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True. The arrival of the P-51 provided fighter escort all the way in and out on the bomber raids.

Doolittle also released the escorts from just staying with the bomber formations to seeking out the Germans before they got close to the bomber formations. The Luftwaffe was decimated when that tactic was employed...and the mission count went to 30.

Boy, was my dad pissed over that. He was at 24 and they added 6.

Bomber crews were signed on to do 25 mission tours but what most didn’t know was that from 1942-1943 air losses were so common that it became statistically impossible for a bomber to complete a full tour.

Bomber crews were signed on to do 25 mission tours but what most didn’t know was that from 1942-1943 air losses were so common that it became statistically impossible for a bomber to complete a full tour.

This is absolute BS. The crews quickly figured out that they couldn’t statistically survive 25 missions. The morale was plummeting.

That is one reason why Jimmy Doolittle was sent to take over the 8th Air Force from Eaker. Doolittle changed tactics and the air war changed in favor of the bomber crews to the point where the mission count for rotation was upped to 30 then 35 missions by the end of the war

Fighter cover to and from the targets didn’t hurt.
The irony of the change installing Jimmy Doolitlte was that the change he made - which was blatantly obvious all along - was opposed by the bomber crews prior to Doolittle’s arrival.
The bomber crews wanted to see fighter escorts protecting them, and successfully lobbied for deploying the fighters in sight of the bombers. Obviously, what you actually want a fighter to do is not to sit around looking protective but to go find the enemy fighters and hit them first.
The German fighters had been taking off, organizing in formation, and getting into position to make an attack, all unopposed. Doing that was an entirely different proposition when under attack from a powerful force of P-51s.