The Greece and Yugoslavia air campaigns were the last full-scale Axis air offensives before Operation Barbarossa, and this new illustrated history explores their unique elements, including the Italians' development of air-to-ground support and the Germans' refinement of their tactics. With rare photos, paintings, maps, and 3D diagrams, it is an expert account of the air war over the eastern Mediterranean.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 96 pages
Publication date: 26 September 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

A New Illustrated History of the German and Italian Air Campaigns in the Invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia

The Greece campaign was launched by Italy in October 1940, marking the first large-scale campaign of the Italian Air Force outside North Africa and its last major solo effort. With the German involvement in April 1941 and the invasion of Yugoslavia, the Balkans saw the last large-scale Axis air campaign in Europe before the invasion of the USSR. It was also the campaign that saw expeditionary units of the RAF fighting alongside the Greeks, most famously the handful of Hurricanes that fought to the end from makeshift olive-grove airfields, among them the Hurricane ace and future novelist Roald Dahl. In this book, renowned historian Pier Paolo Battistelli and air power expert Basilio di Martino explain how this unique campaign was fought. They highlight elements such as the Italians' development of air-to-ground support while carrying out, for the first and only time, an airborne operation, and how the Germans refined their tactics from the 1940 campaign in the West, while now also playing a major anti-shipping role. Illustrated throughout with rare photos, superb original paintings, maps, and 3D diagrams, this is an expert account of the air war over the eastern Mediterranean.

Weight: 300g
Dimension: 250 x 185 x 5 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781472859242