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From Barbarossa To Odessa: The Luftwaffe and Axis Allies Strike South-East: June - October 1941 Part 1

From Barbarossa To Odessa: The Luftwaffe and Axis Allies Strike South-East: June - October 1941 Part 1

The Air Battle for Bessarabia - 22nd June - 31 July 1941

by Dénes Bernád, Dmitriy Karlenko and Jean-Louis Roba

Imprint: Midland Publishing

96 Pages, 8.9 x 11.9 in, 150 mono and color photographs

Paperback
9781857802733
June 2007
Temporarily out of stock. Ships in 8-12 weeks.

$27.95

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Description
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New, often unexpected and controversial, information continues to emerge on the massive air campaign fought over the Russian front during World War 2. This book is the first of two volumes, the result of lengthy and meticulous study, on the air combat which took place on the southern flank of the Eastern Front following Operation Barbarossa. The period covered in this first book saw the occupation of Bessarabia and south-west Ukraine and concluded when the area's capital, Odessa, was captured by the Germans on 16th October 1941. It was one of the most bitter and intensive air campaigns fought in the east. This was due to the fact that local Soviet commanders took the initiative and dispersed most of their assets in time, thus preventing their destruction on the ground. This gave them the ability to respond effectively to the combined Axis onslaught. Accordingly, the Red Air Force, was able to achieve some of its greatest successes of 1941 in this little studied campaign.

The often overlooked involvement of aircraft from Axis states other than Germany, such as the Romanians, who claimed a total of over 600 air victories, the Hungarians, the Slovaks and even the Bulgarians, is all covered on this book. This makes the subject varied and of great interest, particularly because of the large variety of aircraft types employed by both sides, all of which are fully documented. Aided by a large number of previously unpublished photographs, the book tells the story of the campaign from both sides and provides detailed eye witness accounts from individual pilots who were involved in the fighting. Besides day to day operations, the appendices contain comprehensive victory and loss lists.

Produced by the acknowledged experts in this important, but often overlooked theatre of operations, the two volumes of Barbarossa to Odessa: The Luftwaffe Strikes South-East, represent a major contribution to the available literature on the subject. the books will be essential reading for historians of the air war in the east, historians of the Luftwaffe and its allied forces and all aviation modelers.

Dipl. Eng. Dénes Bernád was born in 1964 in Transylvania (Rumania), in a family of indigenous ethnic Hungarians. He studied at the Transylvanian University in Brasov, where he graduated in 1988 as a Mechanical Engineer. From 1992 he lived in Canada, and in 2006 he returned with his family to Hungary. Currently, he works in the automotive industry as Program Launch Manager. He is fluent in three languages. His main interest is the military history of Central and Eastern Europe, especially Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria. His books deal especially with air forces and aircraft of these countries. He has written or co-authored seventeen historical books. Aside from the above books, Dénes Bernád has published many studies concerning the history of aviation in Air Enthusiast, Air International and FlyPast (UK), WW1 Aero (USA), Avions (France), Repülés, Aero História and Új Szárnyak (Hungary), Militaria and Skrzydlata Polska (Poland) and Aeronatica, Aeromagazin and Model-Ist (Rumania). He is also the founding member of the Asociatia pentru Propagarea Istoriei Aviatiei (ARPIA) - Association for Propagation of History of Aviation (Bucharest, Rumania) and Magyar Repüléstörténeti Társaság (MRT) - Hungarian Society of Aviation History (Budapest, Hungary). He is also a foreign correspondent of the French aviation magazine Avions.

Born in Belgium in 1953, Jean-Louis Roba has a degree in law. Interested in history at an early age, he has met hundreds of Second World War veterans and amassed a large collection of personal accounts, documents and photographs. His numerous visits to archives worldwide have facilitated the writing of some 80 books on this period, mainly related to the war in the air. However, his interest is mainly focused on subjects that are not well known or rarely studied, such as the service history of the Me 323 transport aircraft, the history of JG 53, Beute or captured aircraft in Luftwaffe service and various studies of Belgian pilots in the RAF during the Second World War. He contributed several volumes to the ground-breaking “Luftwaffe in Colour” Casemate series. Neglected theatres of war are also one of his favourite subjects – he has compiled books on the Germans in the Aegean, the air battles over Romania and a multi-volume history of Luftwaffe seaplanes. In addition to these books, Jean-Louis Roba continues to publish articles in specialist journals.