Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

AIR SUPERIORITY
heavy flanking artillery fire and long bombing attacks on the bridging point.
. . . Throughout the day all three divisions have had to endure constant air
attack-especially at the crossing and bridging points. Our fighter cover
is inadequate. Requests (for increased fighter protection) are still
unsuccessfu1.”7z Luftwaffe reports also indicated the pressure that Allied
air attacks were exerting in the Ardennes: “vigorous enemy fighter activity
through which our close reconnaissance in particular is severely
impeded.”73 Nevertheless, while Guderian’s war diary exhibited dismay
over inadequacies in the fighter cover, German air defenses had been most
successful against RAF bombers. No air force could support a fifty-six percent
level of attrition, and on the next day the Germans noted a significant
decrease in the intensity of RAF air attacks along the perimeter of the
breakthrough.
Once German armored formations had broken through French
defenses along the Meuse, the campaign was over. The French Army,
frozen in a doctrinal rigidity of its own making, was incapable of replying
to the German thrust. Exploitation of the breakthrough now proceeded
with dispatch. Behind surging columns of armored and motorized units,
the Luftwaffe pushed its operating bases forward so that Bf-109 and dive
bomber units could remain in contact with the ground forces that were
rapidly pushing ahead and in danger of passing out of the range of
effective air cover. On May 17, within twenty-four hours of its abandonment
by the French, German fighter squadrons had established
themselves at Charleville, west of the Meuse. Because the Army’s
logistical system was choking the Meuse bridges, Ju-52 transports flew
in everything-from maintenance personnel to fuel and munitions. So short
of POL was the forward operating base that aircraft returning from
Charleville to rear area bases had all but the minimum fuel load pumped
out of their tanks.74
Once in the open, the Germans found a noticeable slackening in the
Allied air resistance. Anglo-French air units scrambled pel1 mell to the
south as the German Army chewed through their frontline bases. Ground
crews, supplies, and maintenance equipment all had to move south of the
Somme with little warning, and the process of sorting out ground organizations
in the wreckage of defeat represented an impossible task, given the
available time. In addition to problems posed by the rapid move to the
south, German air attacks placed considerable pressure on the Allied support
structure as well as on fighting strength. The one group of Dewoitine
520s (the newest and best French fighter aircraft, close in performance to
the Bf-109s and Spitfires) put up a respectable showing in air-to-air combat
with the Luftwaffe, but by May 21 had lost half of its aircraft on the ground
through German attacks on its
The Luftwaffe met its first setback over Dunkirk. There the Germans
faced an enemy who possessed first-class equipment and whose base struc-
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