How the 8th Air Force defeated the Luftwaffe 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When the 51 got the merlin engine, it was game over😮

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!!

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!

Great video thanks for sharing.

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)

They could have flown with drop tanks and p47s years earlier. The leadership was the problem.

There’s an excellent 8th Airforce museum in Savannah Georgia. We owe those brave men big time.

Thanks for taking the time to make this video, very informative ❤. (ignore the haters)

Superb video and I’m proud to say I’ve flown in Sally -B twice .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Another interesting documentary... Well done to all concerned... Roger... Pembrokeshire

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!

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.

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

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.

We owe so much to the allied air forces.. it must of been hell up there.. and on the recieving end... Respect.

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.

Another outstanding video! Extremely informative! Thank you!

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.

“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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The shots of them lads bailing out a downward spinning B17. ! Jesus wet. You wouldn't want it ay. ? 👊💛👊

These videos are excellent 👏Please can we have a video on the midget submarines - and the Italian frogman submarines? Please? Thank you

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.

No mention of 'The Red Tails' who flew the Mustangs. B17 pilots loved their 'Red Tail' escorts.

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?

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?

Take a stroll up the walkway at the US museum at Duxford and you can see for yourself the overwhelming loss the 8th took.

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.

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 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.

Duxford is one of my favourite places in the world. Love your work, IWM.

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.

6:45 the first mustangs were powered by Allison v-12s not Merlin’s the later versions all had Merlin engines

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?

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.

Always fighting.

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 . . .

My great uncle was an aerospace engineer and wrote papers on drop tanks prior to their implementation.

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.

Winning the air war was huge!

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.

With the help of Fighter Command and Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force?

4:12 Hurray! For the first time _ever_ in the history of man, somebody has used the word 'decimated' correctly!! 😂🎉

I also love the story of The Tuskegee Airmen....

I think a more accurate title would be how the 8th airforce helped to defeat the luftwaffe.

Just finished “Masters of the Air” (now I can drop my AppleTV subscription 😏) and - while not as heartwarming as “Band of Brothers” - the cinematic display of bombers vs figures was AWESOME!!! There was careful work to blend the CGI with colorgraded and enhanced WWII stock footage that felt like it was all shot in 4K restaged! And you really felt the arbitrary roll of the dice that left flying at one moment or dying a horrific death in another… these were MEN!!!

10:16 - I wonder if he survived flying through that dirt-cloud?

Hands down, the P-51 was the Harley-Davidson of WWII.

This makes me want to re-read "Catch-22."

Great video, in the process of trying to learn on how to play gary grigsby's eagle day to bombing the reich

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.

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.

I wouldn't describe your sponsor World of Warships as "Totally free to play." More like free to try in a very limited way.

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.

My mother was the recipient of these bombings. She lived in Berlin her and her femily, and they survived.

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

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.

I just listened to "the bomber mafia" 😊, but I do not know how I got here 😮

2:45 - “precision bombing” - lols. As a concept it was a complete failure in ww2. It only started to become a reality in the first Gulf War 40 years later. German war production actually continued to increase in volume throughout the war

Winning the War through Bombing "Losses were running at the unsustainable rate of 6-7 per cent per raid, with no prospect of a German surrender. With Germany reasserting command of the air and the Normandy landings in prospect, Arthur Harris's dream of defeating Germany through bombing was slipping away." BBC Berlin Air Offensive page

Notice that the thumbnail photo is an early D without the fillet tying the vertical stab to the upper fuselage.

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.

I can argue that that Rolls Royce won the air war with the Merlin engine.

It's a sad sad day when the Imperial War Museum needs.sponsorship from a videogame.

The Luftwaffe was defeated the day they declared war on the USA It was just a matter of time and attrition

The major assumptions by the Bomber Mafia cost thousands of lives. One, the Norden bombsight was not effective in a cloudy European environment. Two, four engine bombers were sitting ducks for German fighters, no matter how many guns the bombers carried. Three, the tactic of keeping protecting American fighters with the bombers robbed the fighters of their speed and freedom to choose when to attack the German fighters. Some historians have called the initial bombers campaign criminally negligent as initial assumptions were impervious to change despite the rapidly evolving German fighter tactics.The incredible bravery of the pilots and crews of the 8th Air Force was the bright spot in the strategic bombing campaign.

Why does the P51 get all the credit for changing the air war? The P47 was capable with drop tanks to fly to Berlin and back. It was the decision of the leadership to not use drop tanks even when available. The first escorted missions to Berlin had P38, P47, and P51 fighters as escorts all using drop tanks. Gabreski and Johnson had 55 air to air victories between them all in P47s. They flew escort and fighter sweeps deep into Germany….all possible due to drop tanks.

P38's and P47's worked quite fine as escort fighters too.

It bothers me to hear the Imperial War Museum repeating the fiction that the P-51 was the key to long range bomber escort. The truth is that 8th Air Force policy had limited the importance of fighter escort and had forbid the use of drop tanks on fighters to extend their range. They had drop tanks for the P-47 and would not use them in 1943. Having recognized the need for fighter escort they set out to have it in 1944 and the appearance of the P-51 gave them a way to change their policy without admitting their mistakes. In materials released by 8th AF after this point the escort range of the P-47 was regularly under stated in comparison to the P-51. If you doubt me please view the work of Greg of the RU-vid channel "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles". I believe there is no other valid conclusion than the command of the 8th AF believed they could fly daylight missions un-escorted and having failed latched on to the P-51 as the reason to change tactics rather than admit their own errors. In 1943 the Air Force command was bent on proving they could operate without escorts and was not going to allow the issue of escorts to distract them from as powerful a bombing campaign as possible. Someone as authoritative as the Imperial War Museum should not be repeating wartime propaganda as truth.

What's the history of that statue of Prometheus? What did it look like before it was wrecked? Was it stolen?

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.

“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.

8:41 Manchester???

Given that the fighter escort aircraft would drop their auxiliary fuel tanks as soon as enemy fighters were sighted, I wonder why the Germans did not station their fighters to attack the incoming formations as they crossed the coast of France. Further inland, of course, after D Day.

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.

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.

The British V12 Rolls Royce Merlin engine gave the P-51great performance fitted with the orginial Allison engine, the P-51 performance was average. The drop tanks were certainly a game changer also U.S. wartime manufacturing ground the Nazis into the ground.

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.

Actually, neither drop fuel tanks or laminar flow wings destroyed the Luftwaffe. The industrial, economic and human potential of the United States and the bleeding, beyond all limits, that the Luftwaffe suffered in the USSR did.

Astounding, that it always has to come to a catastrophe, before humans rethink and implement changes.

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