The Aircraft of Normandy

Normandy

On the day of the invasion, Allied forces arriving from across the English Channel in landing craft faced withering attacks from German guns. Those emplacements, in return, took heavy fire from the 5-inch guns on American destroyers in the channel and Allied attack planes, including Martin B-26s and de Havilland Mosquitos. The bombers flew in low,

traveling through thick flack and heavy gunfire to take out the German beach defenses. The Martin B-26 Marauder, largely

unheralded for its wartime contributions, was the star, inflicting vast amounts of damage to German positions in support

of the troops arriving on the beach. The B-26s came in just off the deck because of the low overcast. The Marauders were

so low, in fact, that many pilots thought they’d been hit by enemy fire when in fact what they felt was the percussion of

their own bombs being dropped from so low an altitude that they shook the B-26s hard.

The anti-aircraft fire from the German defenders was so heavy that it was a wonder any airplanes made it beyond the

beach. And in fact many planes were lost, including 42 C-47s, each with as many as 20 men aboard. But with more than

14,000 sorties flown by more than 12,000 aircraft, the success rate was extremely high, especially in the face of such an

unprecedented aerial assault. The D-Day invasion remains and will likely remain forever the largest air battle in

history, with more than three times the number of aircraft as the next largest battles.

The fact is that nearly all of the aircraft in the air that day belonged to the Allies. The Luftwaffe planes were widely

scattered, and although the Germans launched hundreds of sorties on June 6, only a couple of airplanes arrived on scene,

including one JU-88 twin bomber that strafed the beach at Normandy, drawing thousands of rounds of fire in response and

crashing and exploding as a result. The Allies had achieved air supremacy in the west of France, with the Germans holding

their remaining aircraft in reserve for the coming battles they knew would lead on toward Berlin.

Another phase of the attack, aerial bombardment by Allied heavy bombers, was largely a failure, due in part to the lack

of sufficient precision in bombing, with the worst of it on D-Day and in ensuing battles causing large numbers of Allied

casualties. In his seminal book on the invasion, aviation historian Stephen Ambrose claimed that B-17 pilots flying at

20,000 feet were so uncertain of the location of their targets and so afraid of hitting their comrades below that they

erred on the conservative side and largely missed their intended targets on the beachhead, which doubtless saved Allied lives.

The fighters of D-Day were a different story. Because the Allies had achieved air supremacy, there were no Luftwaffe

fighters to engage. This came as a great disappointment to the Allied fighter pilots, who for months ahead of the actual

invasion had been anticipating a lively engagement with their German rivals. Instead, in addition to fire from German gun

emplacements, the biggest threat Allied fighters faced was from friendly ground fire. Indeed, American and British ground

forces shot down a number of their own airplanes, the exception being the P-38 Lightning, nicknamed the “Fork Tailed

Devil” by German soldiers. Its distinctive twin-boom design made it easy for ground personnel to recognize and,

therefore, refrain from firing at it.

Allied Supreme Cmdr. Dwight D. Eisenhower said the most important piece of equipment in the Allied arsenal was the C-47

Dakota, also known as the Skytrain. In the early morning hours of D-Day hundreds of the planes carried more than 13,000

paratroopers beyond the beach, dropping them into occupied France to begin cutting off the German defenses on the coast.

Forty-two C-47s were lost, most to German anti-aircraft fire.

The flights of the C-47s were far from trouble-free. Because of the dark night, low clouds and heavy fire, many of the

transports approached so low that many jumpers’ parachutes never had a chance to open fully. Other C-47s, in an attempt

to avoid enemy fire, came in too high, making the ride down for jumpers a long one, as German soldiers on the ground shot

at them while they descended, the tracers lighting up the sky and providing a chilling view for the paratroopers.

According to one estimate, in all of the confusion over the location of the drop zones and the confusion of the jumpers,

as many as 70 percent of parachute troops never connected with their squads and were left on their own to fight guerrilla

skirmishes.

In the aftermath of the battle some critics harshly criticized the pilots of the C-47s, a view that is hard to accept

given the nearly impossible conditions pilots faced, from dark of night to low clouds to heavy fire and heavy flak to

their pure inexperience. The confusion on the ground, some military historians believe, actually worked against the

Germans, who were unable to fight a conventional battle against the invaders, who seemed to appear out of nowhere.

The Douglas C-47 was invaluable during D-Day. More than 1,000 of them were used in the pre-dawn hours to drop thousands

of parachutists into enemy territory.

The frustration of fighter pilots was understandable. Veteran aviators who had fought plane-to-plane with the enemy in

the skies over Europe were relegated to a support role. P-51s served as escorts to bombers although there were no enemy

fighters to protect them from. Many pilots of Spitfires, proud heroes of the Battle of Britain, were asked to sit out the

battle as naval artillery spotters were trained to fly the erstwhile fighters to provide targeting assistance to Allied

ships in the channel. P-38s provided cover for ships and troop landings, though it was a tall order given the chaos on

the ground, the well-hidden and reinforced German positions and the poor weather.

Pilots of Republic P-47s, the seemingly indestructible fighter-bombers that had of late been supplanted by the faster and

longer-legged P-51s as escorts for B-17s into Germany, had the humble job of patrolling the coast south of the invasion

zone, keeping a lookout for German fighters that never came. One of the most effective fighters of the battle was the

Hawker Typhoon, which provided what we now refer to as “close air support” for Canadian and Australian invasion troops.

Even before D-Day, Typhoons, carrying either rockets (an innovation in 1944) or bombs, did yeoman’s work as low-altitude,

high-speed attack platforms, taking out a couple of critical Nazi radar installations in the days leading up to June 6.

After D-Day many of the airplanes featured here returned to their otherwise normal roles, the P-51, for instance,

providing support to ground forces advancing through France toward Germany or providing escort protection to B-17s, which

went back to their designed role of high-altitude bomber. On the other hand, the Waco CG-4 gliders were left in the

fields where they landed (and where they were picked over for their materials) as the Allied army marched east toward Berlin.

The star of D-Day, the C-47, soldiered on, helping move tens of thousands of Allied soldiers and hundreds of tons of

their gear in the ever-expanding territory controlled by Allied forces all the way through V-E Day in the spring of 1945.

It is a sad irony that after the war many of the airplanes of D-Day, shining stars of a conflict for the ages, were

rendered obsolete within a few short years. There were of course exceptions. The DC-3 remained a workhorse for the

military for another decade after D-Day.

Most of the airplanes that paved the way for victory in Europe, however, were on their way out due to the rise of turbine

power plants, which delivered far greater speeds, climb performance and, eventually, reliability. Even the top

propeller-driven fighters in the European theater, the Mustang, P-38 and Spitfire among them, soon gave way to jets,

though some of the classic fighters did assume lesser roles for a time as trainers, ground attack planes or

reconnaissance platforms.

By then, the battle for Europe had been long won. New battles loomed in what would become the Cold War. New planes would

emerge. While mostly gone from the inventories of the Allied forces they served so well, the planes of D-Day, from

Mustang to Waco glider, would live on in the hearts of all who served and all who honor that service.

Here is a closer look at these notable planes of D-Day

Martin B-26 Marauder

An unsung hero of the war, the Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber earned a reputation as one of the toughest planes in

the fleet. On D-Day the B-26 was used successfully more as an attack plane than a bomber, coming in low and aiming for

the gun emplacements on the beach.

Crew: 7

Principal Role: Bomber

Max Weight: 37,000 pounds

Wingspan: 71 feet

Max Speed: 248 knots

Armament: Two .30-caliber and two .50-caliber machine guns plus 4,800 pounds of bombs

Hawker Typhoon

The Typhoon was one of the latest British fighters introduced in WWII, created to do battle with Germany’s fast and agile

Focke-Wulf F-W190. On D-Day, the Typhoon was a jack of all trades, hitting German guns and providing close air support

for ground troops all while watching out for C-47s.

Crew: 1

Principal Role: Ground Attack

Max Weight: 13,250 pounds

Wingspan: 42 feet

Max Speed: 359 knots

Armament: Four 20 mm Hispano cannons; by D-Day, some were even fitted with rockets

Republic P-47 Thunderbolt

Usurped by the faster and longer-legged P-51 in its previous mission of escorting B-17s deep into Europe, the P-47 came

into its own on D-Day, doing reconnaissance, air support, attack and escort duties. The famously tough “Jug” suffered

lots of hits but not many losses.

Crew: 1

Principal Role: Fighter

Max Weight: 17,500 pounds

Wingspan: 41 feet

Max Speed: 376 knots

Armament: Six or eight

.50-caliber machine guns and either 10 rockets or 2,500 pounds of bombs

Waco CG-4 Hadrian

The CG-4 assault glider was almost without question the most important plane at D-Day that no one has heard of. With its

ability to transport a lot of troops and get them reliably to their target, the big wooden glider allowed the Allies to

put pressure on the enemy behind the lines at the battle’s outset.

Crew: 2

Personnel: 13

Principal Role: Personnel and Equipment Transport

Max Weight: 7,500 pounds

Wingspan: 84 feet

Max towed Speed: 87 knots

Armament: None

Supermarine Spitfire

A superior fighter during the Battle of Britain four years earlier, the Spitfire was losing its luster by D-Day, with

faster and more powerful Luftwaffe fighters emerging. On D-Day the Spitfire was used for spotting and sending coordinates

to Destroyers who were pounding Nazi lines from the channel.

Crew: 1

Principal Role: Fighter, Escort, Air Support

Max Weight: 6,785 pounds

Wingspan: 37 feet

Max Speed: 325 knots

Waco CG-4

Armament: Two Hispano 20 mm cannons and four Browning .303 machine guns

The Waco CG-4 Hadrian played a critical role in the war, landing thousands of allied soldier behind German ines with guns

and equipment. Cheap to build and easy to fly (if not land), the CG-4 could carry a jeep or Howitzer into battle, along

with the men to operate the machines. After D-Day, the gliders were simply abadnoned in the fields on which they had

landed.| Another wave of support came many hours later in the form of thousands of soldiers arriving on scene in gliders,

American-made Waco CG-4 Hadrians and the larger British-made Airspeed Horsa models. The gliders were forced to arrive in

the pre-dawn hours, since the airborne troops, who would already be on the ground, could not afford to wait many hours

before re-establishing the supply of equipment and troops they would need to fight German soldiers. The prospect of a

night landing in a glider into occupied territory, into fields riddled with defensive features and rocky farm fence

lines, terrified pilots and soldier occupants alike. After the battle some pilots reported not being able to see anything

until their craft touched ground in a near-stall.

Despite the anti-glider poles and ditches the Germans had created in larger fields across the area and the numerous and

closely spaced hedgerows of the countryside, the glider invasion was a success, though, again, many of them failed to

find their intended landing zones. Many gliders crashed, some with fatal results, including rough landings that dislodged

heavy equipment that killed the gliders’ occupants.

The Waco gliders could carry around 15 troops, including pilots, though many were used for transporting heavy equipment,

including Howitzer cannons and Jeeps. The Horsa gliders were even larger, able to carry as many as 30 troops. The loss

rate for the gliders is hard to calculate, in part because they were considered largely disposable — hundreds were simply

left behind by advancing troops, and because a rough landing in which the glider was destroyed but the occupants survived

uninjured was a successful landing.

Aircraft

Battle of Normandy

Aircrafts deployed during the battle of Normandy

This list presents 25 aircrafts used by the Allied and German air forces during the battle of Normandy: bombers, hunters

and gliders.

British Avro Lancaster bomber

North American P-51 D Mustang

Boeing B-17 G Flying Fortress

Republic P-47 D Thunderbolt

Boeing B-24 J Liberator

Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX

North American B-25 Mitchell

Hawker Hurricane Mk IIb

Glen Martin B-26 B Marauder

Hawker Tempest Mk V

Avro Lancaster Mk I

Hawker Typhoon

De Havilland Mosquito B.IV Series II

Focke Wulf Fw-190 A-8

Handley Page Halifax Mk III

Messerschmitt Bf 109 G

Heinkel 177

Lockheed P-38 Lightning

Douglas C-47 Dakota

De Havilland Mosquito B.IV Series II

Junkers Ju 52

Junkers Ju 87 Stuka

Gliders

Waco CG-4A Hadrian

Airspeed A.S. 51 Horsa

GAL.49 Hamilcar

would be kind of you to also add citation thanks

would be kind of you to also add citation thanks

Please feel free to add any aircraft that participated in Normandy or

later in the war.

It might be handy to have a reference to use planing missions.

Try to use accurate info if possible.

I will add to this list and create a better, easier to read and compare list as time permits.

Thank you.

would be kind of you to also add citation thanks

I think it is from this page:

http://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/warbirds-planes-d-day

would be kind of you to also add citation thanks

I think it is from this page:

http://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/warbirds-planes-d-day

And this one:

http://www.dday-overlord.com/eng/battle_normandy_aircrafts.htm

Armstrong Whitworth Albermarle (Paratroop transport, and glider tug) British and Canadian forces.

http://www.aircraftaces.com/albemarle.htm

Bombadier Chatter