「the Allies replaced the 127 aircraft lost on the ground in less than a day」とのことだが、 それはその当日地上で大破炎上が確認されたものだけの数で、その日の損失は戦略爆撃その他も含めれば、 その倍くらいの損失機を出しているものと自分は考える。 戦略爆撃で昼夜米英合わせて延べ3000機出撃すれば、それだけで50機くらい失っていても不思議はない。
As the bulge was compressed, the Luftwaffe attempted one last effort to reduce the effectiveness of Allied fighter-bombers. In a dawn raid on 1 January 1945, Luftwaffe aircraft attacked Allied airfields in Belgium, Holland, and France-operation Bodenplatte (Base Plate).65 The Luftwaffe and the German command had once again achieved surprise. However, poor tactical execution and planning cost the Luftwaffe more than 300 of their attacking aircraft.66 More important, they lost 232 pilots--of which 18 were unit commanders and 59 were leaders; this was the life's blood of the Luftwaffe. As a pitiful epitaph, German flak gunners shot down as many as 100 of their own returning Luftwaffe aircraft.67 In contrast, the Allies replaced the 127 aircraft lost on the ground in less than a day, and the skies of 1 January 1945 saw the second largest Allied sortie rate of the battle.68 The Luftwaffe was rarely seen again in any appreciable strength.69 Bodenplatte was more than a total defeat. "The Luftwaffe [had] received its death blow."70
「more than 200 Allied aircraft were destroyed, with a further 150 damaged」だそうだ。
In the early morning of New Year's Day 1945, as the last great German offensive in Ardennes slowly smoldered to an end and the Allies prepared for a final year of war in northwest Europe, against all odds, the Luftwaffe -- assumed to be starved of fuel and fighting spirit -- launched a massive, surprise, low-level strike targeted at Allied tactical airfields throughout France, Belgium, and Holland. Planned under great secrecy, the raid gambled on using the bulk of Luftwaffe fighter assets on the Western Front, with the aim of decimating significant elements of both the British 2nd RAF and the USAAF on the ground. As the winter skies lightened, more than 900 German aircraft -- most of them Fw 190s and Bf 109s -- swept across vulnerable and unsuspecting airfields, including Brussels and Eindhoven. Altogether, more than 200 Allied aircraft were destroyed, with a further 150 damaged. But for the Luftwaffe it was a Pyrrhic victory; 271 fighters were lost and many more damaged. Worse still, of the 213 pilots lost, more than 20 were valuable formation leaders. Using hundreds of eye-witness accounts and rare photographs, this is a definitive study.
http://www.ecampus.com/book/1902109406 Bodenplatte: The Luftwaffe's Last Hope--the Attack On Allied Airfields, New Year's Day 1945 Author(s): Manrho, John