Fighters Over Russia

The air war over the critical Eastern Front, covering places as far apart as Norway and Finland in the north across Russia to Rumania and the Crimea in the south, is illustrated with 120 specially selected and informatively captioned photographs in this striking new book. Initial success in Russia during the summer of 1941 gave way to desperate days after Stalingrad and the failure of Germany's major offensive in 1943, and after this the Luftwaffe was stripped of its newest fighters for the defense of the Reich and lost air superiority to the Red Air Force. Pictures in Fighters over Russia include airfields from which the outnumbered Luftwaffe fighters, acting in support of their own bombers and Wehrmacht ground forces, maintained their uneven struggle. Unusual scenes include bombed-out Russian aircraft abandoned during the initial German advance, and the use of horses and oxen to haul supplies and even aircraft as fuel became scarce towards the end of the war. There are also several pictures of aircraft operated by the Germans' Rumanian allies, adding to the full insight given by this book into the air war in the East.