I'm sure fuel supply was a major factor, but ultimately it was a failure of leadership at the high command and planning level. It takes a long time to train a fighter pilot to the point that he has a decent chance to survive the first few combat missions. The first four combat missions are the most crucial. If the pilot is skilled enough and lucky enough to survive those first four missions he has a decent chance of success and longer term survival. The Germans only had one or two fighter pilot training schools and a program of comparitivly small scale early war. The pilots that emerged from the program were very well trained but they were few. Mid war and particularly late war, they were under so much pressure to get more replacement pilots into action that their training was not only abbreviated but not that comprehensive. Adolf Glunz mentioned that some of these novice pilots late war could not fly in a formation or reasonably safely land their aircraft. More often than not a late war novice pilot didn't survive his first combat mission.VeenenbergR wrote:The Germans undoubtly realised that they were behind in training pilots thoroughly before sending them on a deadly mission.
Was the reason for not training them a the overall lack of fuel?????
(not shortage of men I suppose)
Then lack of fuel was the main reason Germany lost WWII.
The American program was massive and extensive. My late friend that was P-51 pilot told me that to become a combat fighter pilot was a long term ordeal. He was in University when Pearl Harbor occured. They generally only took young men that had universty level educations with additional ROTC credits in whole or in part. First there was basic military training for those whom had not already done so for ROTC. You had to be physically top notch to progress into aviation. My father was washed out in the 50's because of a minor back injury when he was a teen. Then for aviation officiers, a ground school with a heavy acedemic focus. Then basic flight school. Then advanced flight school. At each level only the top few percentage were not washed out. Only those pilots whom exhibited certain flying skills and personality traits were then accepted for fighter pilot training. There was a basic fighter training course and an advanced fighter pilot training course in actual fighters before you would then be sent forward as a greenie. My friend didn't even arrive in England until late 1944. The Luftwaffe didn't plan for this kind of a long term war of attrition on such a scale.