     Max Pabel eased the Me109G up to 1,000 feet, then leveled off, heading west for Bastogne. The rest of his squadron was all around him; Pabel felt a sense of security that he knew to be illusory. Within minutes the Allied fighters were on them. P47s and P51s dove down, machine guns hammering, and the German fighters jettisoned their bomb loads and scrambled about to dogfight the Americans. But Pabel had flown into a cloud just as the Americans jumped them; when he emerged, he was all alone. The radio was alive with the sounds of combat, the warning calls and commands, but he could see nothing. But then he remembered his squadron leader's insistence that morning that they had to get to the front, they were desperately needed. Pabel hesitated only a second; then he set his heading back to 270 degrees, due west, towards Bastogne.
     "This is crazy" he told himself. "You don't stand a chance alone up here." But four times they had set out for Bastogne to support the ground troops, and four times they'd been intercepted east of the Rhine. If Fate had smiled on him and given him a golden opportunity to sneak to the battlefield, who was he to spurn her?
     At 350 mph, the lone 109 covered ground fast. Already he was over the Schnee Eifel; Bastogne was only four minutes away. With so many familiar landmarks, navigation was easy. There was the Our River; that collection of villages must be Clervaux. Soon he was passing the hilltop town of Wiltz with its picturesque castle.
     Suddenly the 109 shook as 50-caliber bullets ripped through its frame. Pabel felt their impact on the armor plating behind the seat. He'd been caught napping by a passing fighter-bomber. Engine oil splattered over the canopy. He yanked the stick but the controls were shot. He threw the canopy release, unbuckled his seat belt -- and the plane smashed into the ground.
/The Luftwaffe
     The Luftwaffe played a major role in the early German Blitzkrieg victories. Operating as a kind of "flying artillery", the Stukas of the Luftwaffe would crush enemy strongpoints, freeing the way for the panzers to keep moving fast.
     But those days were long gone in 1944. The Allies had achieved air superiority; the Luftwaffe had been driven from the skies over the battlefield, and now remained deep inside Germany, rising to do battle only against the big bomber formations. Even then, the task was hopeless. For the entire Western Front, the Luftwaffe had no more than 1,500 aircraft. The Allies mustered 4,000 aircraft just for the Ardennes area.
     Even worse was the steady destruction of trained personnel. Five years of war had killed off most of the old pros; the pilots who were left were given a whiff of training before being thrown into the fray. Their Allied opponents went through a year of training before combat. The Luftwaffe pilots were no match for them.
     The Luftwaffe attempted numerous operations in support of the Ardennes offensive. Most were intercepted and turned back east of the Rhine. Night operations were unmolested but lacking in military value. The Luftwaffe did manage a 73-plane night bombing raid on Bastogne. Nothing was accomplished. On the morning of January 2nd, a Luftwaffe plane succeeded in bombing the troops of the 340th Volksgrenadier Division./