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

LUFTWAFFE AGAINST POLAND
ture across the channel remained intact and invulnerable to ground operations.
RAF Fighter Command had not committed any of its limited number
of Spitfires to the defense of France. Thus, while the Hurricanes and
Dewoitine 520s had put up a respectable showing in air-to-air combat, only
now over Dunkirk did the Luftwaffe run into aircraft fully the equal of the
Bf-109. Moreover, British bases on the other side of the channel lay closer
to evacuation beaches than did even such German forward operating bases
as Charleville. Consequently, British fighters possessed more loiter time in
the combat zone than did the Bf-109s. Given German numbers, the result
was a furious air battle in which RAF Fighter Command thwarted Goering’s
promise that the Luftwaffe, by itself, could destroy the trapped Allied
ground forces.76 With the 109s at the outer limit of their range and with the
bomber force still flying from bases in western Germany, the coordination
of the two was a formidable task. By May 26 Fighter Command was providing
almost continuous cover over Dunkirk. Standing patrols of squadron
strength (10-plus fighters) were taking off from British airfields approximately
every 50 minutes. While some German bomber formations received
fighter escort, others did not. On the 26th the British lost only 6 fighters
while the Luftwaffe lost 37 aircraft on that day, the great majority in the
Dunkirk area.77
May 27 told a similar story. Sixteen squadrons of Fighter Command
covered the Dunkirk area with pilots flying 2 to 3 missions each day.78 Fliegerkorps
11, engulfed in the fighting over Dunkirk, reported that it had lost
more aircraft on the 27th than in the previous 10 days of the ~ampaign.~’
The battle for air superiority in the skies over Dunkirk was costly to both
sides. From May 26 through June 3, the RAF lost 177 aircraft destroyed or
damaged; the Germans lost 240.x0 Yet the air battle was by itself inconclusive;
neither side had won a clear-cut victory. Nevertheless, strategically,
Fighter Command was able to contest successfully with the Luftwaffe and
thwart the Germans from bringing the full weight of their air power to bear
on the evacuation. In that sense, “the miracle of Dunkirk” was as much
Fighter Command’s victory as it was the victory of the Royal Navy and the
little boats.
Dunkirk, as the fighter ace Adolf .Galland suggested in his memoirs,
should have alerted the German high command to the inherent weaknesses
in the Luftwaffe’s force structure.*’ The Germans possessed the range and
striking power to gain air superiority, provided air operations were within a
limited space, where the army forward thrusts could extend aircraft range
by seizing bases for further operations. Whether the Luftwaffe could defeat
an air force whose bases were not threatened by ground operations, and
who possessed a level of production equal to if not superior to it in some
categories was another matter.
The current conception of the defeat of France is that it cost the Germans
relatively little. The German victory in France often serves as the
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