Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #729627 in Books
• Published on: 1993-12-31
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 448 pages

Synopsis
A look back at the Abbeville Kids, the pilots of the Luftwaffe's Jadgeschwader 26, describes the founding of this famed fighter wing and its performance during World War II. Reprint.

Customer Reviews

"Schlegeter"... from ashes to ashes.
Caldwell's book is a well written, riviting masterpiece of military history. From the humble beginnings as merely another fighter formation in an air force made illegal by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, to a gaggle of half-trained boys and shell-shocked veterans stunned that they have survived as long as they have, Caldwell leaves no stone unturned. He chronicles the buildup and training of the Jagdwaffe, the fighting over Poland, France & the Low Countries, the Battle of Britain, transition to the Fw 190 'Wurger' aircraft, and its slow death at the hands of the Allied air forces. The reader becomes engrossed with the personalities, and experiences loss as one by one, these brave men fail to return home. By the end of the book, a reader is left almost as dazed and empty as the "Schlageter Geschwader" in April 1945. For anyone wanting intimate knowledge of the best fighter unit during the Battle of Britain, the only German aircraft above Normandy on D-Day, the only unit that Allied airmen were truly were afraid of during the air offensive over Germany, this is the book that shall deliver in full.

Dale E. Amsbaugh

A STERLING TREATMENT OF JAGDGESCHWADER 26
I echo the sentiments of all the other reviewers in lauding this book. This is AN ABSOLUTE GEM for anyone with an interest in World War II aerial combat. Comprehensive, well-researched, and highly readable, "JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe" should be considered as the standard work about one of the premiere German fighter units that saw combat almost exclusively in Europe between 1939 and 1945.

Masterpiece !!!
Don Caldwell wrote an amazing book about one of Luftwaffe's most capable and well led fighter units of WW II. With an insight look through the files, he takes us on a six-year journey of dogfights against RAF and USAAF bombers and fighters, in a fighter group full of skilled aces and dare-devil pilots, which, like all Luftwaffe, suffered terrible losses in the end. If there was one such book for every famous fighter group of WW II, history would be well served!