unit to protect the heavy fighters was Jagdgeschwader 300, with heavily armed but slow variants of the Fw 190. At the end of December, Galland and the staff of Jagdkorps I concluded that their new tactics had failed with high losses. The causes were "(a) the weather, (b) the considerable inferiority of German strength, (c) the impossibility of gathering sufficient strength in an area because of time and distance limitations ; result : weak and dispersed fighter attack." The situation deteriorated in February 1944, with Big Week, as the Combined Bomber Offensive gathered momentum. In mid-March 1944, shortages of skilled pilots caused Galland to send the following message asking for volunteers: The strained manpower situation in units operating in Defence of the Reich demands urgently the further bringing up of experienced flying personnel from other arms of the service, in particular for the maintenance of fighting power to the air arm, tried pilots of the ground attack and bomber units, especially officers suitable as formation leaders, will now also have to be drawn on. The plea was desperate. By the end of March, the daylight strategic bombing offensive had put the Luftwaffe under enormous pressure. It retarded, although only for a short period, the expansion of fighter production. Importantly, it had caused devastating attrition. American air forces continued unrelenting pressure for the duration of the war. There was no hope of a recovery for Germany's daylight fighter forces under Galland's command and the Allied air forces were close to winning air superiority over all of Europe. A conference between Galland and Göring in mid-May 1944 underlined how enemy air operations were devastating the fighter force. Galland reported that Luftflotte Reich had lost 38 percent of its fighter pilots in April 1944, while Luftflotte 3 had lost 24 percent. Altogether, the Germans had lost 489 pilots (100 officers), Galland reported, while training centres had forwarded only 396 new pilots (including 62 officers). Galland's proposals to meet the shortfall and attrition reflected the desperate situation. Galland urged all fighter pilots holding short staff positions be transferred immediately to operational units, that qualified night fighter pilots transfer to the day fighter force, that two fighter groups transfer from the eastern front as soon as possible, and that the ground attack command release all pilots with more than five aerial victories to the defence of the Reich. Finally, Galland reported that flying schools had