Operation Bodenplatte - Aftermath and Casualties

Aftermath and Casualties

The operation achieved tactical surprise, but it was undone by poor execution and low pilot skill (owing to poor training). The operation failed to achieve its aim and that failure was very costly to German air power. Some of the units of the RAF, RCAF and USAAF on the receiving end of Bodenplatte had been badly hit, others not so badly, but most had sustained some hurt. The Germans, however, launched Bodenplatte under a set of conditions, such as poor planning and low pilot skill, which clearly indicated any advantage gained would be outweighed by possible losses. Bodenplatte weakened the Jagdwaffe past any hope of rebuilding. General der Jagdflieger Adolf Galland said, "We sacrificed our last substance".

The Luftwaffe lost 143 pilots killed and missing, while 70 were captured and 21 wounded including three Geschwaderkommodore, five Gruppenkommandeure, and 14 Staffelkapitäne—the largest single-day loss for the Luftwaffe. Many of the formation leaders lost were experienced veterans, which placed even more pressure on those who were left. Thus, Bodenplatte was a very short-term success but a long-term failure; Allied losses were soon made up. Lost Luftwaffe aircraft and pilots were irreplaceable. German historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that it left the Germans "weaker than ever and incapable of mounting any major attack again".

In the remaining 17 weeks of war, the Jagdwaffe struggled to recover from the 1 January operation enough to remain an effective force. In strategic terms, German historian Werner Girbig wrote, "Operation Bodenplatte amounted to a total defeat". The exhausted German units were no longer able to mount an effective defence of German air space during Operation Plunder and Operation Varsity, the Allied crossing of the Rhine River, or the overall Western Allied invasion of Germany. Subsequent operations were insignificant as a whole, and could not challenge Allied air supremacy. The only service in the Luftwaffe capable of profitable sorties was the night fighter force. In the last six weeks of the war, the Luftwaffe was to lose another 200 pilots killed. Werner Girbig wrote, "it was not until the autumn of 1944 that the German fighter forces set foot down the sacrificial path; and it was the controversial Operation Bodenplatte that dealt this force a mortal blow and sealed its fate. What happened from then on was no more than a dying flicker".