The Western Allies benefitted from a better policy regarding their pilots during the Second World War. Unlike the Germans, the British and Americans would withdraw pilots who had served for certain periods of time and place them into instructional roles. This allowed them to pass their valuable experience onto rookie pilots, greatly increasing their chances of survival. The Germans meanwhile kept their most experienced pilots in front line roles until they were killed. By the time of D-Day, Germany’s most experienced pilots were long gone, suffering greatly during the Battle of Britain, the war in North Africa, the Eastern Front and the Italian Front.

By the time of D-Day, the Allies had secured air superiority both over Britain and over France. This was required not only to protect the landings but also to allow the bombing of infrastructure targets in France in accordance with the Transport plan, the aspect of Operation Overlord that required the destruction of the French railway system, bridges, rolling stock, marshalling yards etc, and to allow thorough aerial reconnaissance of the landing sites and the regions beyond.

As a result of Western Allied aerial superiority, German aerial reconnaissance was virtually ineffective. Preventing the Germans from discovering the embarkation areas, the camps and vehicle depots established in preparation for the landings was essential and the USAAF and RAF flew regular and continuous patrols to intercept German reconnaissance aircraft. As part of Operation Fortitude however, the operation responsible for the deception operations to convince the Germans that the landings would come anywhere BUT Normandy, the patrols would sometimes allow German aircraft through and allow them to photograph the fake camps and vehicles established to promote the idea that the landings would take place in the Pas de Calais. Allowing the Germans to take those pictures rather then providing the Germans with information was essential in convincing the Germans to draw their own conclusions regarding the final destination of the invasion force.

Source: Fortitude by Roger Hesketh

So to begin broadly, the Luftwaffe was effectively a beaten force by 1944. The Luftwaffe was stretched paper thin over a massive front and German pilots could not compete anymore.

One of the initial paradoxes in the debate coles from raw numbers. German production of aircraft went up each year up until 1945, so in theory they should have many planes. Here are the numbers of fighters Germany produced in 1941-1944.

1941: 4416 1942: 10769 1943: 23988 1944: 38873

I’ll include the source at the bottom though fair warning it is in German.

These numbers are quite respectable but are bizarre when one considers that on June 4th 1944, Speer, in a letter to Hitler estimated the Luftwaffe had merely 1769 fighters on all fronts COMBINED. This seeming paradox really shows us how utterly dead the Luftwaffe was at this point. For reference, at the outset of war in 1939, the Luftwaffe had 1180 fighters. Another reference, while I could not find exact fighter amounts for the allies at d day on short notice, approximately 12000 total planes participated in D-Day, if even 1 in 12 was a fighter, they would have vastly outnumbered the planes Germany could muster.

So despite the massive numbers of planes produced, only a small percentage were in the air. This is because of a variety of factors. A large factor in this was absolutely the deaths of German pilots. Much like the Japanese Air Force during the Second World War, Germany found itself lacking skilled and experienced pilots by the end of the war. New recruits were essentially sent up with only a few hours of training and were quickly shot down.

This led into a negative spiral effect for the Germans. The Germans had too few planes meaning their pilots would not get the support they needed to win engagements and because they didn’t get the support they needed, they were shot down. In essence, Germany’s long war of attrition had bled the nation of its pilots. German plane production has always been below that of the allies but by entering the negative feedback loop of pilot attrition, the German pilots simply couldn’t compete.

Another factor is absolutely that Germany was focused on another front. Even though Germany had less than 2000 fighters in June 1944, it is likely the majority were not stationed in France. While their exact placements is information I don’t have, we can make an educated guess that due to strong allied bombing campaigns in 1944-1945 and due to the absolutely massive vacuum of men and resources the east front had become, that most fighters would have been placed either on the eastern front or on home defense. Just looking at the vast amount of German resources on the east front compared to the west front shows how strongly the focus was eastward, as such the Germans always had little men and resources to spare for the western front (except during the battle of the bulge when German resources were consciously sent west despite weakening the eastern front, but that’s another story).

Another cause may have been the acute fuel shortage the German Reich found itself in in the later war. While fuel could likely have been found for plane operations, the German fuel shortage would likely have minimized flight hours during missions and more critically during training. With no fuel to spare the Germans were unlikely to waste it on training exercises, rather than using that fuel to run the tanks or the stukas for a day. I’m uncertain how much of a factor this played but it likely compounded the already acute pilot shortage by 1944.

On a more immediate and tactical level, the weather over Normandy during D-Day was not favorable to aircraft, in particular in the early hours. The early morning had heavy clouds that made air power ineffective and although this would clear up later, by then the allies had landed and any remaining German fighters could not prevent the landings or the paradrops effectively.

In short, Germany was out of planes, out of pilots and out of fuel. It was focused primarily on defending against the Soviet advance and even if planes had been diverted to D-Day, the weather prevented successful sorties as well as the vast allied superiority in planes.

Anyways I’ll end it here since the length is lagging my phone and it’s nearly 4 am. But it is clear to say the Luftwaffe could not realistically contest the air over Normandy.

Source for figures, as promised:

http://download.gsb.bund.de/BBK/Hampe/05_Verlauf_des_Luftkrieges_S_95_137.pdf (pg. 129)