 1944 Germany sprawling Nazi factories fattened by the wealth of conquest and methodically mobilized produced weapons for Hitler's war machine after surviving the intensive bombing of 43 their assembly lines doubled production with painstaking German efficiency the Luftwaffe grew alarmingly stronger by February destruction of a mounting Nazi manufacturer became urgent because their production was rising to the goal of a plane every 15 minutes 12 of these factories in Germany and Poland were called point blank targets and were given top priority Hitler had looted the manpower and machinery of nearly a dozen European countries Herman Gehring his time running out spawned reinforcements and new weapons the Luftwaffe had become a massive shield for Fortress Europe at the same time steel centers like Düsseldorf and Essen forged mountains of bombs and shells a key to this production was the transport system all the supply lines including canals were full the war machine rolled on after a winter during which weather had prevented large-scale Allied air attacks on 19 February weather cleared now we started the long planned attack against the Luftwaffe to win control of the skies over Europe no matter what the cost this was to pave the way for invasion general Eisenhower and his air officers general spots and Kepner watched our joint effort most of us came from do little's eight their force and Bill Kepner's fighter command the steepest resistance was expected to protect a thousand bombers we were sending along a thousand fighters we were going to destroy the Luftwaffe from the bottom up Nazi factories Nazi airdromes and Nazi planes in the sky most of general Pete Cassata's night their force fighter boys had come from units of the eight the battle wise general had helped drive the Luftwaffe out of Africa now Cassata was getting us ready for a series of operations which free people will always remember as the big week Sunday morning 20 February we prepared for the heaviest assault in the history of the American strategic air forces up to that time doubtful weather and a stronger Luftwaffe made this a big gamble some expected possible losses up to 200 bombers and crews this was the prelude to invasion general spratten spots and vandenberg hurried to join the show American heavy bombers from Britain and the Mediterranean and all the RAF could muster the equivalent of five air forces were about to hit the Nazis for six consecutive days and nights in the biggest air blitz of the war the allies hoped to finally win air superiority over the Luftwaffe the liberation of Europe was at stake now for the first time the AAF had the strength to mount a saturation offensive and to attack airfields and rocket launching sites to pull enemy strength away from the war factories our main objective services all fighter command elements were raising the curtain for the prelude to invasion golf signals marked a change in the basic use of all fighters until now they had only escorted the bombers this was expanded today's orders were pursue and destroy the enemy success of the Allied offensive depended on these escort fighters we tried to make our main effort appear as a two-pronged drive on Berlin ignoring the flak we kept in close formation for maximum self-protection as our thunderbolt a master's fighters they were as determined to stop us as we were to destroy them control of the sky German sky was the prize tanks and plunged into the fight leading with an Ohio boy captain Don Gentili ski from Pennsylvania joined the fight in the same outfit with Indiana's Major Walker me you're a sweep our boys were in good hands but enemy flak explosions were heavy accurate and intense the Germans closed in came down from almost invisible heights to in France and Holland our B-26 marauders evaded flak and unloaded over enemy air drones the brass hoped the weight of these bombs would force the Nazis to move their airfields inland boys was succeeding the same thing we hit Berlin for the first time a weight of our attacks increased and held down enemy plane production force the Luftwaffe into combat offensive was the culmination of the strategic air war that airmen had long advocated the strong shield of Hitler's fortress the Luftwaffe had been swept away as general Eisenhower proudly said the air did everything we asked they cleared the way for invasion the allies had attained freedom of the air with the combined long-range strategic bombing and tactical operations of the United States Air Force