The P-51 Mustang: The Most Important Aircraft in History?(Essay‪)‬

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Many historians credit the defeat of the Luftwaffe's fighter force prior to the Normandy Invasion to the combined effort of the frontline American fighters--the P-47 Thunderbolt, the P-38 Lightning, and the P-51 Mustang. Some support the view of Maj. Gen, William E. Kepner, of the Eighth Air Force Fighter Command, who wrote, "If it can be said that the P-38s struck the Luftwaffe in its vitals and the P-51s gave the coup de grace, it was the Thunderbolt that broke its back." (1) Still others tilt more toward the P-51, but no one has made the obvious leap to state that: without the P-51 the American daylight bombing of Germany would have been impossible in the spring of 1944; the German fighter force would not have been decimated and the Allies would not have achieved air superiority over Germany. And without air superiority, D-Day would have been either postponed or delayed. (2)