Bf 109F-4/B, WWII German Fighter-Bomber (48104)

Every aeroplane in the sky was American or British. Thanks to air supremacy the Americans were flying little single-seat planes, Piper Cubs, about 300 metres back from the front lines and some 300 metres high. German riflemen fired at them ineffectively. When the Cubs appeared, however, German mortar and artillery firing stopped. As Sergeant Sampson described it, "They didn't dare give their positions away, knowing if they fired our pilot would call in and artillery would be coming in on them, pinpoint." Air supremacy also freed Allied fighter-bombers, principally P-47 Thunderbolts, to strafe and bomb German convoys and concentrations. From D-Day plus one onward, whenever the weather was suitable for flying, the P-47s forced nighttime movement only on the Germans. During the day the Allied Jabos (from the German Jager bomber, or hunter bomber) would get them. Fifty years later, in talking about the Jabos, German veterans still have awe in their voices and glance up over their shoulders as they recall the terror of having one come right at them, all guns blazing. "The Jabos were a burden on our souls," Corporal Helmut Hesse said ...»