The Aircraft of the D-Day Landings

Allied air superiority over Normandy was total. As an essential component of the decisive combined operation known as Overlord, Allied aviation — bringing together the forces of the RAF and the US Air Force — deployed enormous resources to support ground troops throughout the summer of 1944.

Whether bombers, fighters, reconnaissance aircraft or torpedo planes, these aircraft were deployed without restriction, dominating Norman airspace with virtually no opposition from the German air forces, which were almost entirely absent. Nevertheless, heavy losses inflicted by the formidable German anti-aircraft defences added to the steep price paid for the success of the Battle of Normandy.

The work sets out the context of this arm of service, in which pilots, engineers and manufacturers all played their part, and catalogues most of the aircraft used, covering among other things the astonishing fighters with their massively powerful and sophisticated engines, the gliders of D-Day, the bombers that levelled towns and villages, the jet-powered weapons and their launch sites. The book concludes with the secret operation conducted at Cherbourg, the port from which the entirety of the captured flying machines with their revolutionary technology — seized from German airfields and factories in 1945 — were shipped to the United States.