Operation Bodenplatte 1945: Death ride of the Luftwaffe (Air Campaign #67) [9781472876409]

Overview

A freshly researched, superbly illustrated assessment of Operation Bodenplatte, the Luftwaffe's desperate bid to support the Battle of the Bulge, and its last attempt at a major offensive.

With the Allies on Germany's borders, Hitler's Ardennes offensive – the Battle of the Bulge – was intended to split the advancing British and American armies. The Luftwaffe was to commit much of its remaining fighter strength to support the advance with air cover, preceded by a large-scale attack on the Allies' airfields. Operation Bodenplatte would be launched on 1 January 1945.

Drawing upon primary sources including unit diaries, combat reports, and captured German documents, Julian Hale describes and analyses the strategy, tactics and operations of the Luftwaffe fighters and the Allied air defences on 1 January 1945, as the German fighter arm fought its last offensive of the war. He takes care to assess and explain the critical weaknesses which had long made the Luftwaffe's mission impossible, and he fully explains how Bodenplatte sat in the context of the Ardennes offensive.

Packed with archive photos, original artwork, maps and 3D diagrams, this is the story of how the Luftwaffe threw its last coherent units into the war in the West, and how the losses on New Year's Day 1945 sealed its fate.