D Day: Assembling the Allied Tactical Air Forces

Assembling the Allied Tactical Air Forces

As Overlord embarked upon its preparatory phase, tactical air power increasingly came into play. Two great tactical air forces existed to support the ground forces in the invasion-the AAF's Ninth Air Force and the RAF's Second Tactical Air Force. Both were under the overall command of Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. In addition, of course, Eisenhower and his ground commanders could call upon strategic aviation as required, in the form of the AAF's Eighth Air Force and Great Britain's Bomber Command.

In June 1944 the Ninth Air Force consisted of several commands, including the IX Fighter Command. The IX Fighter Command in turn spawned two Tactical Air Commands, the IX TAC and the XIX TAC. IX TAC had three fighter wings, and the XIX TAC had two. Each of these fighter wings contained at least three-and usually four-fighter groups, a group typically consisting of three fighter squadrons. Of the two, IX TAC was the "heavy"; it could muster no less than eleven fighter groups, while the XIX TAC could muster seven. From late 1943 to early 1944, IX Fighter Command had served primarily as a training headquarters, under the command of Brig. Gen. Elwood Quesada. Eventually Quesada assumed command of the IX TAC, and Brig. Gen. Otto P. "Opie" Weyland took over XIX TAC. No in-theater formalized structure linked the Ninth and its subordinate commands directly to specific land forces units, though there was a general understanding that the IX TAC would support the First Army, and the XIX TAC would support Lt. Gen. George Patton's Third Army once the Third became operational in France nearly two months after D-Day. Eventually, on August 1, 1944, when both Patton's Third Army and Bradley's 12th Army Group became operational, this arrangement was formalized.

On the British side, the RAF's Second Tactical Air Force (2 TAF) had grown out of initiatives in mid-1943 to structure a "Composite Group" to support the invasion of Europe. It had risen from the ashes of the moribund and never-satisfactory Army Co-operation Command. In January 1944, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham took command of 2 TAF, and two months later he assumed additional duties as commander of the Advanced Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AAEAF). Ironically, at this critical point, two serious command problems arose. Relationships among the RAF commanders, particularly Coningham, Leigh-Mallory, and Arthur Tedder (Deputy Supreme Commander for Overlord) were strained at best. Much more serious was the breakdown between the RAF commanders and 21st Army Group Commander, Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, who also wore an additional hat as commander of Allied ground forces during the invasion.

While fighting Rommel in the Western desert, Montgomery had enthusiastically supported air action in the Mediterranean and accepted whole-heartedly Coningham's thoughts on air support. Ironically, Montgomery and the RAF now came to disagree over the relationship between the air and the land commander. Montgomery paid lip service to the concept of independent air action, but his actions in early 1944 clearly indicate that he considered his equals in the RAF merely advisers. For their part, Coningham and Tedder nursed grudges going back to the plodding advance after second El Alamein and Montgomery's notorious slowness during the pursuit of Rommel's retreating forces.

For the airmen, the critical question in Overlord was how rapidly Montgomery would advance to seize airfields so Allied tactical air forces would not have to operate across the Channel, from bases in England. In fact, this issue turned out to be far less important than originally thought. Bases were quickly hacked out of the Normandy terrain, often only a few thousand yards from opposing German forces. Montgomery's planned advance from the beachhead (which the airmen considered too slow) turned out to be instead over-optimistic; the actual advance was even slower. Given this, Allied air power in Normandy proved all important. As historian John Terraine has noted:

History insists that the last word, in regard to the Battle of Normandy, must be that the quarrels did not, finally, matter: Allied air power was so overwhelming that the defeat of Allied intentions on the ground never threatened disaster, only delay, and that only in the early stages, well compensated later. But let us be quite clear about it: what made the ultimate victory possible was crushing air power.

Britain's 2 TAF consisted of four RAF Groups: No. 2 Group, No. 83 Group, No. 84 Group, and No. 85 Group. Of these four, only the first three were really available for the air-land battle in Normandy; 85 Group was under the temporary operational control of No. 11 Group, attached to an RAF home defense command. No. 2 Group consisted of four wings of Boston, Mitchell, and Mosquito light and medium bombers. No. 83 Group, exclusive of a reconnaissance wing and some light aircraft used for artillery spotting, contained one Mustang wing, four Spitfire wings, and four Typhoon wings. No. 84 Group, again exclusive of recce and spotting aircraft, consisted of one Mustang wing, five Spitfire wings, and three Typhoon wings. As the campaign progressed, 2 TAF's subordinate units directly supported units of the 21st Army Group. Thus, the British Second Army could rely upon 83 Group, and 84 Group supported the First Canadian Army.

Another important relationship, however, evolved between the Ninth Air Force's IX TAC and the 2 TAF's 83 Group. IX TAC's Elwood Quesada and 83 Group's commander, Air Vice Marshal Harry Broadhurst, worked well together. For example, after troops were ashore at Normandy, control of tactical aircraft passed from shipboard control centers to two land-based control centers: a IX TAC control center in the American sector of the beachhead, and an 83 Group control center located in the British sector. Coningham later praised the "excellent teamwork" between the two control centers. This teamwork would be refined even further in the weeks ahead.

Altogether, the tactical air forces had 2,434 fighters and fighter- bombers, together with approximately 700 light and medium bombers available for the Normandy campaign. This force first struck against the Germans during the preparatory campaign prior to D-Day. At D minus 60 days, Allied air forces began their interdiction attacks against rail centers; these attacks increased in ferocity and tempo up to the eve of the invasion itself and were accompanied by strategic bomber raids against the same targets. The bridge campaign, which aimed at isolating the battlefield by cutting Seine bridges below Paris and Loire bridges below Orleans, began on D minus 46. Here, fighter-bombers proved more efficient than medium or heavy bombers, largely because their agility enabled them to make pinpoint attacks in a way that the larger bombers, committed to horizontal bombing runs, could not. The fighter-bombers also had the speed, firepower, and maneuverability to evade or even dominate the Luftwaffe. Though ground fire and (rarely) fighters did claim some attacking fighter-bombers, the loss rate was considerably less than it would have been with conventional attack or dive bombers. By D minus 21, Allied air forces were attacking German airfields within a radius of 130 miles of the battle area and these operations too continued up to the assault on the beachhead.