On Normandy Flak force:

Canadian Military history

The history of Second Tactical Air Force

http://www.legionmagazine.com/featur...tory/99-01.asp

The Germans had been forced to concede air superiority in France, but they equipped their forces with enormous quantities of anti-aircraft guns, including the dual-purpose 88- and rapid-firing 20-and 40-mm guns.

Flak was a particularly dangerous threat to ground-support aircraft that were committed to low-level reconnaissance or tasked to attack ground targets. In the book Blue Skies, Olmstead writes: "Flak is the one thing that pilots, be they fighter or bomber, fear above everything else. Flying along in formation a mile or two above the earth, it is possible to avoid flak by taking evasive action through frequent alterations of course and altitude, but once committed to a dive on a target, the pilot must press home his attack while shells and bullets of all calibres flash by. We were quite philosophical about flak, as much as we hated it, because surviving flak was strictly a matter of luck, and it claimed the best pilots as well as the poorer ones in time. The 88-mm shells and heavier calibre guns burst with a bright red flash surrounded by a large ball of black, wicked-looking smoke that hung lazily in the sky. At dawn or dusk, pink tracer shells were visible, a sight that flyers will remember for years. It was a horrible feeling to climb away from a target and watch the rosy balls of red-hot death streaming by, missing you and your aircraft by a very few feet. Then there was the reverse effect when you attacked a target, and the shells seemed to come up so slowly that you felt you were watching them for ages. Not until they were close did you get the full impression of their tremendous speed. It took steady nerves to carry on facing so many deadly messengers."

The German anti-aircraft regiments, manned by the Luftwaffe, had years of practice. They inflicted terrible losses on Second TAF pilots. Between April 1 and June 5, 1944, 133 fighter bombers were shot down, and the toll increased after D-Day.

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