The JG 26 War Diary Volume Two: 1943-1945

This volume takes JG26 from the beginning of 1943, when the American 8th Air Force first began to make its presence felt over occupied Europe, until the end of the war. During this period in a war of attrition that it could not win, the Luftwaffe, and with it JG26, began an inexorable decline. The men of JG26 fought on however, scoring some spectacular, if isolated, successes over Normandy, Arnhem, and the Ardennes. The interviews with these men are among the unique aspects of the book. The main body of the book is a daily account of the wing's activities which takes full advantage of Allied records and post-war research and compares them with the limited material available from Germany, to give an accurate, well-balanced presentation. Only two of the thirty volumes of the unit's official diary survived the war, so the book is based largely on primary documentation obtained from the unit's veterans and on material from the national archives of Germany and the UK and from USAF Historical Research Agency. The author has also been granted unprecedented access to personal documents and photo collections, which he makes good use of. The book is fully illustrated and annotated with exhaustive appendices. Lists of JG26 casualties (with Allied victors) and JG26 aerial victories (with Allied victims) are included, the first to publish compilations of this scope. These tables will be of great value for enthusiasts and historical researchers, and of great interest to Allied and Luftwaffe veterans.