The turning point of the European theater was in May of 1944 when the P-51D Mustangs began escorting the Bombers. With the loss of air superiority over their homeland, Germany was doomed.
What we contemplate here are a collection of interleaved occurences, of which a few stick out, and their relative importance remains debateable.
Of course the Allies’ codebreaking successes were hugely important, leading notably to not only the fatal few minutes for the Imperial Japanese Navy off Midway, but being equally as significant in turning the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic (which was as important a prosecution as was prevailing in the Battle of Britain in allowing the Allies to mount the Normandy invasion).
I said before that I don’t buy the idea that Barbarossa was fatally crippled by the timing of its launching, but Little Nemo took my thought further. I don’t think Nazi Germany under Hitler ever had a chance of toppling the Soviet Union. And I think, if one wants to try and identify a turning point, Stalingrad and Kursk both came after the telling and fatal inability of the Wermacht and the SS to deal with that Russian winter of 1941.
Apollyon notes the effect of Doolittle’s raid. The raid itself was a pinprick, but it lead directly to a shift in the Japanese war effort that allowed us the victory at Midway.
And yes, to whomever asked, Ensign Gay was the sole survivor of Torpedo 8, who watched the battle while clinging to floating debris. IIRC, when picked up by a PBY the next day and delivered to a medic, who asked him what, if any, treatment his wounds had had already, he replied, “I’ve soaked them in salt water for 24 hours.”
Thanks to Ringo Little Nemo and Gorsnak for insightful comments and gentleness for not shredding me for my conflating events half-remembered from 40 years ago (and being too lazy to Google to check my dates and places)
And a big thanks to Gorsnak for finding Johnson’s book. My old teacher had a huge WWII library and no doubt that was among it Now I’ll have to track down a copy to see how persuasive his argument was.
Actually not really.
The Me110 were designed as long range fighters tasked to escort bombers and engage enemy fighters directly. They were a horrible failure at this, eventually themselves requiring escort. Just think of all the wasted resources and pilots on these cluckers which could have been building Me 109’s instead.
The 210 was a disaster which was dropped- it was kind of a widow-maker as I recall.
The 410 (was there a 310?) was a later war upgraded version of the 110.
Most of the sucessful uses of the 110 varients were attempts at making lemonade out of a lemon of an airplane. Those resources could have been used for 109’s, 190’s or even the more capable He 88’s. Any number of aircraft in the german inventory could have done what the Me100’s were used for, and alot more too.
As bomber killers, the 110 were no more effective then the 109’s and 190’s and were easy pickings for escort fighters.
The plane was a blunder, and a classic case of not being able (or politically unwilling) to walk away from significant sunk costs even though the project is a loser. The Comet rocket plane was another example of this.
A misuse error would be the Me 262 as a strike bomber rather then a bomber interceptor. Oops.
elf6c I would disagree with parts of your post. You are right in your initial statement (and I didn’t disagree with it), but part of it is due to hindsight. In 1934, when the 110 was designed, it was an unproven concept that needed to be tested. After all during WWI, twin-seated fighters had a good reputation, the reasoning behind the development of the Boulton-Paul Defiant which proved to be a true lemon. And yes, the 210 was a failure.
This is the part I disagree the most (as would probably survivors of Bomber Command). If you are speaking of a daytime environment, you would be right. BUT, the 110 was mostly used as a night fighter and there it did things that no single engine plane could achieve and was equalled only when the Germans started to convert their bombers (Ju 88, Do 217) to night fighters.
As for the Komet, it was also a case of a new untested technology (and the Germans weren’t the only ones looking into rocket-powered fighters, everybody else did the same thing at the time). And your comment regarding the Schwalbe is right also.