Alarmstart South and Final Defeat: The German Fighter Pilot’s Experience in the Mediterranean Theatre 1941-44 and Normandy, Norway and Germany 1944-45

Now in paperback - The personal reminiscences of Luftwaffe veterans and original documents and images give a unique insight into the Mediterranean theatre and late aerial war battles.

Alarmstart South completes Patrick Eriksson’s Alarmstart trilogy on Second World War German fighter pilots, detailing their experiences in the Mediterranean theater (1941-1944), and during the closing stages of the war over Normandy, Norway and Germany (1944?1945).

He utilizes extensive personal reminiscences of veterans and original documents, set within a brief factual framework of campaigns, equipment and the progress of the war. Veterans who flew in Me 109, Fw 190 and Me 110/410 aircraft provide their stories in their own words. They range from junior NCOs to Colonels, including a senior fighter controller and even one of the Luftwaffe’s psychologists.

The Mediterranean theater provided the top scoring aces on both sides for the entire war (excluding the Russian front battles): Hans-Joachim Marseille (158 victory claims) on the German side and South African ’Pat’ Pattle (an estimated 41+), on the Allied side. In the air battles over the Mediterranean region, many aircrew ended up ’in the drink’ with little chance of being found.

Occasionally, a miracle would happen, as with Dr Felix Sauer of JG 53, a pre-war biology teacher, who used his knowledge of chemistry and a calm demeanor to survive eight days in a dinghy at sea without water, apart from rain or dew. For many pilots the war would end only in death, for others in imprisonment. Oberfeldwebel Horst Petzschler endured forced labor in southern Russia: ’On 22 September 1949 I arrived in Berlin, my home town, weighing 118 pounds, half dead but having survived!’

Having retired after a career as a university lecturer in geology, Professor Patrick G. Eriksson has devoted many years to research for this series of books. He returned to primary sources and, crucially, as an associate member of the German Air Force Veteran’s Association since 1974, he has interviewed and corresponded with more than a hundred former members of the Luftwaffe, from junior NCOs to Geschwader commanders. Such primary material is unavailable anywhere else and can never be gathered again. He is the author of ’Alarmstart’ Vols I, II and III.