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

OPERATION OVERLORD
The critical decisions about production greatly influenced the
approaches of the combatants to aircrew training.13 The German failure to
increase production and to expand the size of the frontline force early in
the war meant that there was no great pressure to enlarge the training
organization, To the extent that they had a choice in the matter, the Luftwaffe
leadership was far more interested in supporting active operations
than in providing for a long-term air war.I4 The problems created by this
shortsighted policy became apparent in mid- 1942 when aircrew losses began
to exceed the output of the training schools by a considerable margin.
To meet the increased demand for aircrews, the training establishment had
to have more aviation gasoline, more instructors, and more operational aircraft.
It received few of these, in large measure because the Luftwaffe leadership
could not be persuaded to make the necessary sacrifices in
operations to build up the training program. Worse still, the operational
forces diverted instructors and aircraft to the immediate needs of the front.
In the face of these difficulties, the training establishment had to cut the
number of hours of training received by each pilot and reduce radically the
amount of time spent flying in operational aircraft before pilots were sent
to operational units. This reduction resulted in a doubling of the numbers
of aircrews produced in 1943 over 1942, but the quality of the performance
of the average pilot began to fall off, especially in the last half of 1943. In
addition, when the higher authorities finally adopted a program of radical
expansion of aircraft production, the increased output could not be translated
into egective frontline strength because, in large measure, the pilots
did not exist to fly the new aircraft.15
The American and British training record was quite different. In the
early stages of the war, especially during the Battle of Britain, the RAF was
hard pressed to train pilots as rapidly as they were being lost. However, by
1941 the British government’s commitment to a long war had produced a
training establishment aimed at providing for replacements, the continuing
expansion of the force, and the accumulation of reserves. After mid-1942
the total RAF training hours per pilot began to climb significantly while, as
noted above, the figure for Luftwaffe pilots had begun to decline markedly.
This gap continued to widen, chiefly because of the continued deterioration
of the quality of the Luftwaffe training program. By mid-summer of 1944
the average RAF pilot was receiving three times as much training as his
German counterpart. 16
Much the same kind of record was achieved in the US. Army Air
Forces, on a much larger scale.’’ In 1939 plans called for the training
schools to produce 1,200 pilots a year; a year later the target was raised
to 7,000. In 1941 the AAF moved the goal upward to 30,000. In 1943, the
AAF training schools actually churned out no fewer than 82,700 pilots.
So successful was the program that it appeared that the AAF possessed
a surplus of pilots and accordingly raised its educational and physical
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