Operation Bodenplatte : The Luftwaffe’s Last Blow

Luftwaffe’s Last Blow: Operation Bodenplatte
In the early morning hours of the first day of 1945, Allied pilots in northwest Europe might have expected to see pink elephants before they saw Nazi aircraft. Since the Normandy invasion, Royal Air Force and U.S. Army Air Forces fighters had largely driven the Luftwaffe from the skies. Poor late-December weather had hindered efforts to counter the German ground offensive in the Ardennes—the Battle of the Bulge—but with the new year dawning cold and clear, all that prevented a renewed Allied aerial assault was aircrew hangovers.