'Dr Gustav West' was a German air operation by night-fighter squadrons to attack the airfields used by Allied fighter-bomber units in north-western France in the hope of checking the further development of the Allied invasion which had started with 'Overlord' (June/August 1944).

The Germans lacked the air strength, in both the numbers of aircraft and the quality of their crews, to make this undertaking into anything more than a nuisance to the Allies.