<p>By mid-November, the Germans were beginning to withdraw from northern Italy into the Balkans. Aircraft hit their trains and their trucks, cut railroads in the Brenner Pass to Austria, blasted Bologna time after time, and dropped thousands of bombs in the Po Valley.
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<p>Finally, in April 1945, the Germans had enough. They were in full retreat, harassed along the way by MAAF fighters and fighter-bombers, by medium and heavy bombers that were relentless when the weather was right.
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<p>On 15 April, Operation Wowser was dispatched. Every flyable heavy bomber in 15AF was sent to support the Fifth Army in its drive to clean the Germans out of Italy once and for all. B-17s and B-24s, 1,142 of them, escorted by P-38s and P-51s, attacked German troops on the highways out of Bologna, hit rail bridges, ammunition factories and dumps. It was the largest raid mounted by 15AF during the war. And although 15AF was primarily a strategic force, they flew Wowser against tactical targets and performed a classical mission of tactical air power.
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<p>From then on, all air operations were aimed at plugging the retreat gaps in front of the panic-stricken German soldiers. On 29 April 1945, the remaining Germans surrendered unconditionally, effective 2 May. Six days later, the war in Europe was over. Hitler was dead, and victorious Allies met in drunken celebration at the Elbe River.
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<p>In all, an even dozen German generals surrendered their troops at one time or another in Italy. Eleven of them said that air power was chiefly responsible for their defeat.
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<p>The early lessons learned in the North African desert had paid off. Tactical air power had been forged in those wastes and tempered in the skies over Sicily and Italy. It had been a major component of Allied victory in the forgotten war.
