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Canadian Military History Volume 8 Issue 1 Article 3 1999 The Fighter-Bomber in the Normandy Campaign: The Role of 83 Group Christopher Evans Wilfrid Laurier University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Evans, Christopher "The Fighter-Bomber in the Normandy Campaign: The Role of 83 Group." Canadian Military History 8, 1 (1999) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Evans: The Fighter-Bomber in the Normandy Campaign: The Role of 83 Group The Fighter-Bomber in the Normandy Campaign The Role of 83 Group Christopher Evans ry-\le dichotomy between popular and academic his irresistible Tigers. Without the Typhoons, l. history is, for most historians, and readers, the Allies might never have subdued his an uncomfortable one. A book that appeals to a armoured divisions to the point where a break­ out became possible. 2 mass audience risks the scorn of academia, whereas a scholarly work may never reach Despite such overwhelming support for the beyond the confines of the university. While there destructive powers of allied air power a group of are exceptions to this rule, John Keegan's The historians undertook the unenviable task of Face of Battle being perhaps the most famous, questioning the myth of the tank-killing fighter­ by and large academic study runs parallel with bomber. W.A. Jacobs, Terry Copp and Robert popular accounts and rarely the twain meet. No Vogel were among the first to publish studies where is this more prevalent in the study of based on operational research reports.:; military history than the question of the role Operational research involved the study of the played by tactical air power in the Normandy battlefield and the effectiveness, or lack thereof, campaign. With over a half century of intense of the weapons employed. Data accumulated by study and voluminous publication this subject scientists of No.2 Operational Research Section, continues to defy a comprehensive reconciliation. combing the battlefields of Normandy, pointed It has therefore remained an area of constant to something quite different than the pilots debate. were claiming. Panthers, Tigers, Mk. IVs and assault guns certainly littered the Normandy The Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air landscape. However, close examination Force, their proponents and certainly their pilots, revealed that their demise was most often due have argued that their contribution to the victory to ground fire, mechanical defect, destruction in Normandy was vital, even decisive. Memoirs by crew or lack of fuel. What then had tactical abound filled with the bravado of heroic acts so air power achieved? If The Day of the Typhoon' compelling that their tales have swept the day. was more myth than reality, what was the Frank Wootton's painting, "Rocket-firing contribution made by the pilots risking and Typhoons at the Falaise Gap, Normandy, 1944," often losing their lives in repeated ground has come to epitomize this most positive view of attacks?4 Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the the tank-killing fighter-bomber. The commanding German general specifically tasked with repelling officer of the Second Tactical Air Force, Air the invasion forces, gave one possible answer: Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, stated this sentiment clearly in his postwar report on Our own operations are rendered extraordinarily operations. 1 George C. Blackburn, a gunner, difficult and in part impossible to carry out concurred with this view in his award-winning [owing to] the exceptionally strong and, in some book The Guns of Normandy: respects overwhelming, superiority of the enemy air force. The enemy has complete command of Surely the Typhoon is proving to be the most the air over the battle zone and up to about 100 effective weapon of all in combating the kilometres behind the front and cuts off by day almost all traffic on roads. [ -] Neither our flak superiority of the enemy's armour, particularly ©Canadian Military History. Volume 8, Number l, Winter 1999, pp.21-3l. 21 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 1999 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 8 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 3 nor the Luftwaffe seem capable of putting a targets on or near the battlefield - that it has stop to this crippling and destructive operation not fully encompassed the larger picture. All of the enemy's aircraft." can agree that the Second Tactical Air Force was tasked with providing support to the Shortly thereafter the Field Marshal was ground forces in Normandy. What must be first seriously injured when his staff car was strafed, clarified is how that support was actually at of all places, Ste. Fay de Montgommery. He provided. Only then can an attempt at never took to the field of battle again. Allied quantifying its success be undertaken. The tactical air power was assured its place in degree to which close support operations history. succeeded or failed becomes less crucial if the A recent book on the subject, Air Power at evidence shows that missions of a defensive the Battlefront: Allied Close Air Support in and protective nature were the primary focus Europe. 1943-1945 by Ian Gooderson has of tactical air power operations in Normandy, expanded on this perception. Far less satisfying not close support. than the destruction of enemy tanks and far With the end of the First World War the harder to prove, Gooderson cites the creation of concept of strategic bombing was to come to the negative morale as an important factor. Put fore in Britain and remain there throughout the simply, even if the fighter-bomber did not destroy interwar period. At a 1924 RAF Air Staff Planning the Tiger tank or knock out the concrete pill-box, committee meeting it was made clear that the it could and often did terrify and throw into development of dedicated attack aviation was confusion the soldiers within, thereby lessening "quite unsuited to the needs of this country and their ability to fight. A less palpable result that it would be impossible to produce [-]without perhaps but a significant one nonetheless. But starving far more important branches of the is this new understanding of tactical air power, RAF. "6 Said branches were those concerned with based on contemporary studies, the whole story? the development oflong range strategic bombers The answer is no. and short range defensive fighters. The design The historiography regarding the and production of ground attack aircraft, with effectiveness of tactical air power in Normandy their implied support of an army engaged in a has focused so tightly on one aspect, the provision land campaign, was therefore ignored. By 1935 of close or direct support - attacking ground this attitude was firmly ingrained, so much so A Canadian pilot poses in front qf his Hawker Typhoon. https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol8/iss1/3 2 Evans: The Fighter-Bomber in the Normandy Campaign: The Role of 83 Group Ground crew prepare a Hawker Typhoonjor its next mission. that the same committee concluded that "an Imperial General Staff circulated a paper calling airforce whose primary function is direct for no less than 109 squadrons to directly cooperation with the army in a large scale 'land support ground forces. The circular noted that forces' war- [is] neither the role of the Royal Air "Army Co-operation has been the Cinderella Force in war, nor in its 'imperial police' duties."7 branch of the RAF, and the Army's efforts to It therefore rejected "the idea of armouring get proper air support in reconnaissance, aircraft for use in the RAF" despite the likelihood bombing and fighter cover has never had a fair of"low flying attacks against ground targets in deal. "10 When it was finally decided to create a the future. "8 Instead. existing aircraft would be tactical air force to support land operations, utilized if required. with the tacit acknowledgment by the RAF that strategic bombing was not going to win the war, In 1942 the RAF remained confident in the it was too late to build an entirely new ability of strategic bombing and continued to see organization and equipment. Tactical air power little need in pursuing closer ties with the army would therefore have to come from existing in developing ground attack aircraft and doctrine. commands and aircraft, even though neither The Air Staff stated that with: were specifically designed for the task. the highest priority and sufficient energy I-I In the summer of 1943 the Second Tactical devoted to the development of a coordinated day Air Force was created in England. Among its key and night bomber offensive - the war can certainly be won in 1944. and possibly in 1943.9 components was 83 Composite Group. The organization, especially 83 Group, was in reality The army, however, did not see it this way. The Fighter Command with a new name and new same year that the RAF were predicting an end mission. Since the successful defense of the to the war through bombing, the British British Isles, Fighter Command had been in 23 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 1999 3 Canadian Military History, Vol. 8 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 3 search of a new role. This situation was jumped to a staggering 4,000. By the time exacerbated in the summer of 1941 when fighters were up at 10,000 feet and virtually all Luftwaffe fighter and bomber experiencing intense flak the number of bombs squadrons stationed in western Europe were required was ridiculous; 50,000.

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