Author Description

Rommel's advance into Egypt forced the Allies to retreat to the El Alamein defenses. As the British Eighth Army prepared for a massive offensive attack, there followed a period of stalemate on the ground, but in the air the Luftwaffe was faced with a numerically superior force. Luftwaffe's fighter units, outnumbered and continually starved of supplies, fought on in support of Rommel's final battles in North Africa and against the vital British island fortress of Malta. Eventually forced to transfer units from an already critical situation on the Russian Front, German fighter pilots faced growing Allied air power but achieved some outstanding successes, and for a while the battle for Malta hung in the balance. German and Italian forces in North Africa were eventually defeated by superior Allied forces, ULTRA intelligence and the µTorch' landings. This title tells the story of the German fighter force in North Africa from the El Alamein offensive in October 1942 to final defeat in Tunisia in May 1943. Contains numerous first-hand accounts.