Bernad, Denes, Dmitriy Karlenko, and Jean-Louis Roba. From Barbarossa to Odessa: The Luftwaffe and Axis Allies Strike South-East, June-October 1941, volume 1: The Air Battle for Bessarabia: 22 June - 31 July 1941. Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing Limited, 2007

ISBN 978-1-85780-273-3
96 pages

Glossary; Introduction; photos; color profiles; tables; OBs; notes

   Compared to books about RAF and USAAF operations—think about Bomber Command War Diaries and Fighter Command War Diaries and Air War Europa and the USAAF Combat Chronology—far less information has been published about day-to-day aerial ops on the Russian Front. Despite some efforts to more thoroughly document the daily air action (see, for example, Christer Bergstrom's new book, below), the same level of detail simply hasn't been available to historians. It comes as a pleasant surprise, then, to open this book by Bernad, Karlenko, and Roba, especially when it's touted as the first of a series.
   The authors open with twelve pages that recap the events leading up to Operation Barbarossa, survey the opposing air forces, and provide OBs for the Luftwaffe, Soviets, Royal Rumanian Air Force, Hungarian Air Force, and Slovak expeditionary air units. These orders of battle (and the ensuing text) don't cover the entire front, just the southern flank of Barbarossa, essentially the frontage of German Army Group South.
   Following that introductory material, the book begins day-by-day coverage of action in the air on that part of the front. This runs from 22 June through 31 July. Each daily entry averages a page or more in length, but considerably longer for the opening days of the campaign. The daily material proves in many ways comparable to the depth of coverage Chris Shores has provided in books like Fighters over the Desert and Malta: The Hurricane Years.
   Here's an extract from one of the daily entries in From Barbarossa to Odessa:

   At 0705, four Soviet aircraft bombed the railway station and barracks at Ramnicul-Sarat. An intruder, shot down by anti-aircraft fire, crashed near Vulturul, the crew escaping by parachute. Buzau airfield and railway station also suffered an attack by four bombers, dropping 22 large calibre bombs of which two did not explode, but only little damage was recorded, along with two wounded civilians. At 0735, bombs were dropped by four Soviet bombers near Bivolari, without result. At 0820, nine Soviet bombers attacked Jassy, their bombs falling on a field near Probota, without causing damage. At 0920, while returning from a patrol over the front line, a Schwarm from II./JG 77 met four DB-3s engaged probably in one of the many Soviet intrusions of the day over Rumania. All were reportedly shot down.
   Contrary to the previous days, Axis aircraft did not target the airfield of 67 IAP this day. Alongside the bomber crews of 299 BBAP, pilots of 67 IAP strafed a large concentration of enemy vehicles at Oancea. Lt. Butsenko and Ml. Lt. Shlyachov each set on fire a fuel tanker. At 0740, nine SBs of 45 SBAP carried out a bombing attack on the river crossing over the Pruth, 3-4 km south of Tover. One of the SBs was shot down by enemy fighters near Chistelnita, all crewmembers being killed.
   At 0750, pilots of 69 IAP on readiness, sitting strapped into their fighters, were alerted by forward ground observers of the PVO that an enemy bomber formation was approaching. They quickly took oft and attacked the bombers, not realising that they were SBs. As a result of 'friendly fire', one of the three SBs was shot down. The engine of Major Shestakov's fighter was also hit eleven times, thus the pilot had to make an emergency landing. Another Soviet bomber was also lost in error, most probably to pilots of 69 IAP. The SB of 317 RAP was shot down by MiG-3s during a reconnaissance flight.
   At 0925, eight I-153s and three MiG-3s of 4 IAP flew to the Kuhnesti-Sculeni area, where they were attacked by four [Rumanian] Hurricanes. In the ensuing dogfight, Kpt. Tereshkin claimed to have shot down one Hurricane, but in turn one MiG-3, flown by St. Lt. Gridnev, was lost. No Rumanian fighter is recorded as being lost this day. Later in the day, pilots of 4 IAP attacked Bacau airfield, where they claimed two Blenheims destroyed by Lt. Nosov, Ml. Lt. Baydov and Ml. Lt. Avdeyev. No Rumanian Blenheim, or any other two-engine aircraft, is recorded as being destroyed on ground this day.
   Six Ar-2s of 132 SBAP dive-bombed the river crossing near Sculeni. Enemy fighters identified as 'SET-15s' attempted to attack them, but their efforts were unsuccessful. However, one Soviet gunner was killed during combat. Later in the day, seven Ar-2s and 25 SBs of this regiment transferred to Tsebrikovo. At 1005, seven Ar-2s bombed the same river crossing for a second time. Over the target area, the bombers were surprised by a summer downpour. While leaving the storm clouds, the Soviet formation was suddenly attacked by six Bf 109s east of Jassy (lasi). They pursued the retreating Soviets over the border, eventually shooting down two Ar-2s. Only one pilot survived, the rest of the crew being killed.
   In the morning, probably during a strafing attack, the Bf 109 E-4, W.Nr. 5365, flown by Fw. Rudolf Schmidt of 5./JG 77 was hit by Flak and had to make an emergency landing. The fighter was destroyed but, after a few hours, the future Ritterkreuztrager returned back unhurt. A few hours later, he is reported to have shot down two DB-3s.

   The authors round out the book with ample photos and a few color aircraft profiles, but this is a solid, serious, text-heavy approach despite the glossy, oversized format. The volume lacks indication of sources for the material (despite footnotes, which mostly add more to the descriptions) and does not include a bibliography (although that's promised for the second volume).
   Bernad and his colleagues have performed admirable work, and their detailed chronological account deserves wide recognition by everyone with an interest in the air war on the Russian Front.

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Kitchens, James H. and John R. Beaman. Hans-Joachim Marseille. Crowborough: AirPower Editions, 2008

ISBN 978-0-9555977-0-1
64 pages

Acknowledgements; Preface; Terms and Abbreviations; photos; tables; color profiles

   Hans-Joachim Marseille, one of the most famous and successful Luftwaffe fighter aces, is the subject of at least three English-language biographies. The new book by Kitchens and Beaman is not really a biography so much as a guide to the aircraft he flew. The authors explain their goals in the Preface:

   Despite the wealth of literature available—or perhaps because of it—numerous problems remain for those trying to investigate the Ritterkreuztrager and their aircraft. The most popular challenges, of course, are the assembly of ever-more detail about well-known machines, the identification little-known or unknown ones, and the sorting out of "who flew what, and when." This type of inquiry has long been the hot button of the modelling community, which eternally seems to thrive on reproducing aces' aircraft in miniature. This is hardly profound history, but it does bring pleasure to many.
   Beyond the modelling aspect, questions of "who, what, when, and where" also intrigue and bewilder many with a weightier historical mission, from museum personnel to artists and writers to decal manufacturers and militaria collectors. Unfortunately for these individuals, running down what is wanted in a wide range of possible sources, many of them obscure or in foreign languages, poses a real problem. Nowhere can one find a reference which lists and identifies all of the known aircraft associated with a particular winner of the Knight's Cross. Nowhere is there a systematic correlation between an individual pilot, the aircraft he flew and when he flew them, and nowhere is there is a reliable, comprehensive reference to published photographs, drawings, and paintings.
   The Ritterkreuztrager series addresses all of the above needs and more. It is intended to help researchers save precious time and endless thumbing of pages by offering a chronological resume of selected Knight's Cross winners, complete with ranks, unit assignments, duty stations, decorations, and achievements. Secondly, Ritterkreuztrager provides quick, direct links between the subject pilots and the aircraft they flew at particular times, where these can be discovered. Detailed notes and colour graphics are provided for these aircraft or for the partial aspects which are known. Unknown or conjectural machines—the intriguing blank spaces between known aircraft—are plainly indicated. Finally, for further documentation, readers are directed straight to needed photographs, drawings, and paintings in published literature. The authors have tried to locate all such sources for the selected pilots, and citations for each reference are listed. In short, the objective has been something which is at once a catalogue, a reference, and a finding aid.
   Lastly and most importantly, the Ritterkreuztrager series provides a foundation for future study. By tying the phases of a pilot's career to aircraft used, it offers a quick, easy check on what is known now as well as what is not known, be that an aircraft, a Werknummer, a unit, a date, or certain markings. New data can easily be fitted into this framework as they appear. The authors believe that filling in gaps in today's knowledge will be made much easier through this approach.
   Readers should understand that this book, and the series, does not attempt to do certain things. The primary aim of the series has not been to push the frontiers of scholarship outward, though we hope that readers will find something new here and there. The series, moreover, quite deliberately offers only a minimum of rigorously selected photographs. A vast number of publications contain images of Ritterkreuztrager aircraft; our goal has been to point them out rather than to reproduce them. Additionally, while we have tried very hard to make our citations complete, we are well aware that under no circumstances could we be utterly exhaustive. There are simply too many sources, some very obscure, to snag them all. A very few known sources were inaccessible. And it must be underscored that a few published photographs have been deliberately omitted because they added nothing significant to what could be seen of the subject. Most of these excluded images simply were not worth including because their field of view was too restricted or because they fell into "the pilot in the seat" genus.
   We are well aware that there are limitations to our methodology. Successful German pilots flew a variety of machines, many only once or a few times, aircraft often noted only in logbook entries. Our criterion for tagging an aircraft with a number simply has been one of common sense—to be as inclusive as practical. In doing so, we have sometimes knowingly included possible or theoretical aircraft to fill undocumented gaps. These "ghost" or "straw" or "virtual" entries amount to projections of what might have been. They amount to "slots" which further revelations may, or may not, eventually fill with new evidence.

   Thus, the book limits the actual biographical sketch of Marseille to four pages (plus notes and a list of sources), of which three pages are a tabular chronology color-coded to visually indicate exactly what machine the pilot was flying at each point in his career. These are identified as "Aircraft No. 1" through "Aircraft No. 18," along with several empty slots for periods he was on leave or otherwise between mounts.
   The bulk of the book comprises a series of informational entries about each of the aircraft identified in the tabular chronology. Each listing begins with a few basic facts (aircraft type, werknummer, unit, etc), a partial or complete color profile (depending on how much reliable information is available), a few paragraphs of text about the aircraft and its use by Marseille, and a bulleted list of factual details about the appearance of the aircraft, such as "Entire engine cowling, including the tropical filter box, was RLM 04 Gelb." Next, the entry for each individual aircraft lists photos of that particular machine (a few of which are reproduced here) and further lists every book in which the particular photo has appeared, with complete bibliographic info for each book, the page number where the photo appears, and notes about the quality of the print, cropping, etc. After listings of photos for the fighter, the authors repeat the same formula for illustrations of the aircraft, such as "Color profile by Crandall. Excellent artistic technique but obsolete because based on now outdated resources." Finally, the entry for each aircraft wraps up with a list of references to text-based information about the plane.
   This sequence of information repeats for each of the eighteen aircraft, amounting to about 50 pages in total and accounting for the bulk of the book. As such, it represents a considerable compendium of data, gathering and comparing material from a wide range of sources for a comprehensive overview of everything previously published about the fighters (all 109s) piloted by Marseille.
   Readers looking for a biography of Marseille will want to start elsewhere. On the other hand, this is a model maker's dream, not so much because it contains all the information a builder needs, but because it points to a full array of sources for the obsessive miniaturist.

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Bergstrom, Christer. Barbarossa: The Air Battle, July - December 1941. Hinckley: Midland Publishing Limited, 2007

ISBN 978-1-85780-270-2
144 pages

Acknowledgements; Table of Equivalent Ranks; maps; photos; tables; sidebars; Notes; Sources and Bibliography; Index

   Christer Bergstrom has already written several books on WWII air operations, including three volumes of the highly-regarded Black Cross/Red Star series. In fact, his Barbarossa title is the first of a four-volume series which seems in may ways similar to the BC/RS volumes. How does he explain the difference? "These books will study the air war on the Eastern Front from a slightly different angle than Black Cross/Red Star. The [new series] will be more oriented toward planning and strategy, while the Black Cross/Red Star books are more of operational histories."
   Actually, it seems like there are at least as many similarities as differences between the new Barbarossa and the older Operation Barbarossa, 1941. For example, the material on German bombing of Moscow is very similar in the two volumes.
   Here's a paragraph from page 115 of the older book:

   At the cost of six or seven aircraft shot down, 104 tons of explosives and 46,000 incendiaries were dropped by the attackers during this first raid. These caused heavy losses among the civilian population. But the real aim of the mission—to burn the Kremlin to ashes—failed completely. The bombs simply could not penetrate the thick, seventeenth-century roofs on the main buildings in the Kremlin.

   Here's a paragraph from page 51 of the newer book:

   At the cost of seven aircraft shot down, 104 tons of explosives and 46,000 incendiaries were dropped by the attackers during this first raid. These caused heavy losses among the civilian population. But the real aim of the mission—to burn the Kremlin to ashes—failed completely. The bombs simply could not penetrate the thick, seventeenth-century roofs on the main buildings in the Kremlin.

   Other passages covering the Luftwaffe attacks on Moscow are strikingly congruent, including, for example, identical quotes from Oberleutnant Hansgeorg Batcher in both titles. Likewise, many photos appear in both books, sometimes with captions closely resembling each other.
   Despite those kinds of similarities—and the new book is definitely not an utter knock-off of the original—Bergstrom's new Barbarossa ranks as another excellent exploration of the air war on the Russian Front. It begins with three pages of introductory material and then divides the period June through December 1941 into fifteen "operational" chapters, including topics such as "The Opening Round," "Air Battle over Smolensk," "To the Gates of Moscow," and "The Soviet Counter-Offensives." The chapters include a variety of short sidebars, such as "Air Battle over Moldavia," "Red Stars over Berlin," and "Luftwaffe Bombers over Moscow."
   Among the sidebars, Bergstrom includes several about operations on the southern flank and some involving Rumanian air units. These can be maddeningly difficult to reconcile with the coverage by Bernad, Karlenko, and Roba on the same subjects, such as activity on 22 June, bombing of Ploesti, and the 26 June raid on Constanta. (See above.)
   While Bergstrom doesn't ignore one-on-one dogfights or the exploits of individual pilots, his approach is broader than Bernad, Karlenko, and Roba in geography, time span, and overall perspective. On the other hand, this title includes far more detail than the classic series by Hermann Plocher, especially in regard to Soviet air units and ops.
   A chapter on "Conclusions" includes a table with detailed statistics about Luftwaffe losses, and the final chapter features a mixed bag of photos of various aircraft from the Russian Front. The appendices bear a striking resemblance to those in the author's older Barbarossa book, including much outright duplication.
   Given the remarkable similarities between the two books, despite Bergstrom's claim to the contrary it wouldn't be out of line to describe the new Barbarossa as practically a revised edition of the old Operation Barbarossa, 1941, although that point could certainly be debated. We wrote a glowing review of the original book, and the new one proves at least as praiseworthy. For readers who don't own the old book, you can't go wrong with the new one. For those who already possess the original, you might want to do some side-by-side comparison before buying this one.

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   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the publishers.
   Thanks to the publishers and their distributors for providing these review copies.