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In December 1943, Eisenhower was Supreme Commander of Allied forces
in Europe with General Carl Spaatz in command of all US Army Air
Force. In January 1944, M/G James Doolittle replaced M/G Ira Eaker
to lead the Eighth Air Force. The air battle strategy scenario soon
changed. Air strategy at the Casablanca Conference was to take out
the Luftwaffe before D-Day. The modified P-51 was now one had in
good numbers. Doolittle made a key decision to turn his fighters
loose. They would no longer fly with bomber formation but now in
fighter sweeps to hit Luftwaffe installations and destroy Luftwaffe
fighters as they formed for the intercept. Spaatz and Doolittle
prayed for one week of good weather in which massive bomber raids
could be launched to flush out get German fighters. During that
week, five such bomber attacks attacked key targets. It worked, but
at high cost to both sides. Eighth Air Force, Fifteenth Air Force
and the RAF lost 369 aircrafts, but the Luftwaffe Fighter Command
lost an estimated two thirds of its strength. The Luftwaffe did not
show up on D-Day except for a few furtive attacks on the
beachheads. The battle for air supremacy was won by the Allies and
the progressive decline of the Luftwaffe ensued thereafter. The
book will provide insight into a pilot's mind who flew such
missions and try to give the reader not only the historic
background, but a sense of what it must have been like to fly such
missions.
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