You will not find a more diffinitive book on the Luftwaffe's activites in
operation Blau. I was happy to see that the siege of Sevastopol was well covered, I have found so little information in other books about that epic siege. The book does a very good job in explaining the terrible conditions at the outlying airfields trying to supply the 6th army,the lack of fuel,spare parts and the horrific weather conditions.
Hitler decided to try and take the Caucausas oil fields as well as Stalingrad. They had forces to take one,not both. They would have had much
greater success if they had just bombed the oil fields especially Baku which represented 80% of Russia's oil. Army group A and B could have bypassed Stalingrad,cutting the Volga river traffic and with a pincer movement, enveloped the Russian armies coming to the aid of Stalingrad.
Field Marshal's von Bock and List did all they could and were treated unfairly by Hitler. This book is great in showing the leadership qualities of Wolfram von Richthofen,clearly the most outstanding Lutwaffe commander of World War2.

This is a very good description of Luftwaffe Operations on the Eastern Front. It has good background information speciffically about the economic side of it. Decisions made based on oil supply's rather than military objectives. Very interesting material.
The only bad thing about this book is that the editing comes across as very sloppy. German names are often misspelled or incorrect. It is not Manstein, but von Manstein, not Bock, but von Bock, not Kluge, but von Kluge.
Also it is not Count von Sponneck but Graf von Sponneck. If you overlook those issues, it is a very good book

In spite of what appears to be a large amount of research, there is very little meat to this book.

None of the important factors are accounted for, such as operational readiness, attrition and replacement rates of aircraft and crews, and levels of training. Major mistakes are allotted a single sentence, such as the decision in 1942 to drain training schools to fill immediate front line needs.

Instead, we are treated to dry, repetitive narrative along the lines "on such and such a date, aircraft attacked supply depots, fortifications, and troop concentrations."

It did, however, pique my interest in Wolfram von Richtofen. Here's hoping for a biography on that most curious character will be available at some pint. Even better, I'd love to see Richtofen's diary in print.

Very thoroughly researched book. Could have explained infantry operations in a little more detail after all most of the movements of the Luftwaffe happened in direct support of infantry movement. Could have given a little bit more weightage to characteristic traits of leaders involved in action. But all in all a very lucidly written book a definite buy for anyone interested in eastern theater of WWII

This book is a treasure. Saying it deals with just the Luftwaffe effort does not really address the scope of the book. In addition to the author's fabulous treatment of air operations, it has some great stuff on naval operations in the Crimea. This book is an absolute MUST for your WWII library. This guy is a lecturer at some college in New Zealand. Get him to some University in the USA!!

Anthony Beevor's wife and publisher (the well-connected Hon. Artemis Cooper, no less) had her publicity machine whip his good book on Stalingrad into a huge international best-seller. That's perfectly okay. I liked Beevor's book very much, and do commend it to readers. But Beevor's isn't the most authoritative and analytical book on Stalingrad, that frightful, turning-point battle. Joel Hayward's book is! I'm pleased that, while it has never sold as many copies, Hayward's uniquely-conceived book has earned fantastic reviews and been quoted and acknowledged as highly-influential (and mandatory reading) by almost every subsequent writer on the eastern front, including Glantz, Erickson etc.

Hayward's book masterfully explains why, strategically, Hitler planned a major campaign in 1942 after not winning in the east during the previous year. It superbly elucidates why, even though the city of Stalingrad was never one of that major campaign's goals, Hitler then became distracted by it, to the point whereby its capture mattered more than the Caucasus oilfields he was originally, and very rationally, committed to seizing and exploiting.

Hayward's book also analyses air power and joint-service matters but always relates these in a seamless way to ground battles and operations. His book is therefore strikingly-different to all previous, army-focused books on Stalingrad (including Beevor's) which barely mentioned air power despite it dominating all successful battles during 1942, in and around Stalingrad itself, and during the air-lift.

Hayward's analysis of that increasingly-futile and tragic air-lift, and its highly skilful defeat by the Red Air force and Red Army, is by far the most original, complete, meticulously-researched (all from unpublished archival sources) and informative ever written.

I cannot recommend this original, insightful book highly enough. Buy Beevor's journalistic book, of course. But you must buy this volume if you want a thorough, analytical, scholarly work that explains why things happened and what it all meant.

This is one of the very best book on the Luftwaffe by serious, academic historian, and possibly the only one to date to give credit and recognition to one of the best tactical minds of he Luftwaffe, GFM von Richtofen.


While justifiably lambasting the Luftwaffe (and Hitler too) on its short sightedness in forgoing the development of a strategic, heavy bomber in favour of tactical, short range fighters and light payload bombers, Hayward does remind us the indispensable role of the Luftwaffe as the Heer's flying artillery and its role in her battlefield successes.

The fact that the Luftwaffe was staffed mainly by transferees from the Heer may be a determining factor in shaping its mission as a tactical, close support airforce, and its reluctance to develop, acqueisce or sustain a naval air arm for the tonnage battle in the Atlantic (same can be said of Raeder's and Dönitz's strategic shortcomings, both concentrating on their respective favourites, battleships and U-boats, while paying little heed to the crucial role of air cover for naval actions) may stem from the tradtional rivalry during the Kaiser's times between the senior service, Army and the Kaiser's favourite, the Kriegsmarine, which in the Great War proved to be a less than war winning tool, and a dtermining factor (with her mutinies) in the dissolution of the Reich.

It is amazing that nobody in the top echelons of the Luftwaffe had articulated a strategic vision for the role of the service in war. Same with the Krigesmarine with its focus and fetish on battleships and U boats.

Bearing in mind that Germany was flanked by her traditional enemies in Europe, and the need for the avoidance of the nightmarish 2 front war like the last war, which stretched Germany to her limits as a middling power battling the superpowers (Britain, Russia and USA), the much vaunted General Staff as well as OKW, OKH. OKM. OKL had not seen the need for a strategic airforce of long range fighters and high altitude heavy bombers (plus aircraft carriers for the inevitable last fight with the US after mastery of Europe) that will serve as a deterrent in any enforced peace with Britain and USSR, or as an indisepnsable deep penetrating tool for crippling her enemies' military-political-industrial complexes, the cross-Channel invasion of Britain, the strangling of trans-Atlantic trade between Britian and her Dminions as well as her banker, the US.

Inter-service rivalry will see the Luftwaffe refusing to build up a naval air arm, or let the Kriegamrine to have one, nor did the latter, with its uni-dimensional focus on the war at sea, see the need for aircover and aircraft carriers ( all because of the myopic expedient that for the same amount of steel, you can build 20 U boats in a shorter time) for her naval units. This led to the loss of aircover over her bases, and drove the U boats underwater (thus limiting her striking power as they fought on the surface!) and her surface units immobilised in hideouts in France and Norway.

Without a strategic airforce, and with the loss of air supremacy at home and above the battelfields, Germany suffred from the vicious cycle of loss of aircover, then devastated industries, then even less aircrafts, arms and munitions to fight off her enemies on all fronts,and so on. In the end, the Luftwaffe was no more than the Heer's last mobile artiller and machine gun battalions (most of the Heer's artillery was horse drawn) and the Kreigsmarine an impotent coast guard.

It would be interesting to see if, like the Generalstab, most of the Heer transferees were artillerists ( the most technical proficient branch and thus uniquely suited to the technically most demanding service), who with their mindset would predisposed them to a tactical, close support vision of the Luftwaffe

The author has done an outstanding job on this book. I was very pleased with the coverage of the Crimean battles of early 1942 and the launching of Operation Blue when Richtofen's Corps was moved north to support the attack. You get a good, solid picture of the decision's at Army Command, Group, corp, and Division level throughout. The best part for me about a book is when I learn not just one thing, but learn new info on several aspect's of this huge struggle in the East. Enough praise now purchase this book! Anyone interested in the Eastern Front of WW2 should have this book.

I never realized how short of fuel the wehrmacht was until I read this book coupled with Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier". With the fuel blockade and limited Rumanian and synthetic fuel reserves, Germany never had a chance.

You'll have to search hard to find any book that better interweaves a rollicking good narrative with top-notch scholarly analysis of tactics, operational art and strategy. Added to that are good clear maps, a helpful glossary, thorough source and footnote details and a full index. This book initially upset a lot of buffs by slaying several sacred cows, yet Hayward's interpretations have not only survived, but they have been widely accepted by scholars and Stalingrad enthusiasts alike. This has indeed, as another reviewer noted, become a necessary "standard work" on Stalingrad.

Wonderful book on the most pivotal year in the Barbarossa campaign, but lessons exist here for people today regarding leadership and goalsetting. Hayward description of events clearly indicates that the German 1942 campaign would have been successful if the German leadership (from the General Staff on up) had created operational focus and maintained it throughout the campaign.

The lesson for us today is that, in our age of limited resources, failure to followthrough and focus our resources on the important goals, in the order that those goals must be achieved is the most important requirement for success.

I would recommend this, not just to history buffs, but to business leaders of all types.

I never got around to reading this book until now even though I bought it two years ago. It seemed too thorough and scholarly to be easily read and my lazy nature proved too strong. But I have now read it and regret not doing so earlier. In the meantime I wasted money on several less worthy books. They were easy to read but, alaS, I now find that they contained many mistakes.

Hayward's book may be the very best Luftwaffe campaign book, and one of the two or three best Stalingrad books, ever written. I was amazed by the breadth of research and the research talents demonstrated. I was also amazed by the amount of new information, all of it presented in a balanced and easy to follow fashion. This is amongst my five favourite World War II books ever read.

Put plainly: you can't understand the Battle of Stalingrad without this book. It is the only analysis of air and joint components of that hell on earth battle. Its author did a huge amount of work in archives and relies on unpublished diaries, notebooks, situation reports, squadron records, afteraction assessments and so on. The argument is clear and persuasive: that much of the credit for German successes during the eastern battles of 1942 must go to the Luftwaffe. Whereas many enthusiasts and some scholars have always presented the Luftwaffe as the secondary, supportive arm, with the army dominant, Dr Hayward makes clear that that view is out of date and unsupportable. The Luftwaffe led and dominated during the entire 1942 campaign. That doesn't mean that it could perform the impossible task Goering and Jeschonnek gave to it: supply of Sixth Army. Hayward's analysis of the airlift is the only authoritative account. The book is superbly crafted and compellingly written. It is one of three or four books that every Stalingrad reader MUST own.

The first edition came out in 1998 and, six years on, this work has not been surpassed for its importance as an analysis of WWII joint warfighting, the Luftwaffe's way of war, airpower in the Crimea, airpower in the Caucasus, airpower at Stalingrad, and naturally the Stalingrad airlift itself.

The reasons for this book's immediate "classic" status are easy to pick: totally accurate citing of hundreds of never-before-used sources in several languages drawn from major archives; a highly original approach to the writing of campaign histories; a clear argument; a fair and balanced approach; no Wehrmacht-devotee comments or tone (all too common I'm afraid); a wonderfully readable writing style; and precise footnotes that help the reader to determine the reliability of all claims or statements.

A true model of a WWII campaign analysis. VERY highly recommended!

I knew many scholars had used this book in their footnotes and for their research so I thought it would be one of those dry and boring texts. It is NOT. It is clever and insightful, and engaging and well written. It covers many battles poorly understood in the west until now, and has a focus on the way airpower and armies conducted their operations jointly as partners. The great Field Marshal Von Richthofen is central to the story, but Joel Hayward treats him as a human, with as many flaws as qualities. This is a fine book and an an essential study.