Description

The Nachtjagd Combat Archive is possibly the largest WWII aviation project ever published running to over 1.3 million words with over 1200 original photos, a remarkable 70% of which are previously unpublished. In simple terms, the NCA is a comprehensive record of over 6000 Luftwaffe Night Fighter Claims and over 2100 Flak claims which have been painstakingly matched to RAF Bomber Command losses resulting in over 95% of them now being identified. This means that for the first time ever, the fate of the vast majority of RAF Bomber Command losses can be clearly understood with exact locations, times and identities of the pilots or Flak units responsible for bringing them down.

This volume is the last of this historic series and features the biographical details of every Nachtjagd pilot, radar operator, or gunner who achieved at least one victory during WW2. In fact, 1,081 Luftwaffe Nachtjagd pilots, 13 Bordfunker (radio/radar operators) and 7 Bordschütze (air gunners) achieved one or more victories during WWII, amassing a staggering total of an estimated 7,041 aerial victory claims on all fronts. Operational losses among the ranks of the Nachtjagd remained relatively low during the first three years of the war, when the Nachtjäger mainly operated in the short-range ground-controlled night fighting role. Between September 1939 and June 1943, the Nachtjagd suffered the loss of 872 airmen killed, missing, severely injured, or taken prisoner of war, which amounts to 2,1% of all aircrew employed during these years. This, however, changed rapidly with the introduction of the long-range freelance Nachtjagd in the summer of 1943; after this point in time, the Nachtjagd losses rose at an unsustainable rate, which did not change until the end of the war. Illustrated throughout with photos of the pilots, this is an essential reference guide for anyone with an interest in the night air-war over occupied Europe during WWII.