Aviation Elite Units
5 primary works • 8 total works
Book 12
Synonymous with the Afrika Korps and the campaign in North Africa, JG 27 provided Rommel's army with fighter protection for virtually the whole 'roller coaster ride that was the war in the Western Desert from 1941-43. Formed in Germany on 1 October 1939 (with Adolf Galland as CO of I.Gruppe), JG 27 saw considerable action both during the Battles of France and Britain, downing 146 aircraft in the latter campaign alone. Sent to North Africa in April 1941, the geschwader had an immediate impact on the campaign, which had up until then been dominated by the Allies. The third volume in the Aviation Elite series on a German fighter geschwader, this book will once again prove popular with Luftwaffe enthusiasts and hobbyists alike.
Book 13
One of the most important, and yet least publiscised, components of the front-line Luftwaffe was the Schlacht, or ground attack, arm. This book details the Schlacht units who were in the thick of the fighting from the first day of the war until the last. They played a vital part in the heady successes of the early Blitzkrieg campaigns and went on to perform an equally essential role in the dark hours of last ditch defence and ultimate defeat. In between, they fought in all defensive battles: on the eastern front at Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin; in the west, by night, over Normandy, the Ardennes and the Rhine.
Book 15
Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52) was the most successful and highest-scoring fighter unit, not just in Germany's World War 2 Luftwaffe, but in the entire annals of aviation history. No other fighter group has ever come close to matching its staggering total of around 9000 enemy aircraft shot down in combat. And yet, because much of that combat took place over the tractless wastes of the Russian front, very little has been written in English about the exploits of this charismatic unit. This book provides a full combat history of JG 52 and its members, including the three top-scoring aces of all time, who claimed a total of 900 victories between them.
Book 20
By the spring of 1944, hundreds of American heavy bombers were venturing deep into occupied Europe, escorted by ever increasing numbers of Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Lightnings. In a desperate attempt to deal a single knock-out blow to the Allied daylight bomber offensive, an outstanding band of Luftwaffe fighter pilots volunteered to be organised into elite bomber destroyer units known as Sturmgruppen, or 'assault wings'. Pilots in these units were trained to engage the enemy in close-quarter combat. Through first-hand accounts and rare archival photography, this book chronicles the brief but violent career of the Sturmgruppen during the dark days of 1944.
Book 25
Arguably the archetypal Luftwaffe fighter unit of World War 2, JG 53 aircraft were encountered on almost every fighting front from the first day of hostilities until the last. During almost six years of near-constant campaigning, JG 53 took a steady toll of Allied aircraft in every theatre it fought over. The variety of camouflage finishes worn by its machines -winter white, desert dapple and Reich's defence black - and the progression of variants are reflected in an eye-opening colour section. John Weal has spent several years researching in German archives and this, together with his personal contact with several veterans, results in an authoritative and human account of JG 53's long and eventful war.
One of the most successful of the high-scoring Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader during World War II, JG 54 "Grunherz" ("Green Hearts") was formed from three disparate fighter "Gruppen" immediately prior to the Battle of Britain. Having enjoyed immediate success over the Channel and south-east England during the summer of 1940, the unit was transferred to the Eastern Front in the spring of 1941 in preparation for Operation Barbarossa - the German invasion of the Soviet Union. JG 54 remained a Jagdwaffe stalwart in the east, flying firstly Bf 109Fs and then the Fw 190. By the war's end, the Geschwader's pilots had claimed over 9500 kills, and produced over 100 aces. Men like Hans Philipp, Walter Nowotny and Otto Kittel are profiled in this volume, which reveals the struggle in the face of overwhelming odds that was the lot of the Jagdflieger on the Eastern Front.
Tracing its roots to Manfred, Freiherr von Richthofen and his famous "Flying Circus" of World War I, the Jagdgeschwader "Richthofen" is arguably the most famous fighter unit of all time. Designated JG 1 during World War I, and then disbanded following Germany's defeat, the Jagdgeschwader reformed as the JG 132 in 1935 with Arado and Heinkel biplanes. By September 1939 the unit had become JG 2, and it went on to see much action during the Blitzkrieg in Western Europe and the Battle of Britain which followed. This volume, the first in a series which focuses on the elite fighter and bomber units in action, charts the wartime career of JG 2 from its first aerial kills on the Franco-German border in November 1939 through to the destruction of its own Fw 190s in the face of Allied advance at Prague-Ruzyne airfield in late April 1945.