The Royal Air Force (RAF)

Formed on 1 April 1918, the Royal Air Force is the world's oldest independent air force. During World War II, the RAF had three front-line commands: Coastal Command, Fighter Command, and Bomber Command. On D-Day, RAF Coastal Command had 549 organic aircraft and operational control over an additional 129 aircraft from the U.S. Navy's Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Its Overlord assignment was to deny U-boats access to the Allied beachhead, prevent light surface craft from interdicting inbound Allied vessels, and disrupt the enemy's sea-based logistical efforts. As D-Day approached, Germany could launch a hundred U-boats toward the Channel from ports in the Bay of Biscay and Norway, so with the Strait of Dover sealed by Allied mines, Coastal Command concentrated on closing the Channel's western end. Based at Plymouth, nineteen squadrons of maritime patrol aircraft of No. 19 Group had driven the Biscay flotilla back to port by the end of May, while No. 18 Group in Scotland stymied the Norway flotilla, sinking sixteen U-boats and crippling twelve others from mid-May through July. From D-Day through D+4, Coastal Command sank or crippled nearly sixty U-boats, and between D-Day and the breakout of the American Army, U-boats sank only nine Allied ships. During June, the Command flew 4,724 sorties and lost sixty aircraft protecting the Allied beachhead from U-boats. For the surface craft mission, ten squadrons of No. 16 Group at Chatham patrolled near Cherbourg and Le Havre and along the North Foreland-Calais and Portland-Cherbourg axes, using heavy patrols, flare drops, radar scans, and Beaufighter strikes at dusk and dawn. There were 130 sorties on D-Day, ninety more on D+1, and another 1700 by month's end, eliminating nearly 200 targeted surface craft. Coastal Command's response to its third assignment was limited to a D-Day attack on German destroyers near the Gironde Estuary and, nine days later, the torpedoing of two large supply ships. For Overlord, more than half of Fighter Command's squadrons received tactical assignments in the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, while the rest became Air Defense of Great Britain Command. On 14 April 1944, General Eisenhower took control of Bomber Command, whose 1,400 heavy bombers continued an offensive against French railways that had begun five weeks earlier. By D-Day, Bomber Command had flown about 25,000 sorties and dropped 87,000 tons in the railway offensive. During the night of 5-6 June, 1,200 bombers attacked ten heavy gun batteries in the landing area, dropped metal foil bundles over the Strait of Dover to mislead enemy radar operators, jammed enemy radio communications, and bombed targets in Germany. The ensuing 8,500-sortie offensive continued for the next eleven days, impeding enemy reinforcement and resupply in the battle zone while also beginning a bombing offensive against German oil refineries. This account also honors 1st Lieutenant William Ashby Davis, a physician with the 228th Medical Dispensary, 831st Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps, who was among 580 men lost off North Africa when SS Paul Hamilton was destroyed by Junker JU-88 aircraft on 20 April 1944, and Captain William Earle Betts Jr., who landed on Omaha Beach on 29 July 1944 and whose service with the 818th Engineer Aviation Battalion from 1942 to 1945 was recognized with a Bronze Star Medal and the French Croix de Guerre.

Bedford, Virginia · United States