In Furious Skies: Flying with Hitler’s Luftwaffe in the Second World War

Yet within just nine years the once-mightiest air force in the world had reached total collapse, destroyed in part by the very people responsible for creating it. By 1944, the Luftwaffe, wearied by aerial battles on multiple fronts combined with tactical mismanagement from the highest levels of command, were unable to match their enemies in both production and manpower. By this time the Luftwaffe was fighting for its survival, and for the survival of Germany itself, above the burning cities of the Third Reich, facing odds sometimes as high as ten-to-one in the air.