Jagdverband (JV) 44 (Fighter Unit 44) was formed as a result of conflicts and disagreements within the Luftwaffe. Following a dispute with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the commander of the fighter forces, Adolf Galland, was relieved of his post and exiled. He was granted permission to assemble a small fighter squadron to prove that the revolutionary Me 262 was the war-winning jet fighter he believed it to be. Gallandarguably the most famous German fighter pilot of World War IIgathered a small group of disillusioned and exhausted Luftwaffe fighter pilots and flight instructors and relocated his unit, JV 44, to Munich. From there, he operated the Me 262 against USAAF aircraft bombing targets in Austria and southern Germany. In this reassessment of JV 44, published 30 years after his widely acclaimed and successful first study of the unit, historian Robert Forsyth examines Galland's motivations for forming the unit and whether it should be described as a "squadron of flying aces" or a "squadron of outcasts and exiles." The book includes numerous eyewitness accounts gathered by the author during his research in the 1990s, when he met with several former pilots of the squadron.
Group
Books (first-hand)
Author
Forsyth, Robert
Title
Jagdverband 44
Details
English text, 16 plates with black and white photographs. 352 pages.
