June 6th, 1944.
D-Day.
The largest amphibious operation in human history.
156,000 soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy.
5,000 ships.
11,000 aircraft.
The entire world held its breath.
Speed 440 plus m at altitude.
Two German fighters.
Just two.
Ysef Priller and his wingman Hinesford Darachic in their Fulervulf 190s roared over Sword Beach fired a burst from their cannons and flew away.
This was the only documented Luftwaffer attack on the invasion beaches during daylight hours.
Let’s grasp the scale of this.
Germany, the Third Reich, a war machine that had conquered all of Europe in 5 years.
the Luftwaffer, an air force that had destroyed Polish, French, and British air forces one after another.
And on the most critical day of the war, when the enemy is landing on the continent, they can only send two fighters.
But wait, 8 months earlier in October 1943, this same Luftwaffer was shooting down American bombers by the hundreds.
October 14th, 1943, Black Thursday.
60 B17s destroyed in a single day.
650 American airmen killed or captured.
Losses 26% of the entire attacking force.
What happened in those 8 months? How did an armada of thousands of fighters turn into two lonely aircraft? Today, we’ll conduct a forensic audit, a detailed investigation of the most important air victory of World War II.
This isn’t a story about bombs and explosions.
This is a story about the mathematics of death.
About how the Americans found the formula to destroy an entire air force.
Not by destroying aircraft production, but by killing pilots.
And at the center of this story, one aircraft, a fighter designed in 102 days.
A machine that changed the course of the war.
The P-51 Mustang.
Buckle up.
This is going to be a long flight.
Part one, the problem.
A trap with no exit.
Nails to one.
The impossible math of strategic bombing.
To understand why the Mustang changed everything, you first need to understand the trap the Americans were caught in.
1943.
American air doctrine was simple and beautiful on paper.
Daylight precision bombing.
Fly during the day.
See the target.
Bomb accurately.
Destroy German industry.
The B7 flying fortress was designed precisely for this.
13 machine guns, 50 caliber.
flying in combat box formation where each bomber covers its neighbor.
The theory stated German fighters won’t be able to break through the wall of fire.
The theory turned out to be a beautiful lie.
Let’s look at the numbers.
An American crew had to complete 25 combat missions to finish their tour and go home.
Sounds achievable, right? In late 1943, the statistics were this.
Only 36% of crews survived to their 25th mission.
36%.
This means out of every three crews arriving in England, two would never return home.
Someone would die over Germany.
Someone would bail out and become a prisoner.
Someone would burn alive at 25,000 ft.
Imagine this.
You’re a 19-year-old kid from Ohio.
You arrive at a base in England.
You look at your two buddies, Jim and Tom, who went through training with you.
Statistically, two of the three of you won’t come back.
And you know what was worse? American fighters didn’t have enough range.
The P-47 Thunderbolt, an excellent fighter, powerful, tough, but its combat radius with dropping tanks, maximum 400 m.
That was enough to escort bombers to the German border.
And then what? Then 2 hours of flight over enemy territory without cover alone against the entire fighter force of the Reich.
August 17th, 1943.
Schweinffort and Reagansburg.
376 B17s sent to bomb the factories.
60 didn’t return.
Another 95 were damaged so badly they never flew again.
October 14th, 1943.
Second Schwinfoot.
Black Thursday.
291 bombers.
60 shot down.
17 scrapped after landing.
121 damaged.
Crew losses 650 men out of 2,900.
22% in a single day after Black Thursday.
Deep raids into Germany were suspended for five months.
Five months.
American strategic bombing doctrine, the foundation of the entire air war, had hit a dead end.
Not because the bombers were bad, not because the crews were cowards, but because the math was merciless.
The Germans understood this perfectly.
Their tactic was simple.
Wait until the American fighters turn back due to fuel shortage and then attack.
It was the perfect trap.
And there was no way out until one aircraft appeared.
Nailed Dagger 2, the aircraft that shouldn’t have existed.
April 1940, the war in Europe had been going on for 7 months.
France hadn’t fallen yet.
Britain was desperately searching for fighters.
Any fighters? The British Purchasing Commission approached North American Aviation with a request.
Start producing P40s under license from Curtis.
The P40, not a perfect aircraft, but it was already in production.
It was proven.
It was needed urgently.
And then NLA President James Dutch Kindleberger did what would later be called either genius or madness.
He said, “We can design and build a better fighter in the same time it would take us to set up a P40 production line.
” The British were skeptical.
Eno had never built fighters.
They had experience with trainers and bombers, but Kindleberger was persuasive.
The contract was signed on May 23rd, 1940.
Deadline 120 days for a prototype.
Kindleberger called in his chief designer, Edgar Schmood.
Ed, do we want to build P40s here? Schmood had been waiting for a question like this for years.
His answer, well, Dutch, don’t let us build an obsolete airplane.
Let’s build a new one.
And here’s what’s remarkable.
Edgar was born in Germany.
a self-taught engineer who never received formal engineering education.
An immigrant who came to America via Brazil.
And this very man designed the aircraft that would destroy the Luftvafa, the air force of his native country.
The irony of history.
Schme assembled a team.
Raymond Rice, Ed Hawk, Larry Wait, Artchester.
Their work week looked like this.
Every day until late at night, the only early departure.
Sunday at p.m.
78,000 man hours or 102 days.
On September 9th, 1940, the NA73X prototype rolled out of the hanger.
Without an engine, the Allison wasn’t ready yet.
18 days later, the engine was installed.
October 26th, 1940, first flight.
Test pilot Vance Breeze took the machine into the air.
149 days from contract signing to first flight.
This was incredibly fast, even by wartime standards.
But here’s the problem.
The early Mustang with the Allison engine was an excellent aircraft at low and medium altitudes.
Up to 15,000 ft, it outperformed the Spitfire, but higher.
The Allison V1710 engine didn’t have a supercharger for high altitude flight, and the bombers flew at 23,26,000 ft where the Allison choked.
The RAF used early Mustangs for reconnaissance and ground attack, they flew low and fast, but as escort for bombers, useless.
The aircraft that was supposed to change the war ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong engine.
And then a miracle happened, or rather one test flight.
Nail Farah 3.
The flight that changed history.
April 30th, 1942, Duxford Airfield, England.
Ronald Harker, a test pilot for Rolls-Royce, arrived to look at this new American fighter.
Harker took off in a Mustang for half an hour of flight.
And when he landed, he was both thrilled and furious.
Thrilled because at medium altitudes, the Mustang was 30 mees faster than the Spitfire MKV.
Its range was nearly double.
Handling superb.
Furious because above 18,000 ft, the aircraft became helpless.
The engine lost power.
Rate of climb dropped.
An excellent airframe was chained to the ground by a mediocre engine.
Harker landed and immediately called Ray Dory, head of Rolls-Royce’s experimental division.
Ray, how quickly can we put a Merlin 61 on this aircraft? The Merlin 61, the engine from the Spitfire Mckina two-stage supercharger.
Excellent high alitude performance.
And most importantly, it was almost the same size as the Allison.
Within 48 hours, Dory contacted Ernest Hives, head of Rolls-Royce.
Permission granted, project launched.
Five Mustangs were allocated for conversion.
The first serial number AL975 took to the air on October 13th, 1942.
Pilot Captain RT Shepard.
The results were, let me just read you the numbers.
Allison Mustang, maximum speed at 15,000 effort, 360 men bar.
Service ceiling approximately 30,000 power at 20,000 vast significantly below rated Merlin Mustang Mustang X maximum speed at 22,000 to 433 MAPI service ceiling 40,600 tier power at altitude maintained thanks to two-stage supercharger speed increased by almost 75 me tourist ceiling increased by more than 10,000 ft.
eat.
This wasn’t an upgrade.
This was a metamorphosis.
Parker would later say, “When I saw the test results, I knew we had created a fighter that would change the course of the war.” Simultaneously, in the US, Packard received a license to manufacture the Merlin under the designation V1650.
North American began their own conversion program.
The first XP-51B took to the air on November 30th, 1942, just weeks after the British Mustang X.
Test pilot Bob Chilton achieved a speed of 441 meal at 29,800 ft, 441 mph.
This was faster than any production fighter in the world, faster than the BF109G, faster than the FW19A, faster than the Spitfire.
But speed was only half the equation.
The other half range.
With two 75gal drop tanks, the P-51B could fly more than 1,700 m.
later with internal fuselage tanks more than 2,000 mi.
Berlin was 600 m from bases in England.
There and back 1 200 m with reserve for combat.
For the first time in history, the allies had a fighter that could escort bombers to any point in Germany and back.
Part two, the turning point, the doolittle doctrine.
Nail number four, the man who rewrote the rules.
January 1944, Major General James Doolittle takes command of the Eighth Air Force.
Doolittle, a legend.
This was the man who in April 1942 led 16 B-25s to bomb Tokyo, the first strike on the Japanese homeland.
This was the man who set numerous aviation records back in the 1930s.
This was not just a pilot, but a doctor of aeronautical science, but what made Dittle a great commander.
He knew how to see the obvious when everyone else was blinded by tradition.
Shortly after taking command, Doolittle visited the headquarters of the eighth Fighter Command.
He was met by Major General William Keaptainner.
On the wall of Keaptainner’s office hung a poster.
The first duty of eighth air force fighters is to bring the bombers back alive.
Doolittle looked at the poster.
Then at Keaptainner, take it down.
Keaptain was confused.
Sir, that sign is wrong.
Put up a new one.
The first duty of eighth air force fighters is to destroy German fighters.
This wasn’t just a moment of fighter pilot bravado.
This was a fundamental shift in air warfare strategy.
Doolittle would later say, “As far as I’m concerned, this was the most important and far-reaching military decision I made during the war.
” “What was the difference? Before Doolittle, American fighters flew on a leash with the bombers, stayed close, defended the formation, didn’t pursue Germans if they withdrew.
The tactic was defensive.
Don’t let them reach our boys.
Dittle turned everything around.
Now fighters pushed ahead 2550 mi in front of the bombers.
Entire fighter groups cleared the route.
They caught the Germans on takeoff.
They attacked them on their airfields.
They pursued until the last drop of fuel.
And most importantly, after the bombers dropped their bombs, fighters got freedom to hunt.
They descended to treetop level and strafed airfields, transport, fuel depots.
German pilots were no longer safe anywhere.
Not in the air, not on the ground.
Bomber crews were initially terrified.
Where are our little friends? They asked, not seeing fighters nearby.
Why did they abandon us? But the statistics didn’t lie.
In January 1944, the 8th Air Force had 461 operational bombers and 274 fighters.
By mid 1944, 1,655 bombers and 882 fighters.
And most importantly, P-51BS and P-51C’s began arriving in massive numbers.
Nail number five, Big Week, the beginning of the end.
February 20th 25, 1944.
Operation Argument, later called Big Week.
The plan was simple and ruthless.
Massive daylight raids on German aircraft factories every day, non-stop as long as weather permitted, and for the first time with full fighter escort to and from the target.
Over 6 days, the Eighth Air Force from England flew more than 3,000 bomber sorties.
The 15th Air Force from Italy added another 500 plus.
RAF Bomber Command attacked the same targets at night.
Results for the Americans.
losses.
226 heavy bombers, approximately 2,600 crew members killed or captured.
Sounds terrible.
Now look at the other side.
The Luftwaffa lost during this week, according to German documents, 262 fighters in air combat.
But that’s just the beginning.
American fighters claimed 600 plus victories.
Even adjusted for typical overclaiming.
Real German losses were catastrophic.
But the main thing, pilots.
17% of Luftwafa fighter pilots were lost in a single week.
Approximately 100 pilots killed.
And these weren’t rookies.
These were experienced pilots who had survived the battles of 1943.
Flight leaders, instructors, aces.
Lieutenant General Adolf Galland, commander of Luftwaffer Fighter Forces, would later say, “Between February 20th and 25, 1944, we lost more than 1,000 pilots.
This was the beginning of our end.
But big week was only the first act.
Nail number six.
March 6th, 1944.
The day the Mustang came to Berlin.
After big week, do little knew.
Time to strike at the heart.
Berlin, the capital of the Reich, the lair of the beast, the most defended target in Europe.
On March 6th, 1944, the 8th Air Force sent 730 heavy bombers to Berlin.
This was the first successful American daylight raid on the German capital.
And for the first time, fighters went all the way to Berlin and back.
P-51BS from the 357th Fighter Group, one of the first equipped with Mustangs, flew in the Vanguard.
This was the group known as the Yford Boys.
They had arrived in England in late 1943, trained on P39s, and first saw a P-51 literally days before their first combat mission.
Some pilots had only 5 hours of flight time in the Mustang, some 1 hour.
Colonel Donald Blakesley of the fourth fighter group told his men, “You can learn to fly 51s on the way to the target.
” March 6th, 1944 became a turning point.
American fighters claimed 35 victories over German fighters, beyond the range of any other Allied fighter.
This was proof.
From now on, the Luftwaffer was safe from nowhere.
But American losses were also high.
69 bombers didn’t return.
The worst figure for a single mission.
11 fighters lost.
However, these were acceptable losses because the equation had changed.
Every downed American bomber, that’s a loss of an aircraft.
An aircraft can be built in weeks.
Every downed German fighter, that’s a loss of a pilot.
A pilot who was trained for 2 years.
A pilot who cannot be replaced.
America was building 9,000 aircraft per month.
America was producing hundreds of pilots every week.
Germany couldn’t compete in either.
And Doolittle understood this.
Part three, the collapse.
Anatomy of destruction.
Nailed the seven.
The mathematics of attrition, numbers of death.
Let’s talk about numbers because numbers tell the real story.
In 1943, the Luftwaffer had an average of 2,5 fighter pilots on strength monthly.
Over the entire year, 2,167 pilots were lost, killed, wounded, missing in action.
That’s 140% of average strength per year.
How is this possible? Because replacements arrived constantly.
New pilots replaced the fallen, but each new pilot was less experienced than the one he replaced.
Now, look at what happened in 1944.
In November and December 1943, monthly losses were approximately 10% of pilots.
In January 1944, 16.9%.
In February, big week, numbers shot through the roof.
By spring 1944, losses reached 25% per month.
25% every month.
Let me explain what this means in terms anyone can understand.
Imagine you have an office with 100 employees.
Every month, 25 of them quit.
You hire 25 new ones, but the new hires don’t know the job as well as the old ones.
After four months, you formally have the same 100 people, but none of the original staff, and productivity drops catastrophically.
Now, imagine quitting means dying.
In May 1944, the Luftwaffer lost 489 fighter pilots.
Training centers graduated 396 new pilots.
Deficit 93 pilots in a single month.
And these weren’t just any 489 dead.
among them group commanders, squadron commanders, pilots with hundreds of combat sorties, those who trained the newcomers.
A German fighter pilot statistically had an average chance of dying of 3.
3% per month throughout the war.
After 2 years of service, half of ordinary pilots would be dead.
Among ACEs, those who flew more often and more aggressively, only 25% survived.
By July 1944, according to Field Marshall Vonsper’s report, only group and squadron commanders had more than 6 months of combat experience.
Most ordinary pilots had between 8 and 30 days of active service, 8 to 30 days.
This meant a rookie arrived at the unit, flew a few sorties, and died or was wounded.
He was replaced by the next rookie, and so on.
The Luftwaffer had become a meat grinder.
Nailed the Mate.
Training collapsed.
No one to teach, nothing to teach with, nothing to teach in.
But where did these rookies with 8 to 30 days of experience come from? Why were they so poorly prepared? The answer lies in flight training numbers.
1939 to 1942, a German fighter pilot received 220 250 hours of flight training before combat assignment.
For comparison, an American pilot by 1944 had 450 plus hours, including 250 hours of training.
A British pilot 350 plus hours.
Now watch what happened to German training.
October 1942, June 1943, 190, 220 hours.
July 1943, June 1944, 160, 180 hours.
July 1944 onward 110 120 hours.
By early 1944, the average German pilot arrived at his unit with 160 hours of flight time versus 400 plus for an American, 2 and a half times less.
But that wasn’t the bottom.
By late 1944, 80 hours, in some cases, 60 hours.
Cases were documented where 17-year-old youths were sent into combat with only 6 hours of flight time.
6 hours.
That’s not even enough to learn confident takeoffs and landings, let alone air combat against a pilot with 400 hours in the cockpit.
And by February 1945, Luftwaffer pilot training simply ceased completely.
Zero hours.
There was no fuel.
There were no instructors.
They’d all been sent to the front.
There was no safe airspace for training.
American fighters hunted everywhere.
The system self-destructed.
Imagine a university that loses 25% of its professors every semester.
They’re replaced by sophomore students who haven’t finished their own education yet.
Within a year, this university is a parody of education.
That’s what happened to the Luftwaffer.
Nail number nine, fuel starvation.
A machine without blood.
But even if the Germans had pilots, they had nothing to fly on.
More precisely, nothing to fuel them with.
By 1944, 92% of Germany’s aviation gasoline was produced at synthetic fuel plants.
25 plants across the country with peak production of 124,000 barrels per day in early 1944.
The Allies didn’t understand for a long time how vulnerable this system was.
But in May 1944, targeted strikes began.
May 12th, 1944, the first massive attack on the oil industry.
935 bombers struck plants in the leip area and at Brooks Czechoslovakia Albert Spear Reich Minister of Armaments would later say on that day the technological war was decided.
Look at aviation fuel production numbers.
April 1944 175,000 tons.
June 1944 56,000 tons against a planned 198,000.
July 1944, 30,000 tons.
September 1944, 5,000 tons from 175,000 to 5,000 in 5 months, a drop of 97%.
On June 30th, 1944, Spear reported to Hitler, by June 22nd, we lost 90% of aviation gasoline production.
July 21st, 1944, 98% of fuel plants are out of operation.
What did this mean for the Luftwaffer? fighters sat on the ground literally, not because they were broken, not because there were no pilots, but because there was no fuel.
According to some data, on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, the Luftwaffer had 815 fighters ready for combat, but they flew only about 100 sorties.
100 sorties against 14,074 Allied sorties.
Why fuel? Moreover, the lack of fuel destroyed not only combat operations, it destroyed training.
In 1943, 10,000 tons of fuel per month were allocated for training flights.
By February 1944, this figure had to be temporarily increased to 50,000 tons, a desperate attempt to accelerate pilot training before the expected invasion.
After May 1944, fuel allocation for training was completely eliminated.
zero.
How can you teach someone to fly without fuel for the aircraft? You can’t.
Reserves were melting away.
In May 1944, Germany had 580,000 tons of aviation fuel in reserves.
By September, 180,000 tons.
By year’s end, 159,000 tons.
In December 1944, Spear characterized the fuel situation as catastrophic.
During the Arden’s offensive, December 16th, 1944, Germany’s last major offensive of the war, German command planned to capture Allied fuel depots because they had none of their own.
By February March 1945, 1,200 tanks on the Vistula stood motionless.
Not a drop of fuel.
Advancing Soviet forces simply captured them.
The Luftwaffer died of thirst.
Nailed the F10.
The production paradox.
Aircraft exist, no one to fly them.
And here’s the craziest paradox of this story.
Despite the bombing, despite the resource shortages, German aircraft production grew.
In 1944, Germany produced approximately 36,000 combat aircraft, more than in any previous year of the war.
How is this possible? Albert Spear dispersed production.
Factories moved into caves, mines, forests.
Concentration camp prisoners and PSWs were used as labor.
By late 1944, up to 90,000 concentration camp inmates worked in aircraft factories.
But, and this is the critical but, aircraft without pilots are useless.
Aircraft without fuel are useless.
Germany produced fighters faster than the Allies shot them down.
But Germany couldn’t produce pilots.
Couldn’t produce fuel.
It was an industrial death machine running on empty.
In January 1942, the Luftwaffer had 1,24 fighters on strength.
In July 1943, peak 1849 fighters.
By July 1944, 1523 fighters.
By September 1944, slight recovery to 1,610 and then inexurable decline.
Notice in July 1944, the Germans had fewer fighters on strength than in July 1943.
Despite record production, where did they go? They were shot down faster than they could be put into service.
Pilots died faster than they could be trained.
Fuel ran out faster than it could be produced.
Three vicious circles spinning simultaneously.
And at the center of each, the P-51 Mustang.
Part four.
The verdict.
The price of victory.
Nailed a war of 11.
and D-Day.
Proof of victory.
Let’s return to the beginning.
June 6th, 1944.
Two German fighters over the beaches of Normandy.
Now you understand why there were only two.
Ysef Prill, commander of JG26, and his wingman Hines were the only pilots in their unit who could take off that day.
The rest of the squadron’s aircraft were in Germany defending against bombers.
They simply couldn’t be brought back in time.
Friller later recalled that he was certain they wouldn’t return from this sorty.
Two fighters against all of Allied aviation, but they returned because no one even tried to intercept them.
The Allies were so confident in their superiority that two lone German fighters simply weren’t perceived as a threat.
Here are the D-Day numbers.
Allies 14,674 sorties.
Losses 113 aircraft, mostly to anti-aircraft fire.
Luftwuffer approximately 319 sorties a ratio of 461.
But that’s not the important thing.
What’s important is what could have been.
If the Luftwaffer had maintained strength at 1943 levels with 500 plus fighters capable of attacking daily, the Normandy landing could have failed or cost many times more casualties.
But by June 1944, the Luftvafa had been knocked out.
Not completely destroyed.
They could still bite back.
But as a systematic force, they had ceased to exist.
General Dwight Eisenhower said before the invasion, “If you see planes overhead, they will be ours.” And he was right.
Nail number 12, “The price, what it cost.
Victory wasn’t free.” The Eighth Air Force lost approximately 26,000 men killed during the war.
That’s more than all casualties of the US Marine Corps in World War II.
Half of all USAF losses died in the Eighth Air Force.
4,54 B17s were lost in the European theater.
2,12 B-24s likewise.
Each bomber, that’s 10 crew members.
Each fighter, one pilot, bomber crews suffered particularly heavy losses.
A waste gunner died nearly twice as often as anyone in other positions, but the ratio favored the Allies.
Eight Air Force fighters claimed 5,280 aerial victories and 4,100 aircraft destroyed on the ground.
Fighter losses 2,113, a ratio of 4.5.1 in the air.
260 pilots of eight fighter command became aces by American standards.
Five or more victories.
And most importantly, this price was acceptable for America because America could replace the losses.
Germany could not.
Nail number 13.
Why the Mustang specifically? A fair question arises.
Why was the P-51 Mustang specifically the decisive factor? There were other fighters.
The P-47 Thunderbolt an excellent aircraft, powerful, tough, fast in a dive, but its range, even with drop tanks, didn’t allow reaching Berlin and returning with enough fuel for combat.
The P-38 Lightning twin engine, long range but complex to produce and maintain.
And it didn’t handle cold well at high altitudes.
Oil thickened engines fail.
The Spitfire legendary but short legs.
It was designed for defending Britain, not for long range raids.
Only the P-51 Mustang combined everything.
One range 1700 plus miles with drop tanks.
And one more factor that’s rarely discussed, rate of climb.
The P-51 could climb twice as fast as the Allison powered version.
This meant if German fighters tried to attack from above, the Mustang could climb to meet them.
If they tried to escape upward, the Mustang caught up.
The Germans no longer had the altitude advantage.
The BF 109G and FW19A were excellent fighters, but against a Mustang with a well-trained pilot, they lost more often than they won.
And when the pilot training ratio became 2.5.1 in favor of the Americans, the outcome was predetermined.
Epilogue, the verdict of history, final nail.
What does all this mean? So, the verdict.
The P-51 Mustang didn’t destroy the Luftwaffer alone.
The system did.
A system that included American industrial production, 276,000 aircraft during the war, British technology, the Merlin engine, the Dittle doctrine, aggressive tactics instead of defensive, strategic bombing, strikes on the oil industry, pilot training, 450 hours versus 80.
But the Mustang was the key element without which the system didn’t work.
Before the Mustang, bombers flew to their deaths.
After the Mustang, bombers flew under protection.
Before the Mustang, German pilots could choose when and where to attack.
After the Mustang, German pilots died everywhere.
Before the Mustang, the Luftwaffer controlled the skies over Germany.
After the Mustang, they controlled nothing.
Herman Guring, commander of the Luftwaffer, allegedly said, “When I saw fighters over Berlin, I knew the war was lost.
The fighters he saw were P-51 Mustangs.
And one last thing, Edgar Schmud, a German immigrant, self-taught engineer, designer of the Mustang, created the aircraft that destroyed the air force of his native country.
He didn’t do it out of hatred for Germany.
He did it because he believed a good engineer creates the best he’s capable of, and fate decides how it will be used.
Fate decided.
15 to 486 P-51 Mustangs were built.
4950 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air.
Countless thousands on the ground.
And one result, the skies over Europe became free.
If you enjoyed this forensic audit of the air war, subscribe to the channel, hit the bell so you don’t miss the next episodes.
Next time, we’ll analyze another story.
How one engineering decision can change the course of an entire war.
See you in the comments.
And remember, history isn’t just dates and names.
It’s mathematics.
The mathematics of production, losses, and survival.
Whoever counts better, wins.
Bonus interesting facts for title cards.
B-roll.
The P-51 Mustang was designed in 102 days.
A record short time frame, even by wartime standards.
Edgar never received formal engineering education.
He was self-taught.
The word mustang, a wild horse, was suggested by the British who first ordered the aircraft.
In one battle on March 6th, 1944, the 357th Fighter Group claimed 20 victories, their first big day, the top 100 aces of all time are all German.
Eric Hartman scored 352 victories.
But of 107 German aces with 100 plus victories, only eight began service after June 1942.
The rest were veterans of the early war years.
Operation Bowden Plutter, January 1st, 1945, was the Luftvafer’s last major operation.
They destroyed nearly 500 Allied aircraft on the ground, but lost 271 aircraft and critically 143 pilots.
The Allies replaced losses in a week.
The Luftvafer never.
By February 1945, the German pilot training system had completely ceased to exist.
Zero hours of training, zero graduates.
When Soviet forces captured Berlin, they found hundreds of brand new fighters at airfields without fuel and without pilots.
After the war, the P-51 Mustang continued to serve in the Korean War in the air forces of dozens of countries.
The last combat Mustangs were retired only in 1984 in the Dominican Republic.
Today, surviving P-51s are among the most valuable collector aircraft in the world.
The price of a flyable example can exceed $4 million.
