Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: Guy Alcala

hat's a lot more than "a few pounds" of bombs, and you've
made every a/c far more vulnerable to fighters and flak, because you're
slower

A B-17 would do about 140 IAS

Normal B-17 formation cruise was150-160 IAS.

and an ME 109 would do about 350 IAS. And you are
worried about slowing the B-17 down so it can't outrun an ME 109????

Nope, I'm worried about slowing down and decreasing the cruise ceiling of a B-17,
B-24, Lancaster or Halifax operating singly at night (we are talking about night
bombing, after all) so that it's easy meat for an Me-110G loaded with 3 crew,
multiple heavy cannon, black boxes for radar and very draggy external radar
antennas, and which has a much smaller performance advantage over a bomber than a
single-engined day fighter does.

BTW, no Me-109 in sustained level flight at heavy bomber operational altitudes is
doing 350IAS: @ 20,000 feet and ISA that's about 480mph.

I sat in
a B-26 doing 180 IAS and the FW-190's could pass us like we were sitting still.

Sure could, at 10-15,000 feet. .But since the thread's clearly about night rather
than day missions, it's irrelevant. However, bomber speed and altitude could also
be a factor by day. The FW-190A's best performance was at or below 21,000 feet,
with performance falling off considerably above there. One of the first attempted
interceptions by FW-190As of B-17s (E or F models), the FW-190 unit commander
described tail-chasing the B-17s outbound from the target for what seemed like
forever with his throttle to the wall, closing only very slowly. He got very
frustrated by this, and even more so when his engine blew up from the prolonged
running at max. power, and he had to bial out. He (and his unit) never did catch
them on that mission.

The less speed advantage the fighter has over the bomber, the more limited the
chance to achieve an intercept (you've got to have a better set-up), and the less
chance of making multiple passes on the same formation. By day against
single-engined fighters, I agree that the speed generally made little difference
for the heavies compared to heavier armament, at least as long as fighters were the
primary threat. However, higher bomber speed and altitude can give heavily armed
multi-engined fighters real problems.

OTOH, B-24 units, when flying separately from the B-17s instead of in the same
stream, often had total mission times 30 minutes or so shorter than the B-17s
because the B-24s were that much faster, and nobody wanted to spend any more time
over enemy territory than they had to. Since they also generally flew lower than
the B-17s and attracted most of the flak and fighters, the speed advantage in that
case was at best a wash.

You think if we were a bit slower it would cause a problem? Not as far as the
FW was concerned.

Again, we were talking about night ops, but would you have preferred to fly your
missions at 160 IAS, 180 IAS, or 200 IAS? Which is likely to make the fighter's
job hardest? Which will allow you to spend the least amount of time in flak
envelopes, and decrease the accuracy of same the most? Was the A-26's higher speed
an advantage compared to the B-26?

Guy

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: (ArtKramr)

A B-17 would do about 140 IAS and an ME 109 would do about 350 IAS.

For max range about 125.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: Guy Alcala

Normal B-17 formation cruise was150-160 IAS.


For max rtange about 125.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

WalterM140 wrote in message ...

firstly my deleted text, and I note the dropping of the Maxi Hastings data.

"There is a slight problem with this, the combat record of the P-38 over
North Africa in 1942/43 and then again over Europe on 1943/44. Then
add the long range P-38 versions came about when the cooling system
was redesigned and the J-15 version allowed 410 gallons of internal fuel
versus the 300 gallons in previous models. The first J models were
built in August 1943 without the wing tanks, with 10 J-1, 210 J-5 and
790 J-10 models built before the J-15 model was introduced, then add
the time to ramp up the line and send the aircraft overseas. In September
1943 the P-38s in the Mediterranean were classified as having a combat
radius of 350 miles, well short of that needed to escort bombers deep
into Germany."

It would have been quite easy to stop P-38 escorts in 1943, just attack
them early, and force them to jettison their external tanks, they were
carrying about as much or more fuel externally than internally.

It was -shown- that even a few dozen P-38's had a very delerious effect on the
tactics of the German day fighters.

Is this using the same sort of methodology used to "prove" the B-17
could do well against the average German fighter, total all B-17
sorties for the day, when most were not intercepted, and use the
totals rather than the results from the formations actually attacked?

Do we have one or two examples of this "few dozen P-38" phenomena?
Followed by the assumption the USAAF could do it once or twice then
they could do it at will? The P-38 was the most distinctive fighter going
around in 1944 over Europe. The Luftwaffe was quite able to work out
counter tactics of "hit the couple of P-38 formations to leave the bombers
unescorted". They Luftwaffe did quite well in Tunisia.

There's no "it would have been quite easy to..." to it. What you suggest was
not a factor.

A few dozen means one or two escort formations, tell JG26 to
intercept them just back from the coast.

The Luftwaffe actually tried this for a short while in 1943, hence
the RAF Spitfires flying the "insert cover". The extra fighters
meant extra Luftwaffe losses and less chance of picking the
real long range escort formations, since the P-47 was not all
that different to the Spitfire when the other type being compared
was the P-38.

Also P-38 numbers grew from 302 in December 1942 to 567 in
May 1943 then declined to 372 in October 1943 before rapidly
expanding to 1,063 in April 1944. The numbers are for the USAAF
deployed against Germany and include reserves etc.

Thanks for the minutia.

If you are going to accuse someone of not using something make
sure the something was available for use first. Simply put assuming
the Mediterranean war was shut down the above figures are what
was available. And the Mediterranean war was not going to be shut
down, it was needed, at least until the end of 1943. So there were
no P-38s for the England based units, the P-38s were, after a trying
start, proving useful in the Mediterranean, mainly their superior range
compared with the P-40 and Spitfire.

The point is that Eaker and Hunter, 8th BC and 8th FC CGs respectively could
have stressed long range escorts and pushed P-38 enhancements, stressed
solving the technical problems, and so forth in 1942. P-38's were available in
England in 1942.

Eaker and Hunter didn't do that.

So the theatre had control over where the scare P-38 resources
went to, given how much the Pacific wanted them, plus the
requirements of Tunisia?

Furthermore, given the number of USAAF missions to Germany in
say the first few months of 1943 the results would be so compelling
that the P-38 production line, the only high performance fighter the
USAAF had in combat, should be disrupted to add in the improvements.
Not only that but the specifications could be drawn up in say April 1943,
sent back to the US, turned into reliable engineering solutions in say
May 1943, with the first types built in say June 1943 with the arrival in
theatre in say July 1943. As opposed to the reality it took many months
to accumulate the information and turn it into numbers of improved
aircraft deployed in theatre. The first J models appeared in August 1943,
and as a rough guess it looks like the first J-15s were in December 1943
or January 1944.

In 1942 and early 1943 the P-38 was the fighter the Pacific forces
wanted, it had the better overall performance versus the P-39 and P-40
and was doing really well. The experience in Tunisia indicated the
P-38 needed work to tackle the Luftwaffe.

With nearly 1,700 built by the end of 1942, versus 532 P-47s, it was
not available in quantity, and it would take until mid 1943 to debug the
P-47 over Europe, to prove it was a worthwhile fighter. So the secondary
theatre, at least in early 1943, was given the task of proving the new
fighter in combat.

What I really like is Walter likes to run the line about how good the
B-17 was against enemy fighters, then turns around and accuses
the Generals of not providing enough escorts.

Eaker was not the only one and he did ask for long range tanks on
his fighters. It is not a simple good guy/bad guy situation.

Eaker dawdled on it. It wasn't important to him.

The 8th Air Force placed large orders for drop tanks in June 1943,
placing it fourth on the list of priorities, the USAAF command back
in Washington apparently thought British production would be sufficient.

Meantime Eaker convinced Robert Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of
War for Air to push for a long range fighter.

Eaker thought the B-17's could defend themselves until very late in the game.

He -was- sacked, after all.

I know this has been pointed out many times but General Eaker
was not sacked, he was transferred to the Mediterranean in what was
a swap of commands with Spaatz and Dolittle. He was in command of
the USAAF in the Mediterranean and he was then transferred in early
1945 to Washington as deputy Air Force chief under General Arnold.

Eaker even suggested that the first Mustang groups go to the 9th AF. He didn't
understand the problem. He didn't allow for improvements and reinforcments of
the German AF. P-38's of longer range and better reliability could have been
provided well before they were. An all P-38 force could have done what a mixed
P-47, P-51 and P-38 force DID do-- wreck the German day fighter force. -- if
it had been stressed earlier. But it was not.

Of course give the 8th Air Force, say 1,000 P-38Js in early 1943
and watch them rip into an outnumbered western defences. Just
ignore the lack of bombers to take advantage of this wonder gift.
Just ignore the Luftwaffe doing something like new tactics or speeding
up the deployment of the fighter types historically delivered in 1944.
Just ignore the combat record of the P-38 over Europe in 1943/44.

Now, you'll dispute this of course. But the problems the long range escorts
gave the Germans rested on this:

The Germans had to up-armor and up-arm their single engine fighters and add
twin engine bomber destroyers to the mix, in order to kill B-17's in large
numbers. -Any- of the three main US fighters on the scene (P-38, P-47,
P-51)could have made that up-armoring and use of the twin engine bomber
destroyers impractical.


Let us start with the fact in 1943 the twin engined day fighter force had
been run down, mainly by the conversion of the units to night fighters,
plus the realisation the Bf110 was not a day fighter and the Me210 was
a failure. The twin engined day fighters did not start appearing in any
numbers to defend Germany until the USAAF fighters had drop tanks.
Hitler wanted his attack at Kursk and defence of Sicily first. Hence the
use of some nightfighters in daylight in the west. The first use of rockets
was actually also the same day as the first use of P-47 drop tanks. When
things like rockets proved useful the fighters to use them were deployed.

Instead of giving the USAAF more earlier but saying the Luftwaffe stays
on the historical deployments consider the early appearance of the P-38
moves the Luftwaffe more quickly onto the line of the Fw190 bomber
destroyer. Add for extra spice the Fw190D-9 appearing earlier, the
engine it needed was in production in 1943.

The P-38 was the least effective of the USAAF fighters over Germany,
thanks to a combination of factors. Once the USAAF could deploy
escorts in numbers to the required targets then yes the Luftwaffe day
fighter force was in trouble. The engineering to provide the escorts
in numbers took most of 1943. Then the long range escorts appeared.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
The Battle of Berlin was indeed a defeat, that was not the
entirety of the air war over Germany however and its provably
untrue to claim that ai operations over Germany were suspended.

Harris said he could knock Germany out of the war by attacking Berlin. And
yet he stopped attacking Berlin. Why?

I think the opening line makes that clear, the Battle of Berlin was
a defeat. I think the way Walter ducks the rest of the paragraph
makes it clear he is not interested in history.

If you say that Harris qualified his statement by suggesting that the
Americans must help, then he was just butchering his own men because he knew
that help wasn't coming.. Right?

Walter likes to run this line, Harris wrote a letter to his superiors
indicating the Battle of Berlin would go better if the USAAF could
help, Walter like to turn this into Harris killing his men.

If you say that Harris thought that Bomber Command could do the job alone, well
then he was wrong.

And until it was tried no one knew it was wrong. Just like all the other
tactics tried.

You don't become a great captain by being wrong.

So there are no great captains then, given all commanders are
wrong at times.

Harris was not a great captain. The evidence shows that he was incompetent, if
not criminally incompetent.

Walter starts from his preferred conclusion and works backward,
fitting the preferred evidence in with the deletion of inconvenient
facts.


Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Bernardz wrote in message ...
In article 40f8ceaa$0$1306$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-
01.iinet.net.au, says...

This sort of ignores the fact the RAF had been steadily building up the
bomber support system, and the loss rates had peaked in earlier times,
with new tactics helping to drop the losses back into the acceptable
category. For example late 1941, and mid 1943.

What sort of tactics were used?

It depends on the era, intruder sorties were flown almost from
the start but initially by bombers, then non radar equipped
fighters, then radar equipped fighters were added to the mix.

The most obvious addition in 1941/42 was the bomber stream,
rather than allowing individual aircraft to make their own decisions
on timings and courses. The stream evolved, becoming more
compact as the war went on.

As the war went on the radio war hotted up, more radio aids used,
more methods and devices to jam them used.

It comes down to whatever Hastings defines as the Trenchard doctrine,
the unescorted bomber devastating the target had long been disproved
before March 1944.

What do these escort fighters do?

Not sure of the question, but overall the idea is two fold, prevent bomber
losses and shoot down the interceptors. At night this meant flying around
the bomber stream, known Luftwaffe night fighter airfields and known radio
beacons.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
Also P-38 numbers grew from 302 in December 1942 to 567 in
May 1943 then declined to 372 in October 1943 before rapidly
expanding to 1,063 in April 1944. The numbers are for the USAAF
deployed against Germany and include reserves etc.

Thanks for the minutia.

Not minutia in this case, but very germane, as the lack of P-38 numbers was a
factor.

Gee, that is -my- point.

And the reason they were not there is because Eaker and Hunter didn't stress
it.

Yes folks, Eaker and Hunter are the designated Black Hat wearers
of the moment, all evil comes from them.

The Pacific theatre really wanted more P-38s, they were by far the
biggest fans, the problems of mass producing the P-38 cannot be
ignored, plus the changes made in 1943 to make the type more
combat worthy helping to limit production. How about raging against
the decision to convert 500 P-38s to unarmed photo reconnaissance
types in 1942 and 1943, versus the 3,684 completed as fighters by
the end of 1943, including the prototype. There is your "few dozen"
extra P-38s. Note by the way the first 433 or so fighters were not
really combat worthy, that is everything before the P-38F, and the
reconnaissance versions were model F and G conversions so some
25% of the available F and G airframe ended up unarmed. Presumably
Arnold will now be considered a bad captain.

The USAAF wanted more P-38s in 1943, there was little the ETO
could do to speed up the process. It also realised the need for
high performance reconnaissance types. Only the defence of
England, of all the theatres of war, had enough allied fighters at the
start of 1943. So the P-47 went to Europe and even New Guinea.

Was it beyond normal human kin in 1942 to devine the fact that the self
defending bomber was not going to work, even with the heavy armament, high
altitudes, tight formations and toughness of the B-17's and their crews?

The straight answer was it was not beyond human predictions, the
RAF told the USAAF so, but like so many bad ideas the people of
the time need to do the work to prove it was a bad idea, and this
took the first half of 1943 for most and October 1943 for all. So we
now know it was a bad idea, and it is up to us to learn from it, not
take cheap shots at those who tried it.

Maybe so. I am not necessarily blaming Eaker and Hunter, just pointing out the
fact that a strong force of P-38's (provided that the technical problems were
addressed aggressively) could have been available a year before the pioneer
Mustang group arrived.

Simply put once again Walter is wishing for his preferred solution
and ignoring any problems with it.

It takes time to ramp up production, even more time when it is clear
modifications are needed to make the aircraft perform better. Things
like better engine cooling but more cockpit heating, more internal fuel,
better dive recovery, even better roll rate, problems with the engines
at high altitudes was a big limit.

It's also true that some of the B-17 group commanders didn't care much about
escorts in the early part of the campaign. All that rendesvouzing made things
more complicated, don't you know.

But as the Germans realized the threat and acted to meet that threat, the B-17
bomber boxes met their match and were overborne.

Production was very limited at the time.

Yes, I am providing a what-if. If the guys in England had been screaming for
P-38's the production could have been ramped up.

In 1943 the answer is probably not, things like the supply of engines,
two needed, meaning the equation became was 1 P-38 worth 2 P-40s?
Given the world wide shortage of fighters and the feedback about the
P-38 performance versus the Luftwaffe in Tunisia there is no definite
answer.

England was a secondary theatre in the first half of 1943, thanks to
Torch.

Then there's the extra training
time for multi-engine, which would add some additional delay to getting units
operational/providing replacement pilots.

That doesn't seem that big an issue to me.

Yes we know wish mode will be deployed once the preferred
solution has been decided on.


(snip)

The point is that Eaker and Hunter, 8th BC and 8th FC CGs respectively
could
have stressed long range escorts and pushed P-38 enhancements, stressed
solving the technical problems, and so forth in 1942. P-38's were available
in England in 1942.

Eaker and Hunter didn't do that.

While Eaker and Hunter were doctrinally blind to the need for far too long,

Thats all I am saying, my friend.

No Walter, you are also saying they could have had a direct influence on
the production of P-38s in 1943. You are assigning them the black hat
with the predetermined criminal conviction cluster.

the
need for a long-range fighter in the ETO in 1942 was hardly obvious given the
shallow penetrations we were making at the time.

It wasn't obvious perhaps. That's why kudos go to those who see beyond the
obvious.

Meantime Walter will shoot people for not spotting the not obvious.

Arnold ordered Giles to increase
the internal fuel of the fighters around June '43 IIRR (don't have the
reference,
"To Command The Sky" by McFarland and Newton, handy), giving him
six months to
achieve it. Besides the P-38 was only in the ETO for a couple of months
before they were all sent to the Med.

Yes, Eaker could have been screaming bloody murder -- "hey, don't take my long
range escorts!" But he didn't, for whatever reason. Yes, it might to pure
hindsight to blame him for this in 1942. Definitely. But Eaker persisted in
supporting the self-defending bomber after 17 August, '43 and even after 14
Oct. '43.

In 1942 the P-38 was not a long range escort, the external fuel was
for ferry operations, large tanks with plenty of drag and no ability to
draw fuel from them above around 20,000 feet.

By the way if Eaker was still an unescorted heavy bomber fan you can
show all those sorts of missions run by the15th Air Force in 1944 when
he commanded it, correct?

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

In article 40fa0ce6$0$1289$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-
01.iinet.net.au, says...
It comes down to whatever Hastings defines as the Trenchard doctrine,
the unescorted bomber devastating the target had long been disproved
before March 1944.

What do these escort fighters do?

Not sure of the question, but overall the idea is two fold, prevent bomber
losses and shoot down the interceptors. At night this meant flying around
the bomber stream, known Luftwaffe night fighter airfields and known radio
beacons.

A fighter is much smaller, more mobile and generally faster then a
bomber. Finding a bomber and recognizing it was hard enough in WW2 how
successful were fighters in finding and identifying interceptors at
night?

--
Logically we attempt to devise reasons for our irrational behaviour.

Observations of Bernard - No 62

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: Guy Alcala

Normal B-17 formation cruise was150-160 IAS.


For max rtange about 125.

That seems a bit low but still believable, given that best rate of
climb is 135 IAS (per the pilot's manual). In any case, formation
combat cruise was 150-160 IAS, tending towards the lower end. B-24s
were at 160-180 IAS, or 155 if they had to fly with B-17s (which they
hated, because the Fort was comfortable in formation down to 140 or
even a bit less, where the B-24 was hanging on its props).

Guy

He -was- sacked, after all.

I know this has been pointed out many times but General Eaker
was not sacked, he was transferred to the Mediterranean in what was
a swap of commands with Spaatz and Dolittle.

That is typical of the crap you try and pull. Eaker fought this transfer tooth
and nail and you surely know that.

Of course give the 8th Air Force, say 1,000 P-38Js in early 1943
and watch them rip into an outnumbered western defences. Just
ignore the lack of bombers to take advantage of this wonder gift.
Just ignore the Luftwaffe doing something like new tactics or speeding
up the deployment of the fighter types historically delivered in 1944.
Just ignore the combat record of the P-38 over Europe in 1943/44.

Someone posted over on the WWII board that Galland, I believe, said that the
P-38 was the best allied fighter.

If it would have been so easy for the Germans to force the American fighters to
drop tanks, why didn't they rigorously enforce that against the P-51s?

And the P-38's in my hypothetical don't have to dogfight the Germans. They only
have to break up their massed attacks and make things too hot for the ME-110's.


Now, you'll dispute this of course. But the problems the long range escorts
gave the Germans rested on this:

The Germans had to up-armor and up-arm their single engine fighters and add
twin engine bomber destroyers to the mix, in order to kill B-17's in large
numbers. -Any- of the three main US fighters on the scene (P-38, P-47,
P-51)could have made that up-armoring and use of the twin engine bomber
destroyers impractical.


Let us start with the fact in 1943 the twin engined day fighter force had
been run down, mainly by the conversion of the units to night fighters,
plus the realisation the Bf110 was not a day fighter and the Me210 was
a failure. The twin engined day fighters did not start appearing in any
numbers to defend Germany until the USAAF fighters had drop tanks.

That is just false. The ME-110s played a heavy role in second Schweinfurt on
10/14/43 and earlier.

Hitler wanted his attack at Kursk and defence of Sicily first. Hence the
use of some nightfighters in daylight in the west. The first use of rockets
was actually also the same day as the first use of P-47 drop tanks.

Yes, and even with drop tanks, the P-47's could get no further than the German
border in that time frame.

When
things like rockets proved useful the fighters to use them were deployed.

Instead of giving the USAAF more earlier but saying the Luftwaffe stays
on the historical deployments consider the early appearance of the P-38
moves the Luftwaffe more quickly onto the line of the Fw190 bomber
destroyer.

Which P-38's could more easily disrupt or destroy.

Add for extra spice the Fw190D-9 appearing earlier, the
engine it needed was in production in 1943.

What on earth are you talking about?


The P-38 was the least effective of the USAAF fighters over Germany,
thanks to a combination of factors.

P-38's were very capable of breaking up the German fighter formations as they
tried to do mass attacks on the bombers and they were also very capable of
engaging the ME-110s. It's not a matter of pure dogfighting ability, just as
the US Navy developed team tactics for the F-4-F's to use to fight the IJN
fighters.


Once the USAAF could deploy
escorts in numbers to the required targets then yes the Luftwaffe day
fighter force was in trouble.

That day -could- have come a full year sooner. First flight of the P-38
prototype was in 1939. First P-51B prototype was in November, 1942. I don't
see any reason why, as a hypothetical, that the problems the P-38's encountered
over Europe couldn't have been worked out in plenty of time to match the
increase in the B-17 force in the spring of 1943. They did have Kelley Johnson
working on the P-38 after all. It's hard to imagine he couldn't have solved
about anything.

Eaker didn't stress it, and Hunter (the 8th FC CG) didn't stress it. I don't
see any reason why the number of P-38's in Europe couldn't have been
dramatically increased, and much earlier, if it had been stressed. The
strategic bombing campaign operating out of England was, after all, the top
drawer element upon which the Army Air Force officers planned to use to make
their case for a separate air force.

And the Mediterranean war was not going to be shut
down, it was needed, at least until the end of 1943.

The most impotant theater to Arnold was clearly in England, and it involved
daylight precision bombing of German targets.

So there were
no P-38s for the England based units,

There could easily have been. That's my point.

So the theatre had control over where the scare P-38 resources
went to, given how much the Pacific wanted them, plus the
requirements of Tunisia?

The most important air force was clearly in England. At least as far as Arnold
was concerned.

Furthermore, given the number of USAAF missions to Germany in
say the first few months of 1943 the results would be so compelling
that the P-38 production line, the only high performance fighter the
USAAF had in combat, should be disrupted to add in the improvements.

That's why it is a hypothetical.

Not only that but the specifications could be drawn up in say April 1943,
sent back to the US, turned into reliable engineering solutions in say
May 1943, with the first types built in say June 1943 with the arrival in
theatre in say July 1943.

Hypothectically, that could all have been done a year earlier.

In 1942 and early 1943 the P-38 was the fighter the Pacific forces
wanted, it had the better overall performance versus the P-39 and P-40
and was doing really well. The experience in Tunisia indicated the
P-38 needed work to tackle the Luftwaffe.

The P-38 could have been very effective ensuring that the Germans couldn't mass
the way they wanted to against the B-17's.

It was working -with- the B-17's that the P-38 could have done well. Of course
the P-51's and P-47's could and did do that too, but P-38's could have been
doing it a lot sooner.

Another hypothetical would be that the Allies could have mated the Merlin to
the Mustang a lot earlier. Sure. Then you would have had the same equation.
But no one, certainly not Eaker or Hunter, was pushing for that.

What I really like is Walter likes to run the line about how good the
B-17 was against enemy fighters, then turns around and accuses
the Generals of not providing enough escorts.

That would just be a flat lie. The B-17 groups could not deal with fighters
after the Germans reinforced and re-armed beginning in the Spring of 1943.
With escorts to break up the German formations, and make it too dangerous for
the heavily armed German fighters (both single and twin engine) to be proximate
to the American formations, that changed.

You've seen me exposit that many, many times.

Meantime Eaker convinced Robert Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of
War for Air to push for a long range fighter.


Source?

I find no corroboration for such a supposed statement.

"Eaker as late as October 1943 still believed the key was in the size of the
bomber formations... Eaker stuck to this belief while high-ranking officers
such as Chief of the Air Staff Barney Giles and commander of the VIII Bomber
Command Fred Anderson had determined that escort was the key to victory."

-- "To Command the Sky, p. 112, by McFarland and Newton

"During June 1943 Assistant Secretary of War for Air Robert Lovett visited
England to observe Eighth Air Force operations. He spent considerable time
inspecting the VIII Fighter Command and especially the problems of escort. At
an Eighth Air Force comanders' mmeeting immediately after Lovett's visit,
Hunter told Eaker that he feared Lovett would insist on the use of P-38's for
escort. Hunter identified the P-38 as a "wonderful ship," but preferrred to
give the P-47 a "complete trial." In doing so Hunter revealed his
misunderstanding of the basic issue confronting the Eighth Air Force in the
summer and fall of 1943. The bombers needed escorts with range, bot superior
fighters. The P-47 was a better dogfighter, but it did not have the legs to fly
long escort missions."

ibid, p. 114

I find no evidence that Eaker thought it imperitive to provide escort or that
he communicated such with Lovett.

Lovett DID take that idea back to Washington with him, but he didn't get it
from Eaker.


Walt