D-Day: The Air Battle

Though most D-Day accounts rightly focus on the landings, those landings wouldn't have been as successful if it hadn't been for the Allied air armada that ruled the skies over Normandy on that fateful morning. Ken Delve relates the complex events that resulted in Allied air supremacy on 6 June in D-DAY, THE AIR BATTLE, published by Arms & Armour Press in 1994. The book's title is a bit misleading. Delve's book runs to 189 pages of text and appendices. However he spends the first 72 describing the planning, negotiations, conferences, exercises, command arrangements, combat missions, etc. that went on, in some cases, years before the first infantryman waded ashore. Dozens of different RAF, USAAF and other Allied commands and a variety of air, ground and naval brass and various personnel were involved in this effort as a thousand-and-one details had to be examined, refined, and so on. Reading D-DAY, THE AIR BATTLE is an eye-opener as you realize what a tremendous and complicated effort was involved. The actual air activity on D-Day and in following days was very one-sided; Luftwaffe response was initially limited and then piecemeal. By contrast, Allied airpower was omnipresent and materially added the ground advance while devastating German countermoves under barrages on .50-caliber, 20mm, rockets and bombs. Given the topic, much of Delve's book is dry reading. There are some combat accounts but not many. The book does have a fine selection of photos, maps and diagrams that help illustrate the text though. All in all, D-DAY, THE AIR BATTLE is interesting as an organizational history on the planning and preparation that went into making D-Day the success it was rather than a blow-by-blow account of Normandy air combats.