World Battlefronts: Air Harvest

For Allied aircraft no German target was now out of reach. Even fighter planes (P-51 Mustangs) ranged as far as western Poland on bomber escort duty and earned special congratulations from Lieut. General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz, commander of all U.S. strategic bombing forces in Europe. The German defensive air force was obviously weakened in numbers, if not in fighting quality. Relentless air pounding along the French invasion coast had created an almost deserted zone, 50 miles deep.

In London Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, reported that during the war 26,000 German and Italian planes had been shot...

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