The greatest missions were tactical, not strategic

Brooks wrote:

Yeah, but they did NOT have plenty of fighters stationed forward to use that
fuel to deal with the invasion force. They had retained the bulk of their
fighter force to protect against the strategic onslaught against Germany,

Absolutely, I used ground air defense assets as an example of syphoned
resources, but fighters were just as big a factor.

and IIRC by the summer of 1944 they were already suffering the strategic
campaign's attrition effects in terms of training of replacement pilots to
take the place of those they had lost, a large part of which were lost
defending against the 8th AF and RAF BC.

Absolutely.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"