This is a new book purchased from The Works for only £3. The book describes the authors wartime experiences as a night fighter pilot on both Eastern and Western fronts. Interestingly he does not describe either his childhood or his politics, indeed he makes no real comment on the Nazi regime. His only motivation appears to be to defend his homeland to the best of his ability. He was quite successful in that ambition shooting down 18 Allied bombers and lots of Russian planes.
The story however is more about a young man engaged in a desperate, frightening activity using obsolescent aircraft in a duel with increasingly sophisticated allied bombers bristling with machine guns. The air battles were not as one sided as is usually thought. The descriptions of day to day life are very interesting but the air to air combats are truly fascinating. There is an excellent chapter describing the authors experiences when forced to land in Switzerland after suffering battle damage. He was amazed at, and enjoyed, before being repatriated, the abundance of things that wartime Germany no longer possessed.
This is an excellent book, it shows that German pilots could be very human as well as ruthless. It also gives a very different perspective on the results of the allied bombing campaign and how that served to motivate German pilots to continue to fight right up to the end. Overall a very human story by an author it is impossible not to like.
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