Who hasn’t seen pictures of wrecked and destroyed Luftwaffe aircraft left behind by the retreating German’ forces during the late stages of WW2? Have you ever wondered about the individual stories about the aircraft spread out in these Luftwaffe church yards? In this book you can read about the history behind some of these aircraft individuals among other things, such as the markings, the camouflage, the choice of RML colours and more. Also, if you are in to plastic modeling you’ll find lots of inspiration in this book, regardless if you just want to copy a historical scenario or find information to create one from a mix of historical sources. Besides the b/w photographs the book contains a number colour pictures plus a great number of colour drawings, which really bring these scrapped relics back to their former glory.

Apart from the Introduction the book is divided into eight chapters: Iberian Prelude, Great Britain, At home and in the East 1941-1943, Balkans and the Mediterranean 1941-1944, Europe 1944-1945, Night Ghosts, Forsaken fledglings and Modelling the aircraft of Götterdämmerung, with the fourth last chapter of cause being the largest.

The introduction contains a general background to the subject for those who already aren’t familiar with the air war during WW2 and a short explanation as to why this particular subject was selected. In the fallowing Chapters most of the pictures are thoroughly described regarding RML colours, type of camouflage, serial number, operational unit, the site where the aircraft was found or crashed and when possible the name of the pilot.

When reading these explanations it is evident that author possesses great knowledge and support regarding the interpretation of more than sixty years old photographs, something that can’t be very easy! WW2 and in particular its combat aircraft is a great interest of mine and I feel that I’ve learned a great deal reading this book, something that I definitive will bring along the next time I choose to build a diorama involving aircraft. I strongly recommend the book for those who are interested in German’ WW2 aircraft in general or just are looking for that last bit of inspiration for that particular diorama that they have planned for years. In either case, you’ll enjoy this book!

(Reviewed by M. Darefors)
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.