cans’ ”tight squadron formation” tactics. “How come the Brit-
ish,” he wrote, “can operate their bombers by day, with or with-
out fighters, while we are hard pushed to operate at night? We
need new fighter tactics against the big fighter-escorted bomber
formations,” he reflected. “Pelz and Storp,” he entered hope-
fully on June , “have a few surprises up their sleeve, like in-
truding [German bombers] into the returning British bomber
stream [and] long-range night fighting.”
That day he had signed the Me jet fighter into mass
production. He recorded in his other pocket diary notes for
briefing Hitler on the Luftwaffe “My intentions.” The air
force should, in short, become the main weapon against the At-
lantic convoys. “The British will then have to mount colossal op-
erations against us in the Atlantic.” Submarines could finish off
the scattered merchantmen. He intended to overhaul the Luft-
waffe’s incompetent organization in France, and noted criticisms
of the luxurious command posts installed by the Luftwaffe in
various French châteaux. “It is just not possible,” he wrote, “for
everybody to have their own command apparatus. I’m going to
set up defense districts with one person in charge of the day
fighters, night fighters, flak artillery, and all signals units....
And one common radio frequency for the whole country.”
In further random jottings that June, Göring foreshad-
owed his later allegations of cowardice. Formulating his opinions
on his fighter pilots, he listed the four determining factors as
“Technology numbers morale officers.” “Basically,” he
more realistically assessed, “our wafer-thin resources are to
blame. We don’t concentrate anywhere. We are inferior. So we
are pushed back all along the line. Air power holds the key as
witness the efforts of our enemies.”
Pelz, now a major-general, had suffered grievous losses in re-