Memoirs of a Stuka pilot - Helmut Mahlke

After recounting his early days as a naval cadet, including a voyage to the Far East aboard the cruiser Kln, and as the navigator/observer of the floatplane carried by the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer during the Spanish Civil War, the author describes his flying training as a Stuka pilot. - - The authors naval dive-bomber Gruppe was incorporated into the Luftwaffe upon the outbreak of war. What follows is a fascinating Stuka pilots eye view of some of the most famous and historic battles and campaigns of the early war years: the Blitzkrieg in France, Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the bombing of Malta, North Africa, Tobruk, Crete and, finally, the invasion of the Soviet Union. - - The author also takes the reader behind the scenes into the day-to-day life of his unit and brings the members of his Gruppe to vivid life; describing their off-duty antics and mourning their loss in action. The story ends when he himself is shot down in flames by a Soviet fighter and severely burned. He was to spend the remainder of the war in various staff appointments. -