Mace, Martin/Grehan, John Operation Bodenplatte

The Luftwaffe’s Last Offensive in the West in WW2

Hitler's Ardennes offensive, his last great effort, had stalled. After initial German successes, the Allies had recovered. In a desperate bid to regain ground, the Luftwaffe sought to gain control of the air by launching a major attack on Allied airfields in the Netherlands Operation Bodenplatte. On 1 January 1945, more than 800 fighter planes and fighter bombers, mainly Focke-Wulf Fw 190s and Messerschmitt Bf 109s, were dispatched on this dawn low-level attack on Allied airfields in Belgium and the Netherlands. The aim was to destroy or damage as many Allied aircraft, hangars and runways as possible. Lieutenant General Adolf Galland, who was responsible for the German air force and the original plans for Operation Bodenplatte, realised that the Allies had built up such a strong air force that the airfields used by the Allies would inevitably be overloaded. Since the Luftwaffe rarely risked attacks in daylight, he hoped to catch the Allies off guard and take out their aircraft in a single massive attack on the ground. Galland's plan worked. The surprise was complete, and many Allied aircraft were destroyed before they could take off. Allied pilots and aircrew ran or dived for cover as German fighters swept across the airfields at Duerne, near Antwerp, Evere, in Brussels, Eindhoven, Ghent and a further twelve bases belonging to the RAF's 2nd Tactical Air Force and the US 8th and 9th Air Forces. But not all attacks were as successful as Galland had hoped. At some airfields, the Allied squadrons were not present because they were already involved in operations, and at others, strong anti-aircraft batteries took a heavy toll on the attackers. As Galland explained: In unfamiliar conditions and with insufficient training and combat experience, our numerical strength had no effect. It was decimated during transfers, on the ground, in major air battles... and finally destroyed. The numbers vary greatly, but it has been documented that 224 Allied aircraft were destroyed (including 144 RAF), and a further 84 were so badly damaged that they could no longer be repaired. The Luftwaffe, for its part, lost 62 aircraft to Allied fighters and 172 to flak guns losses that it was never really able to replace, especially in terms of air crews. In Galland's words, the Luftwaffe received its deathblow in the Battle of the Bulge. The story of the last great air battle of World War II is vividly told in a detailed narrative and a unique collection of dramatic photographs, allowing the reader to see the destruction and devastation wrought by the German attacks and the devastating losses suffered by the Luftwaffe.