Aviation Elite Jagdverband 44 - Squadron of Experten Osprey Books

There was no Luftwaffe fighter unit like Jagdverband 44, formed in February 1945 following political dissent amongst the high command of the Luftwaffe over the deployment of the Me 262 in late 1944. Hitler had proclaimed that the world's first jet fighter should be used as a bomber, but many of Germany's fighter commanders saw this as a grave mistake given the aircraft's potential in the daylight defensive battles being fought over the Reich. Gring, increasingly out of favour with Hitler, sacked his fighter General Adolf Galland and 'banished' him to southern Germany to set up a small fighter unit to 'prove' the Me 262's ability as an interceptor. He was allowed to choose from amongst Germany's most experienced fighter pilots, and so Galland's unit, Jagdverband 44, numbered a disproportionately high number of leading aces in its ranks, such as Gnther Ltzow, Johannes Steinhoff and Erich Hohagen. It was said that the Knights' Cross was the unofficial badge of the unit, while others viewed it as a 'Flying Sanatorium', since a number of its highly skilled and experienced pilots were considered to have been suffering from combat fatigue. The unit went into action over Bavaria and engaged B-26 Marauders and fighters of the US Ninth Air Force, deploying R4M rockets to score a number of its kills. JV 44 also deployed a number of unusually painted Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9 fighters, with red and white undersides, as an airfield defence unit to protect the Me 262s when coming in and out of their base at Munich-Riem. This unit was led by another Knights' Cross holder, Heinz Sachsenberg. Finally, in an effort to prevent the technology of the Me 262 falling into Soviet hands, Galland attempted to negotiate a surrender of his unit to the Americans in the last days of the war. This book is a fascinating account of the dramatic birth of the jet fighter and its impact during the bitter struggles of 1944-45.