Big Week 1944: Operation Argument and the breaking of the Jagdwaffe

A rigorous new analysis of America’s legendary ‘Big Week’ air campaign which enabled the Allies to gain air superiority before D-Day.

The USAAF’s mighty World War II bomber forces
were designed for unescorted, precision daylight bombing, but no-one
foresaw the devastation that German radar-directed interceptors would inflict
on them. Following the failures of 1943’s Schweinfurt-Regensburg raids, and
with D-Day looming, the Allies urgently needed to crush the Luftwaffe’s
ability to oppose the landings.

In
February 1944, the Allies conceived and fought history’s first-ever
successful offensive counter air (OCA) campaign, Operation Argument or

Big Week. Attacking German aircraft factories with hundreds of heavy
bombers, escorted by the new long-range P-51 Mustang, it aimed both to slash
aircraft production and force the Luftwaffe into combat, allowing the new Mustangs
to take their toll on the German interceptors. This expertly written, illustration-packed
account explains
how the Allies finally began to win air superiority over Europe, and how Operation
Argument marked the beginning of the Luftwaffe’s fall.