bombers would be sufficient to gain air superiority without escort fighters. The intended raids would hit hard on chokepoints in the German war economy such as oil refineries or ball bearing factories. The USAAF was compelled to change its doctrine since bombers alone, no matter how heavily armed, could not achieve air superiority against single-engined fighters. In a series of missions in 1943 that penetrated beyond the range of fighter cover, there were loss rates up to twenty percent. The Allies lost 160,000 airmen and 33,700 planes during World War II, and almost 68,000 U.S. airmen died. Air superiority During the Battle of Britain, many of the best Luftwaffe pilots had been forced to bail out over British soil, where they were captured. As the quality of the Luftwaffe fighter arm decreased, the Americans introduced the long-range escort fighters, carrying drop tanks such as the North American P-51 Mustang. Newer, inexperienced German pilots—flying potentially superior aircraft, gradually became less and less effective at thinning the late-war bomber streams. Adding fighters to the daylight raids gave the bombers much-needed protection and greatly improved the impact of the strategic bombing effort. Over time, from 1942 to 1944, the Allies' air forces became stronger while the Luftwaffe weakened. During 1944, Germany's air force lost control of Germany's skies. As a result, nothing in Germany could be protected whether it was army units, factories, civilians in cities, or even the nation's capital. German soldiers and civilians began to be slaughtered in the tens of thousands by aerial bombardment. Effectiveness Strategic bombing by non-atomic means did not however win the war for the Allies, nor did it succeed in breaking the will to resist of the German (and Japanese) people. But in the words of the German armaments minister Albert Speer, it created "a second front in the air." Speer succeeded in increasing the output of armaments right up to mid-1944 in spite of the bombing. Still, the war against the British and American bombers demanded enormous amounts of resources: antiaircraft guns, day and night fighters, radars, searchlights, manpower, ammunition, and fuel. On the Allied side, strategic bombing diverted material resources, equipment (such as radar) aircraft, and manpower away from the Battle of the Atlantic and Allied armies. As a result, German army groups in Russia, Italy, and France rarely saw friendly aircraft and constantly ran short of tanks, trucks, and anti-tank weapons. U.S. Bombing