Black Cross/red Star: Operation Barbarossa, 1941

Black Cross/red Star: Operation Barbarossa, 1941

Author: Christer Bergström

Publisher: Pacifica Press (CA)

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780935553482

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In assembling the first installment of a projected six-volume series documenting the air war on the Eastern Front, the authors combed hitherto unexplored archives in the former Soviet Union to produce the first balanced history of the subject. More than 180 photographs that have never been seen by any reading public accompany color maps and an authoritative text debunking 50-year-old Western beliefs about Operation Barbarossa. The lives and accomplishments of Soviet fighter aces, about which little, if anything, has previously been published, make this groundbreaking history essential reading for both enthusiasts and casual history buffs.


Black Cross/Red Star

Black Cross/Red Star

Author: Christer Bergström

Publisher: Motorbooks International

Published: 2001-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780935553512

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Rare Russian photos of the air war during the winters of 1941 and 1942.


Black Cross Red Star

Black Cross Red Star

Author: Eagle Editions Ltd

Publisher: Eagle Editions Limited

Published: 2006-07-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780976103448

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Volume 3, has been subtitled Everything for Stalingrad and covers the German summer offensive in 1942; the subsequent fierce air battles over the Caucasus; the Luftwaffe's onslaught on Convoy PQ-17; the hard air war over the Central and Northern combat zones, when the Soviets launched their relief offensives in the summer and fall of 1942; and, mainly, the huge Air Battle over Stalingrad. Similar to Volume 2, Volume 3 will contain a large number of photos and 37 high-quality aircraft color profiles, by one of the best aircraft profile artists in the world--Claes Sundin.


Black Cross Red Star Air War Over the Eastern Front

Black Cross Red Star Air War Over the Eastern Front

Author: Christer Bergstrom

Publisher:

Published: 2020-06

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9789188441577

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This is the direct continuation of Volume 4 in the Black Cross/Red Star series. This volume covers the air war on the Eastern Front between March/April 1943 and July 1943, with the focus on the great air battles at Kuban and Kursk.


Air War on the Eastern Front

Air War on the Eastern Front

Author: Mike Guardia

Publisher: Casemate

Published: 2020-10-28

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1612009093

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A pictorial history of Nazi Germany’s entire air campaign against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front in World War II. The Red Air Force versus the Luftwaffe in the skies over Eastern Europe. June 1941: Having conquered most of Western Europe, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the vast Soviet Union. Disregarding his Non-Aggression Pact with Joseph Stalin, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, a full-scale invasion of the Soviet homeland . . . aimed squarely at Moscow. In the skies over Russia, the battle-hardened airmen of the Luftwaffe made short work of the Red Air Force during opening days of Barbarossa. To make matters worse, Stalin had executed many of his best pilots during the perennial “purges” of the 1930s. Thus, much of the Red Air Force was destroyed on the ground before meeting the Luftwaffe in the skies. By 1944, however, the Soviet airmen had regained the initiative and fervently wrested air superiority from the now-ailing Axis Powers. “Will be of great interest to both modelers and aircraft historians alike.” —AMPS Indianapolis “This slim survey provides a quick, convenient intro to the deadly totalitarian duel. Make it a launchpad to further study of Eastern Front air combat in WWII.” —Cybermodeler “The prose is smooth and provides a top-level look at WWII German and Soviet air warfare.” —Historical Miniatures Gaming Society


Soviet Air Force Theory, 1918-1945

Soviet Air Force Theory, 1918-1945

Author: James Sterrett

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-01-24

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1135987939

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This new book examines the development of Soviet thinking on the operational employment of their Air Force from 1918 to 1945, using Soviet theoretical writings and contemporary analyses of combat actions.


Soldiers of Barbarossa

Soldiers of Barbarossa

Author: Craig W.H. Luther

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-11-15

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0811768821

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The scope and scale of Operation Barbarossa—the German invasion of the Soviet Union—make it one of the pivotal events of the Second World War. Yet our understanding of both the military campaign as well as the “war of annihilation” conducted throughout the occupied territories depends overwhelmingly on “top-down” studies. The three million German soldiers who crossed the Soviet border and experienced this war are seldom the focus and are often entirely ignored. Who were these men and how did they see these events? Luther and Stahel, two of the leading experts on Operation Barbarossa, have reconstructed the 1941 campaign entirely through the letters (as well as a few diaries) of more than 200 German soldiers across all areas of the Eastern Front. It is an original perspective on the campaign, one of constant combat, desperate fear, bitter loss, and endless exertions. One learns the importance of comradeship and military training, but also reads the frightening racial and ideological justifications for the war and its violence, which at times lead to unrelenting cruelty and even mass murder. Soldiers of Barbarossa is a unique and sobering account of 1941, which includes hundreds of endnotes by Luther and Stahel providing critical context, corrections, and commentary.


Japan 1941

Japan 1941

Author: Eri Hotta

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2013-10-29

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0385350511

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A groundbreaking history that considers the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective and is certain to revolutionize how we think of the war in the Pacific. When Japan launched hostilities against the United States in 1941, argues Eri Hotta, its leaders, in large part, understood they were entering a war they were almost certain to lose. Drawing on material little known to Western readers, and barely explored in depth in Japan itself, Hotta poses an essential question: Why did these men—military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor—put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in harm’s way? Introducing us to the doubters, schemers, and would-be patriots who led their nation into this conflagration, Hotta brilliantly shows us a Japan rarely glimpsed—eager to avoid war but fraught with tensions with the West, blinded by reckless militarism couched in traditional notions of pride and honor, tempted by the gambler’s dream of scoring the biggest win against impossible odds and nearly escaping disaster before it finally proved inevitable. In an intimate account of the increasingly heated debates and doomed diplomatic overtures preceding Pearl Harbor, Hotta reveals just how divided Japan’s leaders were, right up to (and, in fact, beyond) their eleventh-hour decision to attack. We see a ruling cadre rich in regional ambition and hubris: many of the same leaders seeking to avoid war with the United States continued to adamantly advocate Asian expansionism, hoping to advance, or at least maintain, the occupation of China that began in 1931, unable to end the second Sino-Japanese War and unwilling to acknowledge Washington’s hardening disapproval of their continental incursions. Even as Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the Roosevelt administration, Matsuoka Yosuke, the egomaniacal foreign minister who relished paying court to both Stalin and Hitler, and his facile supporters cemented Japan’s place in the fascist alliance with Germany and Italy—unaware (or unconcerned) that in so doing they destroyed the nation’s bona fides with the West. We see a dysfunctional political system in which military leaders reported to both the civilian government and the emperor, creating a structure that facilitated intrigues and stoked a jingoistic rivalry between Japan’s army and navy. Roles are recast and blame reexamined as Hotta analyzes the actions and motivations of the hawks and skeptics among Japan’s elite. Emperor Hirohito and General Hideki Tojo are newly appraised as we discover how the two men fumbled for a way to avoid war before finally acceding to it. Hotta peels back seventy years of historical mythologizing—both Japanese and Western—to expose all-too-human Japanese leaders torn by doubt in the months preceding the attack, more concerned with saving face than saving lives, finally drawn into war as much by incompetence and lack of political will as by bellicosity. An essential book for any student of the Second World War, this compelling reassessment will forever change the way we remember those days of infamy.