The Air War Through German Eyes

Starting with leaflet drops in 1940 the aerial offensive against the Nazis' homeland grew into a huge armada that pulverised much of Germany, seriously damaging her ability to make war and killing hundreds of thousands. By day the Flying Fortresses of the Mighty Eighth US Airforce battled the Focke-Wulfs of Luftflotte Reich, and by night it was the turn of Bomber Command's Lancasters to fight off night-fighting Messerschmitts and Heinkels. For the Allied airmen who fought this war the price was frighteningly high, for those who opposed them – in the air and on the ground – it was even higher. As the bombing increased, Nazi high command were forced to devote more and more resources to try and defeat the Allied campaign just as those same resources were desperately needed elsewhere, both on the Russian Front and, after D-Day on 6 June 1944, on the new Western Front.

Written from the ‘other side’ and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.