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Unless it was the Marines aircraft would not be that close to ground troops, they were the mid to longer distance attack mechanism.
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Seems like an over simple generalization to me.
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We have actual data you discount.
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yep, I discount what I consider flawed data, and I particularly discount flawed conclusions from valid data. Just as you discount actual first hand accounts from the people who were there.
Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. WWII was better documented (on our side, particularly) than any previous war, but the documentation is far from complete or completely accurate. Post battle and post war assessments discounted a number of things that the people who were there said happened, and likely credited some things that didn't happen.
I just saw a story of a fellow who put 6 bazookas on his Grasshopper (military version of a Piper Cub) and attacked German armor during the battle of the Bulge. He was officially credited with destroying 6 German tanks (includer 2 Tigers) and damaging a dozen others. Got medals for doing so.
"Mad" Jack Cram ferried a pair of torpedoes to Guadalcanal on his PBY. After getting there, and learning there were no operable torpedo bombers at the time, he devised a way to drop the torpedoes and attacked Japanese shipping with them. Got a hit, too, if I recall correctly.
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A Dive Bomber was lucky to hit a carrier anywhere.
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Guess were really lucky at Midway. 4 Japanese carriers sunk, by dive bombers. Dick Best is in the history books as being the only man to make hits on two carriers in the same battle.
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Dive Bombers could miss by hundreds of yards (and did).
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Yes, they can, and many did. But some pilots were better than that. More than a few.
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Pilots had not sight or mechanism other than a guess for glide bombing.
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Glide bombing and dive bombing are very different modes of attack. Dive bombers had sights for dive bombing, and some pilots were quite good at it, in every air force.
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Like the Brew Up Sherman myth, you are wrong per data.
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Possibly, but what you call a myth is what numerous veterans who had Shermans shot out from under them have reported. 3 out of 5 times catching fire seems to be the average.
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AAC, RAF, USAF, they always insisted they could win the war all by themselves.
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So did the Luftwaffe (or at least Goering). None did all by themselves.
Small point of order, the USAF (United States Air Force) did not exist until 1947. Before that, the air force was part of the Army. AAC (Army Air Corps).
Aircraft can destroy the enemy, but they cannot hold ground. Boots on the ground are needed for that.