Airpower and the Normandy Campaign

There can be no doubt that air power played a significant role in Normandy. On D-Day alone more than 12,000 aircraft provided air cover, conducted reconnaissance, and launched attacks with their bombs, rockets, machine guns, and cannons to kill, demoralize, and incapacitate the defenders of Hitler's Atlantic Wall. Subsequently, the tactical air forces continued to work closely to support the land campaign while heavy bombers were routinely diverted from their strategic targets in Germany to support the army. While much has been written on the air campaign, there is still much to learn.
This volume is not meant to be a comprehensive examination of air power in Normandy, but rather, it will pull together 10-12 chapters on a wide-ranging scope of topics that investigate lesser known, or underexplored, areas of the air campaign. The book will be international in scope and cover UK, US, Canadian, Australian, and German aspects of the campaign. It will also be multi-domain with the role and interplay of the three services an important aspect of this collection. This work will not view the campaign through air force blue but will consider how air matters affect the ground and naval war and vice-versa.

Mike Bechthold is a historian with the Royal Canadian Air Force History and Heritage Office and teaches history at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His research focuses on military airpower in the two world wars and Canadian military history. He is the author of Flying to Victory: Raymond Collishaw and the Western Desert Campaign, 1940-1941 (2017).