Jagdwaffe - Luftwaffe Colours Vol. 3 Sec. 1

Strike in the Balkans April - May 1941

by Eric Mombeek, Jean-Louis Roba & Martin Pegg

a Classic Aviation Classic Colours Book

Reviewed by Steve Jantscher 

This is the ninth entry into the long running photo history of the Luftwaffe fighter force, the Jagdwaffe. This volume, published by Classic Publications is in the same large softcover 96 page format as those that came earlier. In addition to the over one hundred black and white photographs, are color photographs and side profiles of selected aircraft. The subject of this volume is the strike in the Balkans just prior to the invasion of Russia. Nice sunny photographs of aircraft and crew members litter this book, accompanied by numerous color profiles.

This is a strange history, being of such a short period and of such a small segment of the campaign. One sometimes feel the loss of a greater "big picture" when evaluating the books in this series. Most volumes so far cover periods of only a couple of months each. the Battle of Britain was spread out over four issues. One also gets the unconnectedness of the various air campaigns with the underlying, and more important (to victory at least) ground campaign. Notwithstanding the limits presented by this type of effort, the results are excellent. The presentation and physical quality can't get much better in a soft cover format. The real value of this series is not as a comprehensive history of any one campaign, but of the personal stories and recollections (as well as photographs) the authors have found. The photographs are really great, and through out the series one can find countless examples of aircraft to model.