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Field Marshal Rommel's reaction to being pinned to the ground by Allied tactical air was a repetition of the feelings he had expressed during the dark days of 1942, when scourged by the Desert Air Force. Already by June 9, Admiral Ruge was writing that "the air superiority of the enemy is having the effect the Field Marshal had expected and predicted: our movements are extremely slow." The next day, Rommel wrote to his wife: "The enemy's air superiority has a very grave effect on our movements. There's simply no answer to it." In walks with Ruge, Rommel continued to complain about the invasion situation, "especially the lack of air support." Ruge concluded that "utilization of the Anglo-American air force is the modern type of warfare, turning the flank not from the side but from above." The situation turned increasingly bleak. By July 6, during a dinner party, a "colonel of a propaganda battalion" remarked that soldiers were constantly asking "Where is the Luftwaffe?" In staff discussions about the future as if one really existed for the Third Reich-Rommel and Ruge concurred that "the tactical Luftwaffe has to be an organic part of the army, otherwise one cannot operate," which showed how little the two men understood the evolution of Allied air power over the previous three years of the war. It was precisely because Allied air power was not subordinate to the armies that it was free to use mass and concentration to achieve its most productive ends-and thereby help the Allied armies the most.
Ironically, Rommel's complaints at this time mirror those of the British and American army leaders of 1941 and 1943, respectively. The field marshal grew increasingly testy about air matters; during breakfast onJuly 16, he was "incensed" at the presumptuousness of a Luftwaffe staff officer who intemperately accused the German army of not taking fullest advantage of Luftwaffe attacks throughout the war. The next day, as Rommel drove to his headquarters after a quick trip to an SS armored unit, two 83 Group Spitfires strafed him, killing his driver, wounding a passenger, and causing their car to plunge off the road, out of control. Rommel, thrown out, narrowly escaped death from a fractured skull. With that, the Desert Fox's war effectively ended. He returned to Germany for treatment and recuperation, dying by his own hand that October when implicated-rightly or wrongly-in the officers' plot to assassinate Hitler, a plot that tragically went awry. Allied tactical air had removed from command the German commander best suited by experience and leadership to oppose the ground forces building up to the breakout from the Normandy lodgement area.
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