Customer Reviews

Bagration to Berlin: The Final Air Battles in the East 1944-1945

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not being a great collector of aviation books I stumbled upon Christer Bergstrom"s book Kursk The Air battle, which after reading I had to buy his next offering on the final era of the Second World War on the Eastern front, namely Bagration to Berlin.
In this his final offering on the brutal campaign on the eastern front the authour has once again penned a very interesting and well researched book.
As per his previous offerings on the air battles the book takes sources from both the Russian and German side to give a balanced view.
It again has a comprehensive loss chart but interestingly only for the Russian side as most records for the Luftwaffe at this late stage of the war were destroyed.
There are some rare and unique photos of Russian aircraft flying over Berlin and landing at captured german airfields in Berlin while the fighting was still going on nearby.
One thing that appeared to be different in the campaign in the east was that the Luftwaffe was able to send up planes to assist their ground troops on a number of occasions resulting in furious air battles.
Indeed the Russians faced the largest number of "experten"(aces)on the Eastern front compared to the allies, and it was these men and their few machines that kept the growing number of Russian pilots equipped with superior aircraft at bay for so long.
As the Luftwaffe began to grind to a halt through a lack of pilots, aircraft and fuel, the Russians with the dreaded ground attack Il 2 ably suppourted by large numbers of fighter escorts wreaked havoc on the German ground forces.The Russians equipped now with the much superior La 7 and Yak 9 began to shoot down large numbers of German aircraft in a complete reversal of the air campaign in 1941 - 42.
There is anice little piece on the use of the Mistel, a Ju 88 packed with explosives and piggy backed by a Focke Wulf 190.It was this type of aircraft that was used to attack the Kustrin bridges over the Oder in April 1945.
As usual from this authour there are a large number of photographs of the aircraft and personalities involved in the battles
The book is full of combat accounts, and covers all areas of the war from Kurland, to the collapse of Army Group centre in operation Bagration, Poland and the Oder crossings to the final battles over Berlin.
Printed on fine glossy paper for excellent photo reproduction, you will find a wealth of information that is not readily accessible in other books which tend to concentrate on the land battles.
Well worth reading and highly recommended

A must-buy if interested in the air war over the Russian Front. Authored by Bergstrom, proofed and corrected by a native English speaker (unlike the Black Star/Red Cross volumes) this is a highly readable account of the last year of the air war on the Eastern Front. If you're waiting for the next volume of BC/RS from Eagle Editions then you will have a very long wait. This is a much more than adequate substitute..

Only long-time Russian Air Force enthusiasts can appreciate what superlative histories Christer Bergstrom has authored over the years. Russian histories of Eastern Front air ops produced in the 1960s/70s/80s were stilted, turgid prop-lit tracts filled with motherland-loving heroes inflicting catastrophic losses on the evil fascist invaders with few losses in return. The photographs found in those histories were heavily retouched, resembling nothing so much as bad xeroxes. Western histories concentrated on the Luftwaffe, the VVS often being characterized as hopelessly inept and easy targets for Experten. Bergstrom's books, by contrast, reflect impeccable research in various archives, official documents, books and other sources east and west and a balanced, comprehensive presentation of events, personalities, tactics and policies. BAGRATION TO BERLIN, published in 2008 by Ian Allan Publishing, is a prime example; military aviation history doesn't get much better than this.

Though it's subtitled THE FINAL AIR BATTLES IN THE EAST: 1944-45, the book's scope is larger by far. Bergstrom chronicles the air war from Barbarossa on, the better to understand the catastrophic defeat Army Group Centre suffered in 1944. He documents the painful learning curve VVS units suffered in the first years of the war, the constant reinvention and improvement those units underwent in terms of tactics and equipment and the major impact those units eventually had on the ground war. By 1944/45, the VVS, in terms of quantity and quality, was the 800-pound gorilla of the Eastern Front.

Bergstrom packs a great deal of information into the book's 128 pages of text. (Appendices take up another seven pages; notes/sources, five more). He does a marvelous job of presenting a wide-ranging multi-dimensional history of the air war, balancing strategic considerations with in-the-cockpit details. As you progress through BAGRATION TO BERLIN, you can easily understand why the VVS played such a dominant and successful role in the Russian march to Berlin. It's fascinating and informative history.

The book includes hundreds of well-reproduced and sometimes rare photographs of VVS and Luftwaffe aircraft and aircrew along with color maps and a color artwork depicting Mistel attacks on the Oder River bridges. Profiles of the opposing aircraft would have been nice but that's just me. Visually BAGRATION TO BERLIN is a treat!

Air combat buffs will want to add BAGRATION TO BERLIN to their collection. It's a well-researched, well-written and well-illustrated guide to the Eastern Front air war. Viewed as a whole, the four Bergstrom Ian Allan volumes are as near to a definitive history of the Eastern Front air war as I've ever seen. Highly recommended.