 👏Please can we have a video on the midget submarines - and the Italian frogman submarines? Please? Thank you
“A typical interception in the fall of 1942 has been described by Johannes Naumann, at that time the an Oberleutnant in II/JG 26. The Gruppe was ordered to attack the bombers on their return flight as there was no chance of reaching them on their bomb run. The B-17’s were flying in a staggered formation at about 26,000 feet. The Focke Wulfs finally struggled up to 27,000 feet, only to see the American formation receding into the distance. The speed of the FW 190’s at that altitude was only a little greater than that of the bombers…No bombers were downed; none had even suffered visible damage.”
Top Guns of the Luftwaffe p. 125 by Donald L. Caldwell
I remember a veteran interview on history channel, back when it was actually history, talking about getting to England in 43...
He was told "we're experiencing 4% losses a mission... " He remembered clearly thinking..."4% by 25 missions..aw nuts!!..."
I wouldn't describe your sponsor World of Warships as "Totally free to play." More like free to try in a very limited way.
An important contribution of the attacks was that German fighters were pulled away from the Eastern front. This relieved much pressure from the Soviets, who did most of the fighting anyway.
The "second front" occurred in Malta, North Africa and the MTO, which caused the LW to divert their fighters from the eastern front. The addition of USAAF bombing efforts (1942-1944) from Britain did however cause the LW to send more and more fighters to the western front.
That jacket at 05.03 would not have sufficed in the summer. At 30,000 feet (10,000 metres) the air temperature is about minus 45 degrees centigrade irrespective of seasons. Year round the heavy protective suits were needed.
That was on the aircraft, but if bailing-out . . . ?
My Dad was a Rear gunner on the B-17, 8th Air Force over Africa. Chasing Rommel. He survived two crash landings. Credited with two German kills & had his seat shot from under him!
I paralleled him in Vietnam 1968-69.
I was a flight engineer on Ch-47 Chinook Helicopter.
God protected me and my dad.
True story!
The title makes me sad considering the source is so normally epic. The British Commonwealth Aircrew Training Plan, all those Lancasters built by said Commonwealth, all those Americans who prior to 1941 came up to Canada to get involved, the Merlin combined with the Mustang... and it all comes down to the 8th?
The video is accurate. Johnnie Johnson, the great British fighter ace, wrote "How we longed for a Spitfire which could fly to Berlin and back, so that we fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force could play our part in the great daylight battles of 1943 and 1944 fought over Germany between the Luftwaffe and the Eighth Air Force. But we had to be content with fighter sweeps over France and the Low Countries while the Mustang, with its radius of action of six hundred miles, fought the Messerschmitt 109s and Focke-Wulf 190s over the Reich and gained an ever-increasing dominance over the Luftwaffe from which it never recovered." (From the foreword of William Green's "Famous Fighters of the Second World War", page 7)
Germans had the same issues the Japanese had, they ran out of well trained experienced pilots by the midpoint of the war. Most of the experienced pilots were lost over Britain in the battle of Britain.
Might be accurate to say the 8th finished them off, but the numbers don't paint a fair picture
@@patrickreilly2026 That's what one RAF fighter pilot said in someone else's book. The Mosquito had no such range limitations, despite having two of the same engines, to the point where it was one of the first allied aircraft to tangle with not only the jet-powered Me 262, but also the Dornier Pfail puller/pusher.
@@aaronleverton4221 and did the RAF use it as air superiority fighter like the Spitfire or Mustang? The answer is no so how does that invalidate Johnson's statement?
@@chrisfletcher86 they lost some but the BOB was nearly 4 years prior to Big Week. The Germans had maintained air parity at the very least up to then so it's hard to maintain that their pilot losses in 1940 caused the loss of air superiority in 1944.
Always fighting.
The main problem was with both the British and American generals. They at first did not believe in the feasibility of long range fighters. General Arnold at one point stopped the development of drop tanks except for ferrying. The British thought that the Battle of Britain proved that short range fighters would always beat long range fighters. The British had a long range version of the Spitfire but that was a reconnaissance version.
No, Arnold was a proponent of long range escort and was a center piece of his meeting in early 1942. Material Command on the other hand were bogged down in quality control processes and ultimately more and more flight testing was moved to Eglin AFB to bypass Wright Field. Arnold was the one rattling their (MC) cage to make them comply with priorities. If you're quoting greg's videos, you should stop and do some research to challenge his false assertions.
As for the Brits, they were the ones who insisted on longer range for the NAA proposal, while at the same time producing the MB.3 fighter with 1,100 mile range.
@@bobsakamanos4469 Greg also asserts that the Lancaster did not carry more than the B17
USAAF (Arnold) started directives for drop tanks in spring 1941, then made long range fighter escort a top priority (over bombers) in Feb 1942. By mid 1943, Arnold gave the ultimatum to have escort fighters extend range to Berlin within 6 months. Republic continued to fail to deliver until mid-late 1944.
As for the Brits, they rendered specs for a longer range fighter in 1939. The MB.3 was the result although the Ministry forced it to have the Napier Sabre vs the Griffon. It had 1100 mile range, and approx 420 mi combat radius.
This video make it sounds like the German Air Force shut down so many American planes, but in fact, it’s not true most planes was shut down by ground anti-air guns
My mother was the recipient of these bombings. She lived in Berlin her and her femily, and they survived.
The American "Bomber Mafia" believed it had the solution to the precision bombing problem with the Norden bombsite. Their daylight precision bombing strategy was built around its theoretical capabilities. Unfortunately it simply didn't deliver the expected results in action. Bombardier training, bombsite quality issues, unknowable wind velocities/directions in the air column below the bomber, overcast weather, and many other factors made true precision bombing impossible.
SPAATZ: Which had the more effect in the defeat of Germany, the area bombing or the precision bombing ~
GOERING: The precision bombing, because it was decisive. Destroyed cities could be evacuated but destroyed industry was difficult to replace.
SPAATZ: Did the Germans realize that the American Air Forces by intention did only precision bombing ?
-5
GOERING ~ Yes. I planned to do only precision bombing myself at
the beginning.
pdf Goering Interrogation - Jewish Virtual Library
They ultimately used radio and then radar systems for bomb aiming. The Norden bombsite was a cover story.
P 51d Mustang one hell of a machine, watch out for stuff about the Red Tails ,brilliant pilots.
I don't remember the source, but I recall a good estimate that the Nazi's had to divert the equivalent of a whole army in men, fuel, ammunition and other resources to meet the 8th Air Force attacks. These resources could have been used elsewhere. Who knows what all those resources could have done in the east.
It was the 56th fighter group newly equipped with drop tanks that pioneered the tactics to lead the bomber formations to meet the Luftwaffe's head-on attacks, break them up and have top cover fighters pick the separated Luftwaffe fighters off in diving attacks. The 56th was equipped with P47Ds and initiated these tactics at a time when only two fighter groups were equipped with the new P51s. The difference in ranges of the P51 and P47Ds are less than is popularly believed. It was the belated availability of drop tanks that made escorts into Germany possible and should've been a focus of General Arnold whose job it was to require necessary equipment to be made available by US industry. With that said the P51 was a pilot friendly easily produced classic of a fighter and it's choice as the escort fighter of choice was the correct one.
Another greg story. If you do the research you'll find that Arnold was the one lambasting Material Command for their lack of progress. You'll also find that Republic didn't redesign the P-47 with more internal fuel (47D-25) and get them into the ETO until mid 1944. Combat range is dictated by internal fuel, something greg refuses to acknowledge.
8:41 Manchester???
I think a more accurate title would be how the 8th airforce helped to defeat the luftwaffe.
My great uncle was an aerospace engineer and wrote papers on drop tanks prior to their implementation.
I also love the story of The Tuskegee Airmen....
One often overlooked factor in the Allies gaining air supremacy over Germany, was the use of leaded, high-octane gasoline. When the British first started using high-octane gasoline during the Battle of Britain, it improved the Spitfire's performance so much that the Germans thought they were facing a new version of the aircraft.
Didn’t know about the different gas, thanks great point
It wasn't the gasoline. Those were high compression engines, which were much more efficient at utilizing the energy in the fuel. The higher octane in the fuel prevented early/premature combustion in those high compression engines. Superchargers and turbochargers also made for big increases in engine horsepower.
They were facing more horsepower via running more boost in the supercharger which was enabled by the higher octane avgas.
It allowed 12 lb boost in the Merlin III, which was effective up to 10,000'. Engines needed to be inspected afterwards though, so use was limited in the faster Spitfire. The slow, heavy Hurricane on the other hand pushed the throttle through the gate all the time, because it had to. Fuel burn also increased 40% when full boost was used, limiting range/endurance.
Winning the air war was huge!
Hands down, the P-51 was the Harley-Davidson of WWII.
Did it drip all over the run way? Was it a b*tch to start? 😂
LOL, P-51 was more of a Shelby Mustang muscle car, not a leaky outdated bike.
I've read that while the German industry was producing aircraft at a high rate, it wasn't just he lack of pilots the held back the Luftwaffe but also a general lack of EVERYTHING required for the prosecution of a war.
The British went to a war footing immediately and instituted the "war economy" while Lord Beaverbrooke took over aircraft production ( along with many others ) I don't think the German economy EVER had the mass to take on even the British by themselves. The British economy had far more manufacturing than the German in the 1930's
This makes me want to re-read "Catch-22."
Political reasons kept existing fighter aircraft receiving long range drop,tanks. Aircraft manufacturers were discouraged developing of drop tanks to extend the range of their aircraft. Despite this Republic had fuel drop tanks developed anyway,but the army air corps didn’t want the drop tanks.
Arnold prioritized escort fighters as early as March 1942. Republic was simply late to the party, getting the Jug D-25 to ETO in mid 1944, while other fighters had already increased internal fuel much earlier. First long range Mustang missions in Dec 1943.
Notice that the thumbnail photo is an early D without the fillet tying the vertical stab to the upper fuselage.
You mean a B or a C? The D was the only model with a Merlin and a bubble cockpit.
Some early D’s lost their tails in full throttle dives so they came up with a triangular fillet to go where I noted to add some strength to the top of the aft fuselage.
There is a widely published picture of a flight of P51’s that shows D’s with and without the fillet.
@@TehButterflyEffect Also, The B and C had Packard built Merlins.
At 3:06 the young lady mentions that much of the bases built in England were by African-Americans. I don't wish to be accused of being a racist {believe me, I'm not}, but I don't believe this to be accurate. My Dad was sent to Iceland in June 1942 in the 824th EAB to finish the airfield at Reykjavik begun by the British and build Meeks and Patterson Airfields at Keflavik which partly today is the International Airport. He was put in a Replacement Depot 05/31/44 and sent to England to join the 820th EAB { it had built the field at Debach besides helping on other fields }, which was planned to be ashore on second tide of June 6th at Omaha Beach ( in fact a Reconnaissance element went ashore on the 7th, late, because of the events of the 6th ) . I spent many years researching Engineer Aviation Battalions to discover and expand upon whatever my Dad told me as a teen before his passing at age 60 of colorectal cancer. There were many EABS sent to England to construct airfields for the 8th USAAF. To my knowledge there were separate African-American EABs and in number they were few compared to the total.
You are correct - and, in addition, Britain paid the USA for all of the airfields constructed for the USAAF - every single one of them..
No 200+_Airfield were built by British for the USA
@@MarktheMole No British built and never paid for
Losing 12 out of 13, or 13 out of 14 planes is not "decimation". Decimation would have been losing 2 planes
Apparently, early P51s could be mis-identified as Me109s and there were a few 'friendly fire' incidents.
Not enough mention of the P47, and to a lessor extent the P38, which preceded the P51. The P47 fought before the P51, when the Luftwaffe was much stronger. In regards to the drop tanks I thought you would have mentioned the paper mache, paper, drop tanks developed by the RAF. Also there was a lot of political noise coming from Stalin, who wanted Britain & the US to open a second front to ease the pressure on the Soviet forces.
The "second front" was opened in Malta and North Africa when the US was still watching 1940/41 and gained strength in Op Torch 1942 in response to Stalin's whining.
@@bobsakamanos4469 US, UK and others were fighting in the Pacific at the same time. In 1940, Russia was friendly with Germany, not opening a second front to help us and did nothing to help the Chinese against Japan, perhaps quietly helping Mao and the communists (to which I've never seen any reference). USSR did a lot of fighting (and dying) against Germany, but that was what they could do best, having no strategic bombing capability. Ivan and his comrades paid a high price for communism.
@@grandaddyoe1434 No, as per my statement, in 1940/41 the US was not yet in the shooting war. The second front was Malta and N.Africa. Yes, the Brits/Commonwealth/Dutch were fighting in the Pacific at that time (fall of Hong Kong in Dec '41 etc), but were ill prepared and lost much ground. AVG were mercenaries with China, not US forces, and they didn't start fighting until late Dec '41.
No wonder by Korean War and later Vietnam War, American military aviation always had upper hand. Control of sky gave US the freedom to fly close air support, air interdiction, air reconnaissance, strategic bombing, airborne and air assault missions. If American ground forces were surrounded, Americans can fly resupply missions, medical evacuations, operationally, it gave US military more tactical and strategic advantages the other sides can only dream of. Hence we live in the American Peace.
1:17 to skip advertising
Tge real question: why tf wasn't the Thunderbolts flying with drop tanks MUCH earlier?
My grandfather was credited as having destroyed more German aircraft in WWII than any other combatant of all the services. He was the worst mechanic the Luftwaffe ever had.
Haha I hope you are joking. But if not, I totally believe there are people who don't believe in the war and might unpurpose do a bad job to not kill people.
A quibble. Drop tanks aren't so effective on a plane that doesn't have a huge internal fuel load. A P-40 or Spitfire could have carried big drop tanks but if they flew till they were empty they wouldn't have made it home. It took fighters with long inherent range: the P-38, P-51, and especially the later marks of P-47 with extra tanks behind the cockpit. All of them had a range on internal fuel greater than any European fighter of the era with the biggest drop tanks it could use.
Tactics also played a part. Once the fighters were cut loose from the bombers they could cruise at their best speed and altitude instead of weaving around the bombers. The P-47, in particular, benefitted to such an extent that the Luftwaffe was already breaking before P-51s arrived in great numbers.
Cheers!
Late production Spit IX's had 196 imp gallons of internal fuel. Some sorties in 1944 left Tangmere and ranged as far as germany with a 90 gal external tank, but you're right it was not a long range escort. It did however provide lots of escorts on the first and last (return) legs of bomber missions so that the chunky P-47 could take the second leg before releasing bombers to go it alone in 1943.
One of the reasons the bomber campaign didn't have the effect that was expected, was that Germany had an army of barely fed slaves labour to rebuild and man their factories.
“High altitude precision bombing” with world war 2 technology is an oxymoron. Your chance of hitting your target this way where effectively nil. In 1943 only 20% 8th airforce bombs got within 1 mile of their target. Night bombing was effectively as accurate as day bombing. By insisting on Day bombing all the us achieved was higher casualty rates for their bombers and crews.
The US Army carried out precision bombing of area targets. The RAF carried out area bombing of precision targets.
@@michaelw2288 Once the 8th A/F went to 9000 metres to avoid flak the Norden Site lost its accuracy . And it was Harris' mantra to flatten everything No houses trains Buses roads sleep the German workers were buggered Just get the factories did not hurt them half as much. That was something that the USAAF never figured out.
Not true. On the first Schweinfurt raid in Aug. 1943 the surviving bombers hit the ball bering factory and the Regensburg bombers hit the Focke Wulf factory. The main problem was you had to have clear weather which was rare in northern Europe.
SPAATZ: Which had the more effect in the defeat of Germany, the area bombing or the precision bombing?
GOERING: The precision bombing, because it was decisive. Destroyed cities could be evacuated but destroyed industry was difficult to replace.
SPAATZ: Did the Germans realize that the American Air Forces by intention did only precision bombing ?
-5
GOERING ~ Yes. I planned to do only precision bombing myself at the beginning.
Precision is a scale, not an absolute.
Lanc loss rate was about 50% higher than B17.
WWII B-17 Combat Bombing Accuracy
th-cam.com/video/jSDGQTXCeIE/w-d-xo.html
@@nickdanger3802 1. USAAF Heavy bomber losses 10152 for 761802 Long tons dropped Lancaster 3349 lost for 608612 long tons dropped
2. Lanc181 tons /plane lost US 75.03 tons /plane lost So the RAF was more than twice as efficient and if we separate the B17 and B24 it is even worse
3. Lanc 156000 sorties for 608612 long tons dropped gave an average of 8739 lb /sortie RAF sorties/missions differed from the USAAF in that the RAF had to hit the target or alternative to be classed as a sortie The USAAF classed a sortie as take off and land even if the Target/Alt was not hit.
4. The USAAF did not differentiate the B24 and B17 into averages /sortie
5. Personnel Lost according to Air Forces Statistical Digest WW2 stood at 95565 from all planes
6. I will endeavour to find out RAF/Friends losses
I can argue that that Rolls Royce won the air war with the Merlin engine.
Where did the avgas come from ?
"For the next important and powerful Merlin 66 engine, Rolls Royce finally decided to use the Bendix-Stromberg Injection carburettor. The American Bendix-Stromberg pressure carburettor was developed in the mid 1930’s and was in production from 1938. This carburettor was designed to operate as a fully pressurised fuel system that dispensed with the problematic float controlled fuel level with its emulsion tubes and diffusers. Negative G had no effect on fuel flow or carburettor function. The pressurised and metered fuel flow was delivered as a spray into the inlet air stream just in front of the supercharger inlet. This feature virtually removed the risk of carburettor icing, in fact the throttles and chokes of the injection carburettor did not need heating by hot oil or coolant circulation at all and their deletion removed several other problems associated with the previous provision of those heating circuits.
Rolls Royce had been aware of the Bendix-Stromberg Pressure type of carburettor for several years and versions of the carburettor were used on many American engines including the Allison V-1710. Notably, Packard built their Merlins in the USA with a version of the Bendix PD16 from the very start of Packard Merlin production."
ROLLS-ROYCE MERLIN CARBURETTOR DEVELOPMENT page
@@nickdanger3802 well nick, the Allison used the pressure carb in their -39 engine that was in the P-40. It had many issues and Rolls Royce wasn't ready to give up on their own solutions because of that. Once they started evaluation of the Bendix pressure carb, they made improvements to resolve some issues (fuel pump for example) and the Bendix-Stromberg folks copied that to upgrade their product.
@@bobsakamanos4469 sure
@@nickdanger3802 Even Kindelberger complained about the problems with the -39 Allison.
1:46 “Jewel purpose” Sounds expensive
An error in the video; the P-51 Mustang was delivered with Allison engines. The P-51-D Mustang (the last model) was the one that had Merlin engines.
No, only the P-51A had the Allison engine and I don't think it was ever used by the 8th
The P-51B was the first Mustang with the Merlin. It was actually faster than the D.
What's the history of that statue of Prometheus? What did it look like before it was wrecked? Was it stolen?
I wonder how things would have been if North American had built P-40s for the RAF like they were originally asked to do instead of designing the P-51 instead.
Disaster. Brits were desperate for fighters in 1940 because Lord Nuffield had delayed construction of the Castle Bromwich Factory for Spitfire production. Had NAA agreed to build the P-40s, it would have taken them at least a year to refined the production engineering, since the Curtiss system was inefficient. Thank god that Kindelberger stood his ground (and GM and Material Command never forgave him).
@@bobsakamanos4469 Lord Nuffield did not delay the building of Castle Bromwich Source Morgan and Shacklady Spitfire the History page 97 So stop the pork pies
I was under the impression the Brits built the airfields
Some pre-existing RAF airfields were handed over to the USAAF such as Duxford and Bassingbourn but basically we built ours and the americans built theirs. 😊
They did until well into 43
All US fields were built by the US or paid for by the US. During and after construction the US leased the land.
Sorry - the UK paid for all of the USAAF airfields constructed here even if the work gangs were American.. at huge cost..@@nickdanger3802
Bomber Losses, Germany and Northern Europe
HC Deb 07 July 1943 vol 390 cc2062-3
6. Mr. Stokes asked the Secretary of State for Air how many British bombers were lost over Germany and Northern Europe during the month of June; and whether he can give a corresponding figure for the same month for losses suffered by American bomber aircraft over the same area?
Sir A. Sinclair 276 British and 82 American bomber aircraft operating from this country were reported lost over Germany and Northern Europe during June, 1943.
Mr. Stokes Would my right hon. Friend agree that the total for the year is of the order of 1,430?
Sir A. Sinclair My hon. Friend must put that Question down.