German

044216 - ALARMSTART EAST: THE GERMAN FIGHTER PILOT'S EXPERIENCE ON THE EASTERN FRONT 1941-1945

By Patrick G Eriksson

For anyone interested in the air war 1939-45, the information provided here is of inestimable value. There are no more than a handful of WW2 Luftwaffe members alive today. Patrick Eriksson had the foresight to record these experiences first-hand before it was too late. Some witnesses ended up as senior fighter controllers, The recollections and views of the veterans are put within the context of the German aerial war history. By no means all the witnesses were from the ranks of the so-called 'aces'.

It was on the Eastern Front that, essentially, much of the Luftwaffe was destroyed, and this is the subject of the second in the author's trilogy. Death wasn't always in the air: '"Quick, get out of the plane, the airfield's been overrun." German tanks ran over German wounded. Our emaciated infantrymen threw away their rifles, fell into the snow after a few metres, and died.' (Pilot Hans Grunberg.) Towards the end in the Stalingrad pocket pilots were so starved they could no longer turn tightly in aerial combat without passing out.