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Document created: 6 September 00
Published Aerospace Power Journal - Fall 2000

The JG 26 War Diary, vol. 2 (1943–45) by Donald Caldwell. Grub Street (http://www.grubstreet.co.uk), The Basement, 10 Chivalry Road, London SW11 1HT, United Kingdom, 1996, 576 pages, $49.95.

With this book, a follow-up of his JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe (1991), Donald Caldwell has added another superb work on the Luftwaffe to the corpus of serious works on airpower history. In this volume, the author outlines the combat actions, victories, and losses of Germany’s premier fighter wing on the western front. By following this micro view of history, Caldwell documents the decline and fall of the Luftwaffe against the Allied air forces during the height of the Allied bombing campaign against Germany.

The strength of the book lies in Caldwell’s comprehensive approach to research. The Luftwaffe documents in the German Military Archives as well as the letters, log books, and personal diaries of Jagdgeschwader (JG) 26 personnel were thoroughly examined by the author. In addition, the author interviewed dozens of surviving members of JG 26. While getting a comprehensive picture of the air war from the German side, Caldwell also conducted exhaustive research in the US and British archives for hundreds of specific instances of air combat in order to verify victory/loss claims and to carefully reconstruct the events of many of the aerial battles.

The author’s technique is to link the actions of JG 26 with the operational-level air war. The primary Royal Air Force (RAF) and US bombing targets and air operations are briefly outlined on a daily basis to provide a context for JG 26’s operations, which were primarily to defend Northern France, the Low Countries, and Northern Germany against Allied bombing raids. From there, the author provides an outline of JG 26’s operations for each day of the war from 1943 to the surrender in 1945. Losses and victory claims are covered in great detail as well as some selected instances of fighter combat. In The JG 26 War Diary the reader can clearly see the slow decline of the Luftwaffe fighter force and the loss of German air superiority over Northern Europe. Although the Luftwaffe held on capably throughout the air battles of 1943, by early 1944 one sees the effect of attrition upon an elite fighter unit as the unit’s experienced pilots are lost and replaced with men who have minimal flight training and who prove to be easy targets for the well-trained British and American pilots who are now escorting the bombers in overwhelming numbers. Yet, despite heavy attrition and numerous disasters—such as the heavy losses from the ill-conceived Operation Bodenplatte on 1 January 1945—JG 26 remained a cohesive and capable combat unit right to the end of the war. Indeed, the last aerial victory of JG 26 came on 1 May 1945.

One especially valuable contribution of the book is its analysis of numerous small aerial battles. By examining Allied and German accounts of the same battles, the author demonstrates which tactics tended to work for both sides as well as the strong and weak points of the various aircraft models engaged in close combat.

The JG 26 War Diary should be required reading for any serious student of the air war over Europe in World War II. For the operational and tactical insights into the air war the book provides, it is certainly worth the price. Even the more casual reader of military history will find this to be a very useful addition to a personal military library. The several hundred photographs that the author uses to illustrate the book, mostly photos from unit members, make this book one of the best illustrated of the World War II aviation histories.

James S. Corum
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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