Why didn't Hitler bomb D-day invasion forces?

[LoungeLizard]

I realise he lost quite a few aircraft in the Battle of Britain. But surely he had many 100s left, and many 100s of fighters.

[Skids]

The Air Campaign.
The invasion would be supported by more than 13,000 fighter, bomber, and transport aircraft, against which the Luftwaffe (the German air force) was able to deploy fewer than 400 on D-Day. Between April 1 and June 5, 1944, the British and American strategic air forces, deploying 11,000 aircraft, flew 200,000 sorties, dropping 195,000 tons of bombs on French rail centres and road networks as well as German airfields, radar installations, military bases, and coastal artillery batteries. Two thousand Allied aircraft were lost in these preliminaries, but the air campaign succeeded in breaking all the bridges across the Seine and Loire rivers and thus isolating the Normandy Invasion area from the rest of France. The Luftwaffe staff was forced to concede that "the outstanding factor both before and during the invasion was the overwhelming air superiority of the enemy."
http://search.eb.com/normandy/week1/buildup.html

[KebabMeister]

To start with the German forces were given inaccurate information about the D-Day attack.  For instance, many RAF bombers flew really low across the channel doing 'spoofing' runs.  This means that they're covering large areas so it shows up on radar and would display as a sea task force (but obviously in the wrong areas).  The German forces were simply regrouping in the wrong areas.

The Luftwaffe did have 100s of aircraft left but they were spread out over large areas especially in the defence of the Reich.  Forward airbases would have been hit a day or two before D-Day; which was quite normal I might add.  Additionally the RAF and USAAF had air-superiority both over the beaches and 50+ miles inland.  German bombers would be defenceless since their escorts would have to engage the allied aircraft.

The amount of ships involved in the D-Day landings had anti-aircraft-artillery so again even if the Luftwaffe wanted to bomb them they would have to be at high level, which isn't accurate.

[JohnPPotts]

Even if he knew that the invasion was going to occur on 6/6/1944 in Normandy (which he didn't, due to some effective Allied misinformation) it's an example of our self-centredness (if that's a word) to suppose he'd of had the inclination to divert forces from other fronts to defeat the invasion. As far as Hitler was concerned the Eastern front was FAR more important - what they had left had to be used to slow the Russian juggernaut from over-running them.