Six Months To Oblivion: The eclipse of The Luftwaffe Fighter Force

Ref: 5361

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sadly, flyingbooks is now closed.

{detailed description}This book covers the last chapter, the decline and the end of air defence in Germany. It is a diary of losses and a chronicle in which the grass-roots fighter pilot plays the lead. It tells of the young men who joined their squadrons full of optimism and derring-do, only to give their lives to no purpose in a last desperate endeavour. Its focal point is the controversial Operation Baseplate on the morning of New Year's Day 1945, an operation in which the German fighter force received its final mortal wound. Losing some 230 aircrew in less than 4 hours, the fighter units suffered their most severe defeat. Only now, after years of evaluation of all available sources, can the true figures of fighter losses on January 1st, 1945 be reported. But this picture of the sacrifice of fighter formations does not mean that fighter pilots were unable to score successes. The figures for enemy aircraft shot down and the contact reports show clearly that the German pilots could still both parry and deal out hard punches. Few people have any real idea of the actual scale of the German fighter force's sacrifice. Imagination boggles at the tragic events that took place in the skies over Germany and the West as the War neared its end; even in the perspective of history the full extent of the debacle can scarcely be depicted. Perhaps it is as well that we should never know every last detail of what the killed and missing pilots, German and Allied alike, went through - what every man in those days had to go through in his dying seconds. In any event, it would defy description. The facts that mainly characterise the end of air defence over Germany and in the West are these: neglect of the fighter force in favour of an "offensive air capability" : the inability of the high commands of the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht to appreciate the significance of what was actually going on in Germany's skies; the lack of replacement pilots, and of fuel; the Allied superiority in numbers and equipment as the War drew to its close; and finally, in East and West alike, the penny-packeting of the forces still available.
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Werner Gerbig
published by PBS 1975 140pp illus. 16x24
{condition}slightly yellowed, otherwise very good, inc d/j.
{delivery info}