Aerial Assault – The day Fortress Europe fell

Flying above the clouds, John T. Sessions’ P-51B “Impatient Virgin?” comes in close for the camera. By June of 1944, the bubble-canopy D models began replacing B and C models, some of which received the bulged “Malcolm hood” seen here. (Photo by John Dibbs/Facebook.com/theplanepicture)

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Today the numbers involved in Operation Overlord are unthinkable: 6,000 bombers, more than 5,000 fighters, some 1,600 transport aircraft, and 2,500 gliders. All crammed into scores of airfields throughout Britain, but mainly in southern England. All were serviced, armed, and assigned aircrews, eager to take off on the day called “D.” In June 1944, the European War had dramatically reversed from four years previously. When Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht conquered Western Europe in 10 weeks, Nazi...

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