Jagdstaffel 356, Vintage Aviation Library

A visceral and accurate firsthand account of flying with the Imperial German Air Force during WWI.

The airborne fighting squadrons of the Imperial German Luftstreitkräfte—known as the Jagdstaffel or Jasta—were a fearsome and elite force throughout the Great War. Though the entire force was dissolved and their aircraft destroyed by order of the Treaty of Versailles, the stories of the pilotremain in books like Jagdstaffel 356.

Although the author has given this Jagdstaffel a fictitious number and changed the names of the pilots composing it, the vivid descriptions and accurate narrative have the genuine ring of truth. Anyone who has had experience of flying on the Western Front or who has studied it since will recognize this chronicle as factual. Many experts believe this work draws on the experience of the Bavarian Jasta 35, which flew against the British; however, whatever its real number may have been, the squadron depicted inJagdstaffel 356 undoubtedly fought in the air over Flanders in 1918.