The First Aces of the German Fighter - Poland and the Western Campaign

This booklet lists 77 German fighter pilots from World War II believed to have scored at least five victories during the Blitzkrieg running from the Polish campaign to the end of the Western Offensive. This period constituted the start of the most fantastic aerial confrontation in history. If certain claims are erroneous, approximate or 'inflated', the battles of 1939-40 reveal men of exceptional caliber.The victories of the Luftwaffe are also among the least biased in this gigantic duel.

The pilots of the new Luftwaffe had benefited from competent supervision and excellent training (twenty-two of these aces had also gleaned combat experience in the Spanish Civil War). This is how young people from all sides formed an elite of fighters throughout the first chapter of this epic of the sky.

At the controls of their Bf 109 and Bf 110, German aviators inflicted heavy losses on the adversary during furious and bloody clashes opposing them to the Polish, French, Belgian, Dutch and British air forces. Forty pilots presented in this work would also be awarded the Ritterkreuz!