Author Description

Historians have debated for decades the reasons for the spectacular failure of the Luftwaffe during the last three years of World War II. As the Luftwaffe went down in flames, the United States Army Air Forces arose to conquer the airspace on the Western Front of Europe. Before its downfall, Luftwaffe tactical airpower was key to Gen Heinz Guderian's surprise attack through the Ardennes to the English Channel in 1940. Similarly, in 1944, as Gen George S. Patton broke out of the Normandy beachhead by unleashing Operation Cobra, tactical airpower proved vital to his ability to march to the German border in only six weeks. This paper analyzes a host of primary sources authored by the main players in those campaigns (Guderian, Patton, and Weyland) and focuses on the key differences between the Luftwaffe support to Guderian and XIX Tactical Air Command support to Patton during their historic campaigns on the Western Front of Europe in World War II.Few military forces in history have seen such a remarkable turnaround in fortunes as the Luftwaffe experienced in World War II. From its early successes in the Spanish civil war, where the Luftwaffe cut its teeth and gained valuable combat experience, to Stukas firing the first shots of World War II in Poland, the might of the Luftwaffe, like all of Nazi Germany, seemed invincible. Never was the Luftwaffe a more capable fighting force than during General Guderian's rout of the French army as he charged through the Ardennes to the English Channel. But during Guderian's race across France and the Low Countries, problems in coordination and cooperation between the Luftwaffe and the German army arose. These deep-seated problems, the result of the Luftwaffe's strategic vision of its role in the Wehrmacht, meant that even the vaunted Luftwaffe remained essentially an interdiction only air force, devoid of the ability to perform close support to German armies. In the end, overwhelming force led to the eventual defeat of the Luftwaffe