The story of the Heinkel He 176 rocket powered aircraft has been clouded in mystery and incorrect information for many years. Only in the last few years have some of the real facts emerged. Although there had been a few rocket powered planes earlier (Espenlaub's E 7 and the Opel-Sander Rak-1), these both used solid fuel rockets. The He 176 was to be the first aircraft in history to fly using only liquid-fueled rocket power.

In the early morning hours (4 am) of 27 August 1939, five days before the outbreak of what would become World War Two, a small group of people gathered at the Ernst Heinkel AG grass airfield at Marienehe near Rostock. They were there to witness the first flight of the first turbojet-powered aircraft in history, the Heinkel He 178, piloted by company test pilot Erich Warsitz. This is the history of this magnificent aircraft, pieced together by author David Myhra, PhD from documents and reports long thought nonexistent. Computer artist Jozef Gatial has contributed the colored plates in the middle of this book, to show how the He 178 would have looked in real life.