World: Good Hunting

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If the weather had been as good for seven days as it was for three, last week would have been an Allied airman's dream week. Even in spotty weather air power dealt the Germans bitter blows.

On the best flying days, half of everything the enemy tried to move to the front was estimated to have been wiped out or halted. In the first twelve days of the offensive, Allied aircraft destroyed or damaged 775 tanks, 3,300 motor vehicles.

In the first seven flying days Allied heavies and mediums poured nearly 35,000 tons of bombs on German supply centers, pummeling the foe's rail and road junctions close to the front, pocking his airfields.

More than 1,000 German aircraft had been destroyed (against Allied loss of about 300). Such attrition sapped the Luftwaffe's hoarded strength at once: it flew an estimated 800 sorties on its first day, but by its third day could manage only 400 sorties. With some 12,000 planes at his disposal, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder was mounting an average of 7,000 daily sorties.

The complete story was yet to be told, but there was no doubt of air support's momentous part in blunting the German attack. And there was no doubt in Allied airmen's minds that, given clear days, aviation could be the decisive factor in turning the Germans' offensive into their worst defeat in the west.