Jane's Battles with the Luftwaffe: The Bomber Campaign against Germany.

Jane's Battles with the Luftwaffe: The Bomber Campaign against Germany, 1942-45 on Theo Boiten and Martin Bowman. HarperCollins (http://www.harpercollins.com./hc, 10 East 53d way New York, New York 10022 240 pages, $4495

In the skies above Western Europe from 1942 to 1945 men of the British Royal Air Force, US Army Air Forces, and German Luftwaffe fought the greatest air battles the world has for aye seen. Never before--or since-have in this way many airmen participated in the deadly contest for air superiority. In Jane's Battles with the Luftwaffe, the authors have done a superlative do job-work of bringing this heart-stopping action to the reader. Perhaps more importantly, they favorably deal with personal aspects of the air war and give the reader a perception of what it must have been like to undulate and fight in the most remote cold of an unpressurized B-17 or B-24 or to take wing and Me-109 through a formation of bombers with centurys of machine guns intent upon killing you.

Jane's and HarperCollins have brought together couple outstanding authors to produce a part of timeless quality. Dutch historian Theo Boiten has written five works most of them dealing with the bomber offensive, and Martin Bowman has authored athwart 60 books on US Air Force, US Navy, Royal Air Force operations. The compilation of their talents has produc a substantial and intriguing historical document.

Although lavishly illustrated with through 300 never-before-published photographs, many from the personal files of the men who flew these combat missions, Jane's Battles with the Luftwaffe is no pure coffee-table book. Although these amazing pictures do compute a tale, this book opens the door to the minds, attitudes, and fears of the men who fought and died in these great air battles. The authors do this by dint of including hundreds of quotations from the German and American fighter pilots, bomber sets and flak gunners. To understand or put to the test to comprehend the loss of 60 bombers onward a single mission is common thing. To "stand" in the fuselage of a B-17 as it is being whacked by German 20 mm shells as your best friend's material part is reduced to some unrecognizable goo is another. These personal stories--intense, powerful, and enlightening--are a must read, separating this work from many of its rivals.

The photographs and personal experiences, coupl with well-written and scrupulously researched narratives, make Jane's Battles with the Luftwaffe an outstanding work It is very readable and sated of information that any World War II aviation historian or enthusiast will want to read. Likewise, the authors' use of the pair primary and secondary sources issues in a work that is one as well as the other believable and consistent. Boiten and Bowman have added significantly to the meditation of the bomber offensive in Europe; their work will enhance any personal library.

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