When a proud Adolf Hitler revealed his new Luftwaffe to the world in March 1935, it was the largest, most modern military air arm the world had seen. Equipped with the latest monoplane fighter and bomber aircraft manned by well-trained and motivated crews, it soon became evident that the Luftwaffe also possessed a high degree of technical superiority over Germany’s future enemies. Yet within just nine years the once-mightiest air force in the world had reached total collapse, destroyed in part by the very people responsible for creating it. By 1944, the Luftwaffe, wearied by aerial battles on multiple fronts combined with tactical mismanagement from the highest levels of command, were unable to match their enemies in both production and manpower. By this time the Luftwaffe was fighting for its survival, and for the survival of Germany itself, above the burning cities of the Third Reich, facing odds sometimes as high as ten-to-one in the air. Told through the eyes of the fighter and bomber crews themselves, this book explores previously unpublished first-hand accounts of the rise and fall of one of the most formidable air forces in twentieth-century military history. It paints a haunting picture of the excitement, fear, romance intertwined with the brutality, futility and wastefulness that is war. AUTHOR: Born in to a military family, Tim Heath’s interest in history led him to research the air war of the Second World War, focussing on the German Luftwaffe and writing extensively for The Armourer Magazine. During the course of his research he has worked closely with the German War Graves Commission at Kassel, Germany, and met with German families and veterans alike. Following the successful debut of Hitler’s Girls in 2017, In Furious Skies will be Tim’s latest contribution to retelling the heavily scrutinised Second World War from a fresh perspective.
40 b/w illustrations