Product Description

During the interwar years, both in Britain and Germany, some believed that bombers could expand the battlefield to the home front of their opponents, damaging morale and disrupting the means of production. The German Blitzkrieg relied heavily on the Luftwaffe s bomber force. From Spain to Barbarossa, the integration of the Kampfflieger forces into the overall strategy proved highly successful. However, once Germany was forced on the retreat, the tactics of the Luftwaffe s bomber forces changed from offensive to defensive actions.
This is the first of two volumes providing highly detailed material on the organization of Luftwaffe bomber units in World War II. The books cover some 50 bomber Geschwader together with their component Staff flights and Gruppen. They also deal with formations, designations, and reorganizations through to the end of the war, with locations, bases, and transfers. The book also includes a comprehensive breakdown of theatres of operations, key battles, and aircraft types that were flown by each unit. The volumes have listings of commanders showing when and where they were in command. Each volume has numerous photos, many in color, depicting bombers in unit markings with close-ups of the unit emblems and badges.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #994218 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

About the Author
Doug Stankey and Henry de Zeng IV are both respected aviation historians based in North America. This series of books represents 20 years of research by the authors to produce this comprehensive work of reference.

Customer Reviews

Misleading Title and Description
The title of this book states "1933-1945" but there is no information in this book prior to 1939.

The description states "During the interwar years" and "From Spain to Barbarossa". Yet I found no mention of operations in Spain nor any information prior to 1939.

21 K.G. (KG 1 thru KG 60) are covered in this volume and each sub formation has information on when they were formed and trained, followed by a breakdown by campaign with listings of the operations they made, the type of aircraft flown and the Kommandeur(s). This is nice detail on what each formation attacked and when. (to get this information would be the only serious reason for buying this book)

There are numerous good photos.

I appreciate that sources are well documented and recommendations made for other source books (most appear to be in German).

Excellent - for the student!
I thought this book details everything that needs to be documented in reference book. People tend to forget that this is a reference, and will expect a running commentary on each individual unit in the style of the normal history work.

To my mind the title satisfies as a description of the content. People hoping for Condor Legion unit histories will note that they are not in the books, but then again, this is a book about the Luftwaffe bomber wings; the CL was not an official bomber unit, but rather a unit of various dual role capabilities.

I found the use of unpublished and archive material most useful. Too many sources use second hand information, which is often rounded down (in the case of figures) , and inaccurate. The only way of producing novel and new information is using what little primary material is left published.

Good job.

Farce