Where was the Luftwaffe on D-Day? - German Response to Operation Overlord, Normandy

if you have seen the old-time classic movies the longest day you might remember us with 16 were two German flames straight from Normandy Beach with one of the pilots sarcastically remarking that I caused outbreak that night another element this scene is brilliant for two reasons first it is a great display of German humour second it sparked the popular myth that you'll find perpetuated until this very day namely that on June 6 1944 only two German planes went up to engage the Allies and normally of course that's not true but what was looked after actually doing on d-day to answer this question let us first take a brief look at the organization of the Luftwaffe in France 1944 all units were subordinate to look for the delay or airspeed free although there was some flexibility in the areas of command you had the ninety figure core-based it away commanding the north an area encompassing Belgium and Luxembourg before branching off to the Atlantic in the north you also had a trifle single-core so I did yak or and lyric or best in the South the center figure corps was covering the southwest of France the southeast was under the control to decide the Phaedo division all the way to Italy only two fighter squadrons were stationed in France the a Quichua that's why and the a Koosh wadis excellently operating focke-wulf 190 anthems if the köppen distributed throughout the country up until the invasion german fighter pilot that France had been instructed to only attack bombers and avoid getting drawn into dogfights with enemy fighters this was done so to limit the attrition of the Western Jaquish brothers as nearly all replacements were reserved for the meat-grinder that was the Eastern Front on the 6th of June 1944 Germany as a whole possessed 3222 operational aircraft amongst which 1195 fighters it is somewhat challenging to establish the coherent strength of looks cluttered that I however would one suggest that on May 31st 1944 570 out of 1015 planes to operational taking into account 115 operational fighters out of 168 and 247 operational bombers out of 486 Hiller nodes that are to the fist only 481 aircraft were operational and on June 6 it were only 319 amongst which were 80 to 100 fighters of jt2 and JG 26 and only 90 bombers since there was some reorganization going on at the time this might account for the discrepancy in contrast the Allies had an ass roughly 13,000 the aircraft 5,400 of which were fighters 1,650 lights of any medium bombers and around 1,500 heavy bombers roughly 3200 of the fibres were operational now you'll see varying estimates on this but this gives you a clearer picture of the situation on June 6 1944 so to put this into perspective for each German fighter in the sky you would see 30 Allied fighters still feeling lucky so that is the order of battle taken care of now let us have a look at the strategic and tactical decisions to look to offer around d-day on June 6 d-day itself the Luftwaffe sprang into action as well as it could although communication between the different units was difficult around 320 missions were flown although this accounts for all missions in France not just the ones against the beaches of Normandy it is likely that the majority were however flown in and around Normandy two of these were of course part of the greatest moment of the Luftwaffe as portrayed in the movie the longest a Commodore pillar and his wingman through their 200 190 s over one of the beaches hide all their guns and made for home as fast as they could as pillar they come it's been in a come from Kagome when how does a scoffer head forwards that is not by Machine nutter I flew into the operational area and nearly cried with anger that I only had two machines it's radical for via Schwarz extrinsic also tried their luck although it seems unlikely that it made it to the beaches as the Cooper had some success shooting down a Mustang one pilot of the Cooper seems to have been able to make at least one successful ground attack the Aqua Dots 5 jg - also fooled several missions the Africa have made one attack of rocket launchers hitting shipping at all Beach throughout the day the German pilots reported shooting down at least one p-47 as well as several typhoons all in all JG - claimed 18 Allied aircraft due to the chaotic nature of the fighting but all kills could be confirmed some allied accounts credit German flag for the destruction of their planes on d-day which gives rise to the obfuscated allegation that the Luftwaffe didn't scramble their fighters that days often Luftwaffe units took off in the direction of Normandy as well to focke-wulf 190s for which they accomplished rather seen the recognition such a couple of sharpish rather fear through three separate missions against shipping in the afternoon ju 88 from kappa schwa defense instead we'll also see as detailed in allied eyewitness accounts and were able to penetrate a fiber screen however next to the success the Allied fighters enforced most of two other planes back to base before reaching their target they flew around 14,000 sorties on June 6 alone and it seems a miracle that the Germans will remember only flew around three hundred sorties only lost two planes that day the Allies lost 127 aircraft on June 6 the next day however the Luftwaffe lost 23 plane as a side note before anyone mentions the Arado two three four remember that it wasn't until August 1944 the Germans used it as a recon over Normandy now back to d-day the Luftwaffe quickly realized that they 10 missions were near suicidal and only flew a limited number of these increasing night activity to compensate somehow they had to make their presence known after all during the night following d-day German planes would drop lines it's the English Channel these ended up being a little more than a nuisance some nighttime bombardments were also flown with limited success yet while the Luftwaffe only who around the inhibitions on June 6th a week later that number had tripled with many squadrons flying multiple missions each day the main problem for the Luftwaffe was of course that in the face of overwhelming odds success was more a matter of luck than the pilot skill number issue one that was especially important for the performance during the first days of the fighting but often gets forgotten was that the invasion happened just as the Luftwaffe fighters were relocated to different airfields at Brown to allow them to cover a wider area it's prevented any concentrated effort of JT 26 on June 6 and it was only a duo trouble that is fluids first mission as a gift rather one flaw of course the Germans did have a contingency plan for the invasion covert dr. Gustav Wilhelm standing for dorneget farthest imminent Dejah West the Luftwaffe would relocate most Jaquish water reserve to the rice defense to France prepared in advance the chaos on June 6 led to delays and the relocation happened between the 7th to the 9th of June around 670 aircraft were transferred among which 475 fighters and 108 bombers was the influx of new fighters your average daily operational strength in Normandy of the German fighters was around 200 fighters better than on June 6 but not enough to make a difference or seriously threaten Allied air supremacy to bring order into the chaos from a tactical perspective it was decided that half of the fighter force would engage it fighter bomber missions Eve köppen were placed under the commander's that fly defeat applaud all of a pokemen well we organized under the flight a yakgwa since any attempt to fight a bomb was frustrated by Allied fighters that's why the fear of Allah to endure slandered by the privates were now supposed to focus on enemy aircraft no matter the kind this of course left the ground forces without any defense or support given rise to the question who is the daughter of them where is love lover to answer that some statistics come to mind the Allies - roughly a hundred thousand missions in Normandy in June look what I answered with just over 13,000 included in this for someone phone product and the shipping and around nine hundred nine nine sorties yes at the same time around 1200 la planes were shot down were Normandy compared to around 650 German planes while this might speak in favor of the Germans 650 planes equal a loss rate of around 50% in France and 5% of their total loss rate across all theatres in contrast the Western Allied had lost just 1% of their total force by the end of June looked awful France was effectively beaten even gallant commented that knife a new personnel or equipment would change the situation changing 26 had probably gotten off best at June 1944 it lost 31 pilots but scored 62 confirmed kills for bombers and 58 fighters all this does not account political I just don't have the numbers for them it shows us two things first the Luftwaffe was able to have some success in Normandy even if it's rested on the veteran pilots stationed in France for time ii it gives us a clearer picture on how much the fighting had shifted away from hunting bombers to fighter on fri the combat and how a little broad support could be given it is my hope that you enjoy this video and if you did remember to share this video and to give me an Iron Cross line up like button as always all sources are in the description below before you leave make sure to check out my video on how I only created an Iraqi Air Force in World War 2 alternatively check out military history visualized video on the Atlantic Wall as always a great day good hunting and Seamon a sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 983,148

Keywords: WW2, Aviation, Education, Normandy, Overlord, Invasion, Luftwaffe, Operation, Battle, History, Planes, World, War

Id: AGT7J_diIjA

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2017