Is the Luftwaffe Defeated in 1943? - WW2 Documentary Special
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ธ.ค. 2024
- Outnumbered and outproduced, the once mighty Luftwaffe is battling to hold its own across three fronts. Every month brings new pain for the force. But the Luftwaffe still has a few tricks up its sleeves and can make the Allies bleed heavily. If only Hitler and the Nazi leadership weren’t sabotaging its chances…
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If you liked this video, you'll also enjoy our special "Is there Wehrmacht Defeated in 1942?" th-cam.com/video/vQj0l_3Y3pU/w-d-xo.html
Indy - Spart and crew - We enjoy the content - and understand - "stuff happens". Be Well. Cheers
I have an ominous feeling the question now's are the Russians defeated in 2022?
I accidentally clicked on it, but decided to stay.
How many did the USSR produce in 1944?
This was a particularly good episode; not only did you manage to avoid asking your audience "right?", your analysis was excellent -- stellar work! Might have mentioned the Germans' catastrophic loss of Me 323 Gigants on 4/22/43.
A big problem with the Luftwaffe (and the Axis air forces in general) losing pilots isn’t only that they didn’t rotate their pilots to train a larger number of capable new pilots, but that they didn’t have the aviation fuel reserves for an effective and large-scale pilot training program even if they wanted to go down that route.
This problem is only going to get worse as fuel for training is cut back and fewer safe areas for training exist.
Even when they enjoyed air superiority/supremacy over much of Europe, they didn't rotate pilots for individual kill tallies
Lower octane fuel as well. The Commonwealth also had safe overseas training areas as well (e.g. Canada or Rhodesia).
@@malcolmstonebridge7933 That's why they needed greater cubic capacity to make the same sort of power, DB605- 35.7 litres, Merlin-27 litres. Also why their aircraft had such heavy exhaust staining- it simply burned "dirtier". The 109's with real DB engines that fly today, would almost certaily run better and cleaner because they're running on 100 octane avgas, not 87 octane bat's piss. Water/methanol injection helped, but still. Even my 64 Falcon WOULD run on 90 octane, but it sure liked 98 a whole lot better!
@@Archer89201 That's why their aces could accrue so many more kills, they simply kept flying combat, some for the whole war, it was brutal! The Allies would rotate their aces away from combat, to train new pilots for a while, to pass on what they had learned. You might say, their O.H.& S. was better, to use a more modern term.
A silly story about the Luftwaffe: A RAF veteran was invited to talk to schoolchildren about his experiences. He talked about being under attack by lots of Fokkers. The children all react to that, but the teacher explains that "Fokker" is a type of German aircraft. The veteran replies "Yes, but these Fokkers were flying Messerschmidts!"
I have read that the RAF veteran was Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader.
The only people flying Fokkers in WW2 were the Dutch, and only for a short period. I heard the anecdote when I was a child in the 1970s. It has been around a long time...
@@stevekaczynski3793 I know it probably isn't true, but I'm not one to let the truth get in the way of a decent joke.
@@thexalon It was funny when I first heard it, perhaps because the F-word still had a certain forbidden charge when I was 13 or so...
Focke-Wulf ?
I always wondered how the Luftwaffe had so much of the headlines on the first years of the war and so few in the last. This answers it, thank you!
Certainly offers stats yes.
By 1944 there will be a bit of gallows humor about the state of the Luftwaffe among German troops stationed in the West...
"'If you see a white plane, it's an American, if you see a black plane it's the RAF. If you don't see anything it's the Luftwaffe!"
It was built in the prospective of an attack force to pave the way for the ground forces and it was flawed at the start with poor model choices who where top of the edge in the late 30s but already outclassed in the early 40s add to that they never had a proper long range bomber they suffered frightening losses in Stalingrad following their incompetent leaders rescue plan who bled white the transport fleet
Add the palm Sunday massacre with 50 ju 52 and the 13 gigamt Me transport behemoths who where ruthlessly shot down from the sky it’s amazing
But thanks the author for posting this video with invaluable information abt the training pilots shot down on the Ju 52 a fact I didn’t know personally
In addition to what others have stated Luftwaffe (and to even greater degree the Japanese air forces) relied on shock and technological edge to overwhelm the opponents, problem with those is that they're heavily time sensitive.
When (not if but when) the opponent recovers from the shock and starts developing things that match or even surpass your material you're kind of done for unless you can replace the shock factor with something else which the axis were unable in significant degree.
This was one the Key flaws in the Axis stategy their plans relied on tactics that demanded quick victories against an unprepared opponent, but it doesn't take much of a genius to get that the enemy isn't gonna stay unprepared forever and axis powers have no real counters for prepared opponents.
Thank you for watching!
The constant attrition of experienced pilots is one of the largest factors. One of the reasons germany had so many aces with absurdly high kill counts is because they couldn’t afford to pull their experienced pilots out of operational squadrons to have them serve as instructors. Meanwhile the allies generally had enough manpower that they could afford to pull a fighter pilot out of combat to be an instructor after he had racked up 5-10 kills and gotten good experience.
I think history shows that the latter method was a better value proposition as having experienced instructors increases the quality of every single new pilot, but of course the axis countries at this point couldn’t spare their best pilots. It’s also worth mentioning that the quality of new allied pilots generally increased over the course of the war while that of axis pilots decreased due to the attrition and need to replace losses quickly. By 1943, the average Luftwaffe fighter pilot got 170 hours of flight training before being sent into combat, compared to 320 for the USAAF and 335 for the RAF.
It is honestly a miracle that the Germans could inflict such heavy losses on Allied bombers in 1943. Japan's carrier air groups were very seriously impacted by the loss of hundreds of pilots, not thousands. German training schemes were certainly more adequate than Japanese ones.
It took at least two years to train pilots and navigators, perhaps less for other aircrew like gunners. Whereas infantry could be trained more or less in a few months and in crisis periods sometimes received only a few weeks' training. The impact of aircrew losses was disproportionately heavy.
@@michaelkovacic2608 Japan's fuel situation was also much more dire than Germany's after the tide had turned against the Axis. All of Japan's fuel had to come from the Dutch East Indies, through 4,819 km of open ocean. The transports became increasingly vulnerable to Allied submarines and aircraft and far less than what Japan needed was managing to run that gauntlet. Along with severe pilot losses over the Solomons (the campaign that really broke the back of Japanese aviation...Midway was significant for the loss of carriers, not pilots) the shortage of fuel impacted Japan's training program.
It partly explains why Japan went from arguably having the world's most skilled pilots in 1941 to being blasted out of the sky with near impunity by the Americans over the Marianas in June of 1944. The best trained and experienced pilots were mostly dead by that point and their replacements had far less flight hours in training.
@@stevekaczynski3793 training your infantry in such a short time had it's detrimental effects as well
@@jeffbrewer1580 Long training periods for infantry is a luxury of peacetime armies, or eras of "small wars." None of the major combatants in the Second World War could afford it, the demand for manpower in the field was too great & attrition made it all but impossible.
3:45 Anyone that's read about the German army in WWII will have heard of "Panzer Lehr." In 1944 Germany desperately needed panzer crews and in the first half of 1944, they literally pulled their panzer school instructors from home and pooled them together into a single strong formation. Panzer Lehr. These guys were very good, but in the hellish grind of Normandy, they were almost all killed. Men with years of experience, training the future of the panzerwaffe... Dead. Experience you cannot easily replace.
That was 1944. The Luftwaffe did that in 1943, which is what the quote in the link is referring to. The instructors from back home in Germany were pressed into service at the frontline flying Ju-52 transports. Many were lost. The Luftwaffe lost a lot of organizational experience and expertise. I know fighters and bombers get all the attention, particularly the fighter aircrews, but these guys flying transports are important for the lifeblood of logistics. Getting their aircraft with cargo and personnel safely, efficiently is still a big deal. You don't want some dumb scrub planting one of your country's few transports loaded up with fuel, ammo, parts, or even extra personnel, into the ground at the end of the runway.
The Luftwaffe in 1943 was the last year IMO, that even though it was hard pressed and taking heavy losses, it could still contest. But that will soon change in 1944. Specifically out west, one of the British demands for a cross channel invasion was the neutralization of the Luftwaffe. That started in the Mediterranean Theater in 1943 but will really get ramped up in 1944.
Anyways, when the Western Allied air forces conducted heavy air operations in preparation for the invasion of Sicily in 1943, the Luftwaffe was getting hammered. Adolf Galland, veteran of the Battle of Britain and also an ace, was sent down south to the Mediterranean to take hold of the situation and save it from disaster. He remarked being overawed at the sheer scale of flight operations that the Allies were doing, dwarfing anything he had ever seen before earlier in the war.
With the Western Allied air forces getting stronger, and the Soviet air force having recovered and becoming a more competent threat, the Luftwaffe cannot keep up with this pressure and will soon buckle. It will get worse for the Germans. The Luftwaffe will lose trained, experienced pilots. Their enemy's aircrews will survive more and more, and become more competent with more combat experience. Allied aircrew training will have the time to properly train new ones while the Germans will be pressured to have less time to get more pilots to the front sooner rather than later. These less trained German aircrews will be lost at a quick rate. This is a terrible "Snowball Effect" that will happen over 1944 for the Luftwaffe. We will eventually get morbid jokes by German soldiers of striped and metallic looking planes meaning they were Allied planes. If they were invisible planes, they were the Luftwaffe.
In an episode of history repeating itself, for the initial attack on Ukraine, Putin directed the instructors from the Armor/Infantry schools be re-assigned to line units. Now, 2 years later, they are feeling the loss of this cadre.
And bloody-well 'sure-rights' - you goddamn-well better _believe_ it, _'mister'!_
My great uncle was an early aerospace engineer and was one of the first to work on drop tanks. He also worked on the B29s.
Thanks for watching! We're always interested to hear about the personal connections that our audience and their families have with the war.
My father told me his B17 was shot to pieces on these missions and they almost didn't make it home. He survived 52 missions. O7 WWII Veterans.
I'm very glad he survived. 52 missions is an awful lot!
O7
My grandfather also flew a B-17. Late 44 and 45.
How many hundred civilians do you reckon he burnt to death?
@@anarchopupgirl probably a lot. So what? They didn't have guided munitions back then. Go piss up a flagpole
Another factor must have been that the allies were starting to get a technological advantage by the end of 1943. The P-47 assisted by drop tanks was a match for the BF109G and FW190 over Germany, despite its size and long range. And the numbers soon began to tell, the US could build planes and train pilots much faster than the Germans.
And of course by now the P51-D was reaching theatre.
@@qjnmh B not D, bubble tops didn't get in theatre until late march '44.
@@rodneypayne4827 thanks. I had that wrong. Thought it was earlier.
yeah the Ford factory produce every 63 min a b24, how should you counter that ? (1944)
In all of these, one factor was extremely underestimated. Fuel quality. Allied plane fuel had a greater octane number than German, which allowed to run the engines with higher power output. Germans tried to overcome this by using Nitrous Oxide for short periods of time in order to have an advantage in extreme conditions.
"When I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up." - Hermann Meyer
The worst was yet to come for Allied bombers. On the night of 31 March 1944 the RAF attacked Nuremberg with 795 bombers and suffered a total loss of 106 aircraft (11 of those were on arrival back in England). The damage done to city was minimal and 74 residents lost their lives. The RAF suffered 545 killed and 160 captured.
Due to a freak of nature many RAF bombers were leaving contrails behind at a height when it would not normally occur. Such planes might as well have been flying in daylight and the German fighters did not even bother switching on their radar or switching off their navigation lights before going in for the kill.
@@stevekaczynski3793 I am just waiting for some nuff nuff to call them chem trails, when everyone with a little bit of aviation knowledge knows that they are condensation trails caused by hot exhaust gases mixing with very cold air. Makes you wonder what those same people think about when they blow vapour on a very cold morning or night. "Toast sweat" is also condensation.
Sometimes with the loss rate amongst Bomber Crews, I wonder how anyone survived the war? Yet, somehow people did.
@@markfryer9880 I knew one such survivor. He was a teenage RCAF crewman in 1945 who joined the USAF in 1948. He was our unit's First Sergent when I was a 2nd Lieutenant. I never saw him on the fat boy program or perform PT. He'd put in over 30 years of service by this point and was about to retire. In fact the last official act I recall him doing was timing our annual 1 1/2 mile run (something I never saw him do). I wasn't mad; I figured he'd paid his dues and maybe some of ours as well.
@@stevekaczynski3793 That raid was a total cock up and should have been cancelled as soon as the Met flight in the afternoon had reported the conditions. What the crews were briefed was the exact opposite of what they ran into (the met brief was heavy cloud along the route and clear over the target).
Phenomenal video WW2 team. Special episodes are always fantastic
Thank you for the kind words!
Just be aware when reviewing Bomber Command that there is a tendency to blend the Battle of the Ruhr and the Battle of Berlin. Berlin was a straight up morale attack, and was a catastrophic defeat for the RAF. The Ruhr was designed to go after industry, and actually did it pretty effectively and had a measurable effect in suppressing Germany’s war output. Germany famously managed to increase output in 1944. A pretty significant but generally ignored contributor to this was the switch of Bomber Command from the Battle of the Ruhr (where it was making a meaningful difference) to the Battle of Berlin (where it was wasting its effort.
Slavery helped lift germin production in 44.
The Dutch perspective : Americans thinking bombing Berlin is more important than to feed a population they called up to rise up against their occupiers and is getting punished for it with starvation by the Germans. Thank god for the Canadians.
@@davidhaaijema4521 'We must get the USAAF to wade in with greater force ... We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the USAAF will come in on it. It will cost between us 400-500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war.'
- Sir Arthur Harris, in a letter to Churchill, 3 November 1943
BBC Fact File : Big Week 20 to 25 February 1944
If Britain and France had not declared war on Germany then waited for Germany to bring the war to them by going through neutral Europe the Dutch might have been spared the worst of it but thanks for blaming the USA.
@@nickdanger3802 "hey Dutch help us with Market Garden", *proceeds help* , "Hey Dutch we know we asked you to rebel and stuff, but SIKE! we're out and not crossing the Rhine!", *proceeds to have 5 million starved for their help*, "Nono Canadians, we shouldn't drop food for the Dutch, we should bomb Berlin that's already in rubble more!".
Why wouldn't I blame you and why on earth do you think I would be thankful to Americans who only joined the war because Germany declared upon them and where content to watch Europe burn until that point ? What kind of a-historical self rightious bullshit do they teach you at school ? Canadians declared war upon Germany though and sacrificed 6500 men to save 5 million civilians from starvation, just admit you are jelly that your Nothern neighbours are everything you pretend to be and don't like someone pointing that out.
@@davidhaaijema4521 Market Garden was planned by Montgomery and in the British AO.
Harris wanted to bomb Berlin, not the USAAF.
Do you think Hitler declared war on the US because the US was doing nothing?
Where do you think the Canadians M4 tanks, halftracks, M3 scout cars, T16 universal carriers, jeeps and fuel came from?
On a per capita basis Canada spent about half as much as the US. The US was the only nation to spend more than Germany including 21 billion USD in free "Lend Lease" to Britain.
And FOAD.
My grandfather flew on a Lancaster Mk. X as a navigator, in 405 Squadron (Pathfinders). He was shot down on his 66th mission, which was flown on his 28th birthday, in 1944, while supporting breakout operations from Normandy. He and the bomber's pilot were awarded their second DFC's for their actions that day, which were awarded after the war, by King George VI.
Thank you for covering this Indy & team. I think the Lufwaffe was probably doing its best to keep up the pace despite being faced with increasing challenges both externally and internally. They were able to make the Allies pay quite a price for bombing German cities.
It cost the Allies a lot to bomb Germany itself, but it was also costing the Luftwaffe planes and pilots. As the video showed, the Luftwaffe had to pull fighter units from the front lines to have better interceptor capability back home in Germany. This is 1943 when Germany's enemies are surging to become stronger and stronger, and their air forces also gaining in strength, competency. In 1943, now more than ever, the German army desperately needs air cover, but they will get less and less of it because they need fighters defending Germany.
In the coming months as 1944 goes on, we will see the brutal war of attrition that the Luftwaffe would not recover from. They'll be losing tons of planes and pilots in Central and Western Europe, down south in Italy, and of course, the Eastern Front.
In mid-1943 we already saw that the Luftwaffe could no longer dominate the skies over Kursk for Germany's big offensive. The Soviet air force snatched superiority away from the Germans.
In 1943 for Tunisia, the Western Allied air forces were too strong. The Luftwaffe tried to airlift supplies to keep Axis troops in Tunisia going, but failed at it and would lose many planes for the trouble.
In 1943 for the invasion of Sicily and later Italy, the Allied air forces had superiority and the Luftwaffe could contest little the invasions. That was due to heavy air operations before that the Allies did to weaken the Luftwaffe.
In the Eastern Front in 1943, arguably Germany's most critical theater since the vast majority of her ground power is there, they do not have the fighter coverage they need because many of them have to defend Germany itself.
1944 will get much worse. The bombing campaign will not let up either, and eventually those Allied long range fighter escorts will be a thing. So the days of Luftwaffe fighters getting free attack runs on bombers all the time will become harder to achieve.
@@Warmaker01
And bloody-well 'sure-rights' - you goddamn-well better _believe_ it, _'mister'!_
12:14 - Luftwaffe Records. I've heard of Motown, Factory, Trojan, and 4AD. But not that label.
In terms of getting new crews the British also had the advantage over the Germans with the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Canada had dozens and dozens of training bases set up across the Dominion for example. So their was no worry about enemy forces interfering with training.
In late WW2, the Germans had a joke saying that they could recognise the nationality of any plane from the colour: if the plane is blue, it is English; if silver, it's American; if red, it's Soviet; and if it's invisible, it's German.
One of the under-reported but essential elements of 1943 was the perfection of the SCR-51/splashers and Bunchers and GEE in conjunction with H2S and Darkie and flaming runways and lead in lighting systems. The Flying control procedure perfected in 1943 made possible Big Week during the Winter of early 44'. We could not effectively launch and recover raids over the continent without it. I am impressed that you have touched upon this.
Great video as always, guys! I agree that even in 1943 the Luftwaffe still had energy for the fight. Also, remember the fallen at Pearl, 81 years later.
This chap is good, the right person to present this brilliant channel.
Don't apologise, I love the specials but as long as I have the great 2 weekly main ones, I'm happy.
By far, one of the very best history channels on TH-cam. Incredible presentation of detail in a gripping narrative and factual manner. Well done.
Thank you for this video. I have myself been studying the changing fortunes of the Luftwaffe, beginning with 1942, but your video has provided superb insite on the overall state of the service in 1943 leading up to the pivotal year of 1944. For me this adds somewhat to the narrative that the Luftwaffe was a professional force in decline since the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
I would genuinely appreciate a video, in this format, dealing with the challanges the Luftwaffe faced in North Africa and the wider Mediterranean theather.
I find the attempted air lift to the 6th Army fascinating myself, I remember reading a Sven Hassell novel that had some compelling writing about Gumrack and so on as the Reds closed in on the Kessel. Thanks for the upload again 👍 💯
I've tried to read his book, but couldn't stand it after a hundred pages or so. There is so much historical nonsense that I highly doubt everything that can be found there. In fact, there was more crazy stuff that can't be trusted even considering some exaggeration, than anything that makes sense. Thus, I suggest taking it like a fiction books, nothing more
Considering what a bullshit-artist Hassell was, I'd be careful looking for any Historical value in this Novels.
The man writes Fiction well.
But Historical Fact?
Not a chance.
Historical fiction with much “artistic freedom “?
Man o man I devoured Sven Hassell books 35 years ago. I must say that I loved them, total bullshit, totally non-woke, massively over the top! I think that Tarantino could do them justice.
Goering was a deluded junkie , boastful ,fool, his delusions killed so many good men. To think that you could air supply a whole army, in a Russian Winter, insanity!
The German and military leadership were unwilling to recognize the position Germany now found itself in. It was fighting a war on multiple fronts, and it was no longer winning grand victories, but instead losing battles. Germany's inability with accepting reality, like when they tried to reinforce Stalingrad and lost so many transport planes, only served to let the power of their military forces degrade more rapidly.
The loss of Axis aircraft North Africa and the Mediterranean is not insignificant. And that air power could have served them well in the USSR, even though it would still not have won them the war. Germany is unable to see it is losing the war and losing it quickly and suddenly.
Can you think of a single decision Hitler made that didn't guarantee defeat?
Hitler had made his career on the “stab in the back” myth.
He couldn’t back down without proving his entire philosophy was based on lies.
There are good reasons why Germany wanted to keep onto Africa for as long as possible. It delays an invasion of Europe, and reduces the chances of Italian surrender/defection and causes massive hassle for shipping through the Mediterranean sea. By 1944 the German plan was almost to grind the Western allies down and hope to agree an armistice and then focus all resources on the USSR, they weren't blind in thinking that they weren't losing.
@@grevberg Hitler’s decision to not retreat after Operation Barbarossa failed in Dec 1941.
@@oreroundpvp896
It baffles me how Germany thought they could win a war in North Africa without taking Gibraltar and sealing off the Mediterranean. Critical mistake, imo.
Fantastic video as always and extremely informative. Keep up the excellent work!
Military History Visualized does a pretty comprehensive video on the systemic failures of the Luftwaffe. I recommend it. I would contend the claim that it was attritional losses alone- the Allies on both fronts produced excellent models of aircraft.
totally agree on the aircraft by the way. Apart from the 190s having a brief period of dominance over Spitfire Vs, the western allies had equal or better planes, and as the war went on the gap only expanded (Me262 as the obvious if rare exception to this rule)
@@qjnmh the FW 190 certainly gave the British quite an unpleasant surprise- it was markedly superior to the Spitfire MK V but they quickly banged out the Mark IX which was a match for the 190. The USAAF P38's, P 47s and of course the P 51s were every bit as good as the best German types. Even the ME 262 was vulnerable- the USAAF took to identifying the airstrips operating the ME 262s and parking squadrons of P51s and P47s that would ambush the ME 262s returning from operations. Superior training, logistics and the numbers were just something the Germans couldn't answer.
My grandfather served in the 8th AF as a waistgunner in a B-17 in 43/44. Soo I very much appreciate this video. Keep up the great work.
Hi George, thank you so much for watching. It's always really interesting to know some of our viewers have a personal connection with our work. Glad you liked the video!
Killroy was Here.
Kilroy was here
Excellent video! Thank you for making this video available to the general public.
Thanks for watching!
10:10 Labels wrong way around on Lancaster and Halifax
Great topic!
Great video! You mentioned US production and I assume you will have a video on the staggering mobilization of the US aircraft industry during the war - from 3600 aircraft in 1940 to 96k in 44. On top of this was a huge machine training aircrews and ferrying aircraft all over the world to war zone. Germany & Japan simply had no way they could recover since they had no way to reach North America to disrupt production besides their lack of resources and pilots.
The US was turning out one B24 bomber every 63 MINUTES on a 7 day a week schedule at the Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Almost 15,000 US manufactured aircraft of all types were also shipped to the Soviet Union via lend-lease between 1942 and 1944.
There were months when you didn't make a lot of specials? You could have fooled me! This channel has series upon series and specials upon specials; I am never left wanting.
Thanks Indy you explain in a few minutes what Historians have taken Library Sections over to explain! Excellent
Yatamoto had it right. Quick victory or be out produced
Thanks!
Great video! Also at 10:09 I believe you have the names for the Lancaster and the Halifax bombers mixed in the photos
Richthofen did not know what he would do with 360 more fighters because he likely did not have the pilots and fuel to use them
The WALLIE wet dream.
It's worth noting that von Richthofen was diagnosed and operated for a brain tumor late in '44 or early '45, so it would be understandable if there was a certain cognitive decline in his command decisions prior to his death.
The American development of long range escort fighters probably broke the back of the luftwaffe. There was a lot of weight on that back before then and I think that may have been the final push that broke it.
British and American
@@cwr3959 I'm talking about the mustangs and their drop tanks.
@@bookaufman9643 yes and so am I. the Mustang was built to British requirements and went on to use a British Merlin engine :)
The majority of LW pilots in the early war period were good, the majority in the late war period were poor.
The USAAF Gunners did actually damage a lot of German fighters in 1943, however they didn't kill anything like as many as they claimed to have.
A Russian officer told British War correspondent Alexander Werth that the U.S. and British bombing of Germany had this effect on the Russian front: “The German air force is much weaker now than it used to be. Very occasionally they send fifty bombers over, but usually they don’t use more than twenty. There’s no doubt that all this bombing of Germany has made a lot of difference to the German equipment, both in the air and on land. Our soldiers realise the importance of the Allied bombings; the British and Americans, they call them ‘nashi’-that is ‘our’ people…"
Werth, Alexander. Russia at War, 1941-1945:
The concentration of the majority of Germany's fighters in the West, where eventually they'll be effectively wiped out, also affected the Eastern Front in giving Soviet air forces much less opposition than they would have had otherwise.
Postwar this was not a popular sentiment. Soviet citizens who had dealings with Americans or British during the war were suspect after it, and sometimes arrested. A wartime US film had actor Dane Clark reacting to a Soviet plane by saying, "It's one of ours all right!" This was the kind of thing that interested the House Committee on Un-American Activities after the war.
3:58 I first learned about this in a video on the current Russian issues on personel in Ukraine by Perun. He mentioned that the possible Russian use of instructors in the "special operation" will lead to difficulty in replacing losses as the remaining cadre of instructors will be smaller.
For way too long the American generals were wedded to the theory that the box formation of bombers was self defending which led to the disastrous Schweinfurt losses. For those raids drop tanks for P-47 escorts were available in the US and in England but American commanders did not prioritize drop tanks as the answer to the bomber defense problem so the P-47s flew their escort missions without drop tanks. Finally in November 43, General Arnold realized his error and ordered the delivery of drop tanks to US fighter groups. When the Big Week offensive happened in February 44, there were a few hundred P-51s that could reach Berlin but the majority of US fighter escorts in the USAAF were P-47s.
Greg's airplanes and automobiles have a video about the range issue on the 9-47s and P-51s. Its very interesting.
m.th-cam.com/video/aCLa078v69k/w-d-xo.html
Love the p47. It's like a b29 engine nacelle that's had some wings and a tail bolted on to it.
This is not accurate:
Arnold and AAF commanders in the field rapidly recognized the need for increased fighter range, even as early as 1942. There were a variety of drop tanks trialed on P-47s during 1943, and even some that saw combat trials, for example the 205 gallon which was unpressurised, and really only contained about 150 gallons of usable fuel at higher altitudes, significantly reducing it's usefulness. This tank would have to be dropped prior to the fighters climbing up to escort the bombers. In fact this drop tank was notably used by the 4th Fighter Group during it's mission on the 17th of August... Schweinfurt-Regensburg, where the fighters had to turn around because they didn't have the range to accompany the bombers to the target.
Later on in 1943, around September, 75, 108 and 150 gallon tanks became available. Despite there not being enough to go around, all 6 8th AF Fighter Groups were equipped with 108 Gallon drop tanks by late September, but they weren't necessarily capable of using them. P-47s up to this point needed extensive modification to carry these tanks; they weren't delivered from the factory with the needed racks or pressurisation equipment to draw the maximum efficiency out of the tank. Early P-47Ds (prior to the D-15/16) were required to undergo a strenuous and lengthy field modification, in fact these modifications continued through February - March 1944. The P-51B-5, arriving in December 1943 came from the factory with range well in excess of even these upgraded P-47s. A P-47 variant with range comparable to the P-51 didn't arrive until the D-25 in May 1944, 6 months later.
P-47 proponents claim the P-47 could have been the escort fighter the 8th AF desperately needed in 1943 if only it had been authorized to carry drop tanks. This is simply not true; P-47s were carrying DTs in combat as early as July 1943, and WERE using them in raids where insufficient range of escort fighters was cited as a key factor in failures of those missions.
@@andytothesky Thank you for this thorough information - always so much more useful than watching people fire assertions back and forth. I grew up with the simple history of the P-51 being the long range savior of heavy bombing. Then the internet brought in nuances and arguments both ways for the P-47 and P-38, etc. Now we (you) are able to put together different levels of info. I suppose the one argument the P-47 folks have left is that the need for long range escorts should have been recognized with more urgency and/or earlier, thus leading to a high priority on developing *and deploying* useful drop tanks for the P-47.
@@andytothesky Yes, Some P-47s did use the 108 gallon drop tanks in the Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid in August. But because of screwups in flight scheduling and coordination the fighter missions were not effective. And there were other bomber raids where drop tanks were also used by P-47s in the summer of 43. But I repeat that they were not given priority by the top brass. All P-47s, from Jan. 43 onwards were capable of carrying drop tanks. The fact that drop tanks were not available for the October 14th Schweinfurt raid shows that General Arnold and others were not focused on extending the range of the P-47s. Even if the fighters couldn't get all the way to the target they still could have helped the bombers a lot more than flying the missions without drop tanks. Greg's Airplanes says that the 200 gallon tank was fully tested and effective up to 30,000 feet. There was a different 200 gallon paper tank that was unpressurized and that tank is used by people who say that the P-47s couldn't use the 200 gallon tank in combat. The 200 gal. drop tank made by Republic was made out of metal, not paper. The myth that was spread that the P-47 was not an effective escort fighter because of range was promoted by the USAAF because they had no legitimate excuse for the failure to provide fighter escorts to the bombers in 1943. It was a coverup to protect the generals' reputations.
th-cam.com/video/aCLa078v69k/w-d-xo.html
It's always surprising to me that both sides seemed to keep believing that they by attacking civilians they could cause a loss of morale and force the enemy to capitulate, when the enemy was doing the exact same thing to them and it only strengthened their resolve.
Harris thought attacks on Morale were a waste of time. He area bombed cities to knock out everything that enabled the Cities to operate. His main problem was 50% of the bomb loads on average in 1943/44 landed outside of the cities completely. Only the Pathfinders had the Oboe and H2S kit, everybody else had to bomb on the target indicators dropped by the Pathfinders or Dead Reckoning.
Same mistake are still made today (look at terror bombing Russia is doing in Ukraine with cruise missiles and drones)
My great uncle was in JG 1 and defended Germany against B17 raids. He rose to become an ace flying FW190 s and brought down a considerable number of Bombers winning the Knights Cross and the Luftwaffe cup. He eventually died in a dogfight over Normandy in 1944 with 3 Mustangs flown by British pilots. Although I was born in Britain and do not support Nazism and even though he fought for the enemy side I like to think he saved civilian lives. It is a shame that war took such a brave young talented pilots life. My Grandma used to show me photos of him and his plane but it wasn't until the internet that I discovered how famous and decorated he was.
The Luftwaffe day fighter force was not finally broken until the P-51D with the Merlin engine arrived in mass in January, 1944. The B-17's and B-24's then acted as bait to draw the day fighters unto the escorting Mustangs in ever increasing numbers. Also the increasing numbers of those and Thunderbolts with drop tanks allowed for relays of escorts. The fighters that still had ammo would drop down and basically attack anything they could on the ground. All of this made the Luftwaffe ineffective by the time of D-Day. The bombers finally focusing on the oil, and synthetic oil production with the Transportation Plan all combined in this.
P51 B not P51 D.
Finally, the video I was looking for.
Seems trite, but the V-1, V-2 Vengeance Weapons are worth a separate episode too.
Just like Japan,Germany was on the run during mid 43 and afterwards.Thanks WW2 for all your hard work,because you out research all of your competitors.
Great content! Hope you get a chance to cover the jet and rocket powered German fighters when you get to that point in the time line.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed the video! We recently covered the first test flight of the American XP-80 jet fighter prototype on our Instagram: instagram.com/p/CnMcLIpMsmB/
Clearly the Luftwaffe is still capable of a fight. I still fight it astounding that Germany's highest level of production was in 1944.
There is no motivation like desperation
Yes that is true. However by then there were not the trained, experienced, aircrew to fly them nor the fuel to fly them.
A lot of the equipment late war was sub standard though, and sabotage was rife from all the slave labour being used at this point since all the available german men were called up.
SPOILERS
The Nuremberg raid in early 1944 was described by a surviving wing commander in Bomber Command as "the biggest chop night ever". He was told in debriefing not to exaggerate, but 95 RAF bombers were lost. In September the same year, a US raid on Kassel ran into new German fighter tactics and one US bomber group was all but wiped out. This was after months of believing the Luftwaffe was down and out.
Oh, they kept fighting right to the very end. I totally understand their motivation, you can't blame the pilots, no matter who was ultimately on the right side, and who wasn't. Their Homeland, their Heimat, was being absolutely pulverised. Most were absolutely NOT Nazis. Gunther Rall being, perhaps, the best example. There's long interviews with him on You Tube, he seems to have been a lovely, immensely honourable man.
The emergency measure of using Night fighters in the daylight air battles will prove very expensive as the night fighter pilots are not well trained in daylight tactics and will suffer very heavy losses.
Agree. And it’s another reason not to dismiss Bomber Command. It’s campaign forced Germany to commit huge resources to stopping it, which then weren’t available (as you rightly say) to stop the USAAF
the luftwaffe is, lets say, on its last wings.....
no use crying over spilled Milch!
Nice video, as always!
Thanks for watching it
By the end of 1943 on the eastern front luftwaffe starts abandoning usage of conventional bombers in favor of fighter-bomber tactics, usually having groups of fighters carrying a single bomb. If was done due to heavy bomber losses, especially among ju87. And, while decreasing aircraft losses, that further decreased luftwaffe's ability to conduct close air support missions
Thank you for the special. Its always greatly appreciated ❤️
Thank you for watching, that's always greatly appreciated too!
This was a terrific presentation on the often overlooked attrition aspect of the air war specifically in 1943. It semantics I suppose, but I would argue that the Luftwaffe WAS a spent force by December 1943. Much talk is given to the 'Big Week' in 1944 and the appearance of long range fighter escort in the beginning of that year, but the fact is the Luftwaffe had already lost the air war by that point.
The losses to the German transport fleet from the double hammer blows of the failed effort to resupply Stalingrad followed by the disaster over the med trying to supply Tunisia were absolutely crippling. The transport arm of the Luftwaffe was no longer able to play a meaningful role in the war after this, especially given it's third tier status in plane production and pilot allocation.
The Luftwaffe lost over 3000 planes from June through August of 1943 (these were fairly equally spread among the east, med, and home defense theaters). Thats basically an entire air force measured by beginning of the war standards. The bomber force had been seriously depleted by it's losses in the east (supporting the Kursk offensive then trying to stem the following Soviet summer campaign) and the med (especially in opposing the allied invasions of Sicily and Italy). Regardless of how much Hitler may have wanted to emphisize bombers, the Luftwaffe stuka and kampfgeschwaders were no longer able to stall allied offensives the way they had in 41 and 42. In fact, after 1943 the Luftwaffe's presence over the eastern front was pretty much just a token representation. The experten fighter pilots were still able to run up impressive individual scores, but they were not able to prevent the VVS from achieving air superiority over any part of the front they wished.
The air campaign against Germany was the icing on the cake. For all the losses in bombers and aircrew the unescorted missions over Germany suffered (and granted they were heavy) the 8th Air Force increased in strength every single month. The opposing Luftwaffe fighter force declined in strength every single month.
Even if production was able to eventually make good the losses the decimation of the pilot force was unrecoverable. Others in these comments have pointed out the inadequacy of the Luftwaffe training establishment. Scavenging the instructor staff for combat unit replacements was a serious blow. Reducing training time to accelerate pilot replacement and conserve fuel reserves was even more corrosive.
I'd define "spent force" to mean one that can no longer fulfill it's assigned duties, and after 1943 the Luftwaffe was no longer able to do this in attack, defense, or transport areas in any of the theaters it was engaged in.
It’s good to have this episode, but it does point out why it is bad to separate the strategic bomber offensive from the rest of the war. It was a vital and central part of the war, and by 1944 Germany was spending >40% of its total war output on defending the strategic bombing campaign (as Adam Tooz shows in Wages of Destruction). So from a grand strategy perspective, it was THE primary western effort until Normandy.
And tactically, it was also the vital effort. Defeating the Luftwaffe was a prerequisite for Normandy. The only way to do this was to damage its manufacturing (the bomber offensive), interdict its training (the Oil Plan), and kill its pilots in the air (Big Week). There was no active land front that could force the Luftwaffe into a “do or die” battle BEFORE Normandy - it needed the Strategic Bombing Offensive to do that.
Frankly, there’s a pretty good argument that the Strategic Bombing Campaign was the second most important campaign in the west up to 1944 (behind only the Atlantic).
Forcing Germany to employ the bulk of its air force in fighting the Brits and Americans over Europe and the Mediterranean was the only "2nd front" that could be offered to Stalin in 1942 &1943. Stalin wasn't happy about not having a land war in the West but he would have been a lot less happy if the bulk of German airpower had been deployed on the Eastern Front.
I agree. Whilst not effective in its primary goals it forced Germany to divert significant resources to make it effective
Very clean (reissue) tie. Nothing spectacular, but a good look nonetheless. 3/5
I love the specials & I wish there was more of them. During the weekly events covered I've noticed not much is covered of the air war. I understand due to funding & research that it's hard to get all the weekly episodes & squeeze them in the time allotted. Apart from German production which is covered, Allied production should be covered as well.
My cousin's grandfather was a Lancaster pilot with 7 Squadron RAF. At this time of the war they converted from Short Sterlings to the Avro Lancaster. He always stated that the night missions were perilous & inaccurate. While US crews did 30 missions, the RAF did not have that luxury. The cost of training crews, building aircraft, creating airfields & maintenance was a huge expense during the war. The RAF strength in WWII peaked at 1,208,843 men and women. Of these, 185,595, were aircrew. The RAF also had the services of 130,000 pilots from the British Commonwealth and 30,000 aircrew from Britain's defeated European allies. During the war the RAF used 333 flying training schools. These were the most highly skilled within all the services. These days the RAF have under 40,000 personnel so you can understand the logistical & economics of wartime & peacetime operations.
My father turned 9 the February before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Now that he is 90 years old he still sings the song as "nothing can stop the U S Army Air Corp!" Of course this is because he not only taught history on the secondary level (and as a college adjunct professor after retiring) for more than 40 years but because he has lived it.
*_Even though it was ruled a stalemate the Luftwaffe was actually defeated at the Battle of Britain in 1940 and spent the rest of the war trying to recover..._*
I have a friend, who’s grandfather was a German fighter pilot. Most of his flying experience was with the Afrika corps, flying 109s. My friend decided to let me see his grandfather’s logbook of flight hours. He’d ended up logging quite a lot before being shot down and went to a POW camp. What was most striking to me was, well before he got shot down, he stopped logging his hours after a certain date. Not because he didn’t care but, because he literally had no time to. The war got to the point that, all he could do was eat and sleep between sorties, before going back up on another patrol or another intercept.
There’s lots to debate and discuss here, but I think the primary comment is that this episode is 2 months premature. It’s akin to giving an update on the battle of Normandy in late July. Yes, things are tough. No, the allies are not perfect. But by December, the allies had successfully forced the Luftwaffe into total battle, and had all the kit and tactics required. All they needed was a decent period of stable weather - which they got in Feb 1944, and which resulted in Big Week and the defeat of the Luftwaffe.
Awesome perusal, would be cool with a series talking the so-called "Wunderwaffe" from the warring nations
I think most of the German wunderwaffe were a complete and total waste of design and manufacturing resources.
However, if I was being mischievous, I would argue that the best and most effective German wunderwaffe was the Panzerfaust, which being cheap, effective and plentiful meant that any (brave) kid could take out a tank and completely dominated tactical considerations in late '44-45.
@@qjnmh The panzerfaust was also a weapon that the army initially were opposed to. I think they said it would be to difficult for the soldiers to use. Then the Americans were using bazookas on the battlefield. Then the ok was given for production of the panzerfaust.
I think the telling months that spelt the death knell of German forces were: Navy: May '43, Luftwaffe March '44, Army Nov '42 (Part A) and June '44 (Part B)
I'm happy you mentioned the V-1 and 2 were a waste of resources and time and money. Even the jet bombers and fighters should have been cut back for the piston airplanes.
The jet bombers, yeah, but the jet fighters were needed. The Me-262 was superior to any Allied aircraft. Hitler's foolish demand that they be converted into bombers screwed the Luftwaffe's chances to counter the Allied bombers. This conversion process delayed the front line deployment of these jet planes by several months. The German air situation worsened by then and fighter development was finally allowed.
@@ENiceGeo Agreed on all of it but..... the Germans could have gone stright in on just building fighters like the 262 or even the single engine Heinkel 162 but they could have never matched the weight of the allies. Jets were expensive to build with tight tolerances (machines and time) and require a lot of maintenance afterwards. The Me262's engines required an overhaul after 10 hours of use, and outright replacement after only 25 hours. Not to mention they didnt have the range to do much more then defense due to being fuel hogs with an hour of flight time per mission. It just was a little early for the jet and when you throw in slave labor to build them sabotage before they ever made it to a runway can also be a real issue.
Hi Indy
Awesome video.
These specials and stats are great to watch.
Comparing world war two era production of planes vs today scenario is totally mind boggling.
Can't imagine. So much fghters,bombers used.
Thanks.
In 1943 and 1944 at the Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti Michigan For was turning out the 4 engine B24 heavy bomber at the rate of one very 63 minutes on a 7 day a week schedule.
Thanks for watching. Always happy to see that you've enjoyed our videos!
For anyone interested in learning more about the air war there is a really good book called, “Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer” by Brian D. O’Neill. It spans 1943-1944 and the dangers experienced by U.S. aircrews trying to get in 25 combat missions to be rotated out of active combat. Both missions to Schweinfurt are covered in it as well as other missions and definitely worth a read. :)
Great show, keep up the good work👍
Thanks for the kind words!
The choices made by the RLM in terms of priorities were often so weird. Probably more a matter of who you knew there, rather than what you had in the design shop.
Although it’s probably beyond the scope of this channel, I’d like to see the US Army Air Corps transitioning to the US Air Force
Maybe if Indy does the Korean War. We will get a mini series about the formation of the US Air Force and the origin of the Cold War.
@@JohnJohn-pe5kr that would be really cool to see
The USAF was created in 1947 and was modeled after the Luftwaffe in many ways. Through the final years of the war, the lLuftwaffe was down but it was never “out”.
@@living2ndchildhood598 In which ways was the USAF modeled after the Luftwaffe?
@@otaviocarneiro940 The USAAF looked at how the Luftwaffe kept getting aircraft sorties generated despite a lack of pilots, parts, and fuel. They adapted much of the lessons learned into their operational planning. That’s a weak answer but the best answer that I can provide based on the limited knowledge that I have of post-war inquiries that I have read about.
When are we going to talk about Erich hartmann the greatest Ace in ww2?
Great work👍
I would recommend looking up Hans-Joachim Marseille. "Only" 158 kills versus the 300+ of many German aces, but nearly all against the Allies, which were much harder to score against
My impression from reading quite a few autobiographical accounts from both the German and Allied side is that pilots on both sides were thinking "if nothing changes, we are all dead and gone in 6 months". This was particularly true after both Schweinfurts, and the increased fighter sweeps over France. The Germans looked at their own losses both in planes and comrades, and it was clear to them also. The amount of almost despair at the individual pilot level is striking. The big difference of course, was that the Allies were just starting incredible growth and improvement. The Germans has passed their peak.
Spoiler alert: By the end of "Big Week" at the end of February 1944, the Luftwaffe was basically defeated.
at 10:13 the pictures of the Halifax and Lancaster are switch. For the rest great video.
What really destroyed the Luftwaffe was the arrival of the P-51B/C Mustang and improved versions of the P-47 Thunderbolt at the end of 1943/early 1944. Because the Mustang and the newer Thunderbolts with improved propellers could easily outfly the Luftwaffe's fighter force, the result was very heavy losses of experienced pilots by late spring 1944 that the Luftwaffe couldn't really replace.
These are terrific as is all of your WWII videos❤❤❤
My Great Uncle was a B17 Pilot and was shot down over Germany. Luckily he survived and was a Prisoner of War until the end of the War.
In the movie "30 Seconds Over Tokyo", about the Doolittle raid on Japan, one of the aircrew who crash-landed in China loses a leg in the process. He is rescued and is sad that his war is over. "Are you kidding? You're a valuable commodity, a man who's done it and come back. You're gonna be training new pilots." Very poignant. Neither the Germans or the Japanese figured out how to mass train pilots and other essential crew. The US had hundreds of thousands of new aircrews in training.
Very interesting. I didnt know that they lost so many Planes and crews in the mediterranean
Thank you. Read a book: I Flew for the Furher (Luftwaffe). Maybe it was a Penguin Paperback. The author was a Luftwaffe fighter pilot, I recall he was shot down 7 times and was semi-crippled before the end of the war. He had little to no remorse and his book is a diary with gaps.
The numbers of WW2 are just INSANE. For reference, per wikipedia, the french air force currently has 917 total aircrafts. The Luftwaffe is producing 3500 a month... Lol
Modern planes are bigger and way more powerful than WW2-era planes were.
Well nowadays they dont have to replace losses and also arent fighting a war against half the world
The US was turning out one B24 bomber every 63 MINUTES on a 7 day a week schedule at the Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
@@vksasdgaming9472 I wouldn't have guessed, thank you!
@@briceoka5623 No need for sarcasm. Two modern fighter planes can carry about as much ordnance as WW2-era strategic bomber and does it faster as well.
To be fair to Bomber Command, a lot of the cities Harris is targeting are cities with aircraft industries in them, from ball-bearing to magneto to airplane engines. Harris considered breaking German morale to be the war winning strategy, but in the mean time the industrial damage from area raids was still highly desirable for him. You see the RAF night bombing reports talking a lot about factories destroyed and such as well as residential damage, so everything mattered.
However regardless Bomber Command could only strike pointblank targets indirectly. 1943 was the first time Bomber Command consistently hitting cities rather than missing all the time, thanks to OBOE, H2S and new path-finding techniques that only came into use that year. Hitting aircraft factories at night was still still a pipe-dream. Harris didn't ignore Pointblank so much as carry out the only kinds of attacks his force was capable of. He was willing to aim at very huge factory complexes like Krupps rather than city centers, but such huge facilities were very rare and didn't exist for aircraft production.
Remember Speer dispersed production of Tank's Aircraft and vehicles across Germany so as not to suffer a massive loss from one massive raid that would paralyse the German war machine and lead to a defeat on the ground battles that would lose them the war? Civiliiens we're devasted and that's terrible but they didn't care when they did it to the west? So in that light the area bombing is more understandable if we put ourselves in the British way of thinking about surviving and "bomber Harris" reason for what he did is more understandable
"Redrafted by the Air Ministry, the directive tasked the 8th US Army Air Force with attacking the aviation industry; RAF Bomber Command would work towards 'the general disorganisation of German industry', as before."
BBC Fact File : Berlin Air Offensive 18 November 1943 to 24 March 1944
Within Essen there was still Krupps, virtually intact after nearly three years of attack.
page 158
Hyperwar Royal Air Force 1939-1945 Vol II
Krupp Decoy Site RAF Bomber Command did not correctly identify the installation until 1943, by which time its bombers had dropped 64% of all high-explosive bombs and 75% of all incendiaries on it rather than the real site. wiki, sourced
@@nickdanger3802 "Within Essen there was still Krupps, virtually intact after nearly three years of attack (...)"
The decoy site lost most of its effectiveness in March 1943 when OBOE came online and pathfinding was done electronically rather than visually. The Hyperwar comment is likely referring to the "three years of attacks" prior to March 1943. The raids from March to June 1943 against Krupps caused enormous damage, it certainly wasn't "Virtually intact" anymore. Quoting Goebbels dairy from March 13th, 1943:
"In the course of the evening news comes of another heavy air raid on Essen. This time the Krupp factories are hit hardest. I am still on the phone with the deputy Gauleiter Schleßmann[3], who gives me a less than encouraging report. In the Kruppwerke area alone there are about 25 major fires. The air war is currently our greatest concern. No sooner are we relieved of the worry about the eastern front than this new one comes along, which burdens us even more directly than that of last winter."
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, March, pg 544
"Redrafted by the Air Ministry, the directive tasked the 8th US Army Air Force with attacking the aviation industry; RAF Bomber Command would work towards 'the general disorganisation of German industry', as before (...)"
June/July 1943 when Pointblank was discussed/issued was the period when nights were shortest during the year. Bomber Command was limited to raids largely in Western Germany if their bombers were to fly in darkness, whereas most pointblank targets were in central or southern Germany (ie Nuremburg, Munich etc). Harris hit a number of cities earlier in 1943 with Aircraft industry before Pointblank came out, and when the nights lengthened in the autumn of 1943 a lot of the cities subsequently hit had aircraft industry.
People mistake Harris not wanting to be bounded to a directive with him rejecting the directive. If you read up the Ministry of Economic Warfares "Bomber Bedeker" you will notice cities with aircraft industries are being hit. These were also major population centers, so it worked for Harris to hit German aircraft production and German morale.
@@kellyshistory306 Which aircraft were being built by Krupp or in Berlin?
It may not be a spent force yet, but the coming months will be interesting. In about 4 months the Luftwaffe will close their advanced flight training centers. Advanced training will have to be done "on the job", by an ever decreasing number of experienced pilots and the average experience will plummet.
This really was becoming a lesson in quantity over quality.
Not precisely as the US and UK and USSR had quality as well as quantity.
Western Allied pilots were on the whole better than that what was fielded by the Axis in the last half of the war. As the war turned against the Axis and pilot losses mounted they had to start sending replacement pilots up with less flight hours in training than their opponents. Never having enough fuel didn't help.
In addition to that, Nazi air combat crews, especially during 1944-45, were rapidly losing pilots as well as fuel.
It's a lot more going to be quantity and quality vs an air force that's like having a seizure while trying to still fight.
This is also visible in other aspects of the war. By the last half of WW2 the Allies are becoming more competent in their tactics and strategy as well as the quality of their weapons, to the point that mere T-34-85s destroyed multiple King Tigers in the Battle of Ogledow in the Eastern Front and an American tank company trashed several Panzer formations at the Battle of Arracourt, both in 1944. Two of the many incidents where the Nazis have no quantity nor quality left in its combat forces.
I think if you take into account the fact that their was a continual buildup throughout 1944 by the US, an obvious fact, the Luftwaffe was spent by the end of 1943. It was strung out beyond the capacity to recover from losses in one area by redistribution.
Excellent episode.
14:55 - Milch at Nuremberg where he was tried postwar. He is photographed talking to his brother, who was a lawyer, I believe.
My favorite anecdote about Milch is that when surrendering to British forces in May of 1945, he attempted to hand over his baton to Derek Mills-Roberts, a British brigadier general. Mills-Roberts had recently been through Bergen-Belsen and witnessed it's horrors first hand, and demanded to know Milch's thoughts on that subject. Milch supposedly replied in English, "They are not people like you and me," which quite rightly infuriated his captor. The British brigaider then clubbed Milch with the baton he'd handed over and fractured Milch's skull.
Mills-Roberts had to go see Montgomery about the incident and when he attempted to offer an apology for losing his temper, Montgomery just deflected with humor, covering his head as if to protect himself and saying, "I heard you've got a thing about Field Marshalls."
@@ahorsewithnoname773 Peter Ustinov in his autobiography mentioned seeing film, possibly without sound, of Milch presenting his baton to Mills-Roberts. The latter weighed it in his hand for a moment and then struck Milch with it. Ustinov does not mention any exchange of words before the incident.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Interesting, it certainly makes sense that a cameraman might be on hand for the surrender. Perhaps it will eventually be found in some archive.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 Ustinov was in a film unit and reviewed a lot of such footage, some of it shot in just liberated concentration camps and quite horrifying. He also saw images of Goering after capture by the Americans. This caused a stir as it was not yet publicly announced Goering had been captured.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 love Monty's humor you describe, mockingly covering his own head
Great narration Indy !
One of the saddest things in the Luftwaffe was the lockers that we're scarred and broken from so many pilot's not coming home with the key's , a female German spy noticed this when leaving for a mission (to kill Dr Oppenhoff" as part of the so-called werewolves?) Always makes me think about war and it's cost's
Clearing out the lockers of missing aircrew was also a rather harrowing preoccupation in US 8th Air Force and RAF Bomber Command.
@@stevekaczynski3793 yes I imagine nobody wanted to collet there dead mates belongings? plus they must have thought when is my turn to be the one who's dying? Very sad in any army
In 1944 during a night bombing mission 2 allied planes crashed into each other and fell down nearby my village in northern Italy. My father told me that the plane that fell closer to my village was British and there was only the pilot (so I presume it was a fighter escorting the bombers). It also told me that the local authorities took the aluminium tanks under the wings as precious raw material much needed for the war effort. This confirms that it was a long range escort mission.
In my village there was a German flak company defending a railway bridge, although it does not appear to have taken any part in this episode.
The silk parachute of the pilot was recycled by some local inhabitants as precious raw material to manufacture white silk shirts for years after the war.
The family members of the pilot after the war came to visit the place where the plane crashed.
Always good
Always happy to bring you our best!
The situation of the Luftwaffe was ultimately so bad in 1944 in the months after the invasions in France, that the Allies could defeat whole Panzer armies from the air. Panzers soon had to hide during the day, only able to move anywhere during the night, completely changing how their tanks operated. No more tank battle groups leading field battles, only small groups or individual tanks in supporting and "holding the line" kind of actions. Every attempt at going back to how they thought their tanks were "supposed" to act ended in massive casualties.
Just one comment regarding the 'tour of duty' system that British and Americans did 'enjoy'... its origin was in one problem already noticed by Hugh Dowding at the RAF before the war: As training a new pilot takes a whole year or more, you are asking for X new pilots when you still don't know how many you are going to need! And that's bad if you don't get enough, but what to do if you receive too many?
The Western Allies answer to that problem, made possible by their colossal training programs, was the tour of duty, that made possible to know in advance and with reasonable accuracy how many new pilots they would need, because every veteran was going to be retired from the front after X missions...
There were concerns in 1944 that tours were being finished too quickly, and the RAF briefly introduced the practice of making a mission to an "easy" target in France or Belgium count as only a third of an op. This was very unpopular as crews could still be shot down on these missions, and the practice was soon cancelled.
So 1943 is when U.S. military doctrine reached the goal of air superiority and has never lost it since (with a few threats in Korea and North Vietnam).
Fun fact: Wolfram was the cousin of Lothar and Manfred (The Red Baron) and witnessed Manfred's death on his first assignment.
10:09 I think you switched around the images for the Lancaster and the Halifax ;P
Air air and more air , air power is always the key
The inability of modern Russia to secure air dominance over Ukraine (thankfully!) is a major contributing factor - if not the primary reason - why their war of conquest has gone so poorly.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 yeah that combined with poor logistics you got yourselves a near identical simulation of Soviet invasion of Finland.