Luftwaffe Fighter Ace: From the Eastern Front to the Defence of the Homeland by Norbert Hannig

One pilot's frank memoir of the air war in the East

Norbert Hannig joined the Luftwaffe as a teenager and, from 1943, flew combat missions with the "Green Hearts" fighter wing on the brutal Eastern Front, first in the Bf 109 and later the Focke-Wulf 190, before finishing the war flying the revolutionary Me 262 jet fighter. Finishing with 42 victories over more than 200 missions, Hannig, by his own admission an ordinary "Frontflieger" rather than a celebrated ace, offers a rare rank-and-file account of the air war against the Soviet Union, an aspect of WWII aviation history far less covered in English than the Western Front. Illustrated with the author's own previously unpublished photographs, it's a candid, detailed read for anyone interested in WWII aviation history from the German side of the cockpit.