Osprey's examination of German air forces of World War I (1914-1918). The Imperial German Army Air Service of World War I grew from just 500 men in 1914 to 80,000 in 1918, inventing in the process a wholly new form of warfare. The exploits of the first fighter 'aces' have been widely celebrated, and have tended to overshadow the other, equally important branches of the fighting air forces – the reconnaissance and ground attack units, the airships and strategic bombers. This concise but fact-packed guide to both the Army and Naval Air Services – their command, organization, strength, training, support services andoperations – offers a morebalanced picture, while giving the heroes of the Jagdstaffeln their full due. Uniforms and flying clothing are described in detail, and illustrated with rare photographs and meticulous colour plates.

This work is a detailed account of the composition, structure and organization of the World War I German army. It contains over 150 pages of detailed orders-of-battle and extensive lists of regiments and brigades, and all arms-of-service from infantry to sanitary troops.

From A-Z and in chronological order, researchers and historians can now check to find what deaths occurred among the German Air Service any day during World War I.

An exciting new survey on the air war over Flanders' fields, Above Ypres offers a definitive account of the costly battles waged above the Ypres Salient during the First World War. The simultaneous misery and bravery that occurred on Belgian battlefields, such as Hill 60, Messines, Yser, Mount Kemmel, Passchendaele, and Ypres, has been thoroughly documented and examined over time. Yet, not until now has the air force received their proper due for their significant role in the battles: for five years, the air force battled intensely in the sky as their comrades waged war in the trenches below. Written from a German perspective, Above Ypres provides a detailed history of the German Air Service and the Naval Air Arm and examines the roles of particular planes, airfields, tactics, and major battles that contributed to their airpower growth. With many never before published photographs and military information, no student of air warfare or World War I history will want to miss it.

Air raid sirens wail, searchlight beams flash across the sky, and the night is aflame with tracer fire and aerial explosions, as Allied bombers and German anti-aircraft units duel in the thundering darkness. Such "cinematic" scenes, played out with increasing frequency as World War II ground to a close, were more than mere stock material for movie melodramas. As Edward Westermann reveals, they point to a key but largely unappreciated aspect of the German war effort that has yet to get its full due.Long the neglected stepchild in studies of World War II air campaigns, German flak or anti-aircraft units have been frequently dismissed by American, British, and German historians (and by veterans of the European air war) as ineffective weapons that wasted valuable materiel and personnel resources desperately needed elsewhere by the Third Reich. Westermann emphatically disagrees with that view and makes a convincing case for the significant contributions made by the entire range of German anti-aircraft defenses.During the Allied air campaigns against the Third Reich, well over a million tons of bombs were dropped upon the German homeland, killing nearly 300,000 civilians, wounding another 780,000, and destroying more than 3,500,000 industrial and residential structures. Not surprisingly, that aerial Armageddon has inspired countless studies of both the victorious Allied bombing offensive and the ultimately doomed Luftwaffe defense of its own skies. By contrast, flak units have virtually been ignored, despite the fact that they employed more than a million men and women, were responsible for more than half of all Allied aircraft losses, forced Allied bombers to fly far abovehigh-accuracy altitudes, and thus allowed Germany to hold out far longer than it might have otherwise.Westermann's definitive study sheds new light on every facet of the development and organization of this vital defense arm, includi

Major Georg Paul Neumann was a former German Air Force officer who had served in the Great War. He produced his outstanding survey of the German Air Force in 1920 while the events were still recent history. He was able to draw on his own experience and his contacts to compile a large number of personal accounts from officers and men who had so recently fought in the cause. The result is an accurate, faithful and comprehensive review of the aircraft, personnel and organisation of the force which began life in 1910 as the Imperial German Army Air Service and ended the war as the Luftstreitkrfte.This comprehensive and compelling review includes a series of primary sources dealing with some of the unusual and lesser known aspects of the Luftstreitkrfte including a gripping account of defending a Zeppelin against attack by British fighters.Major Neumann's indispensable work has never been surpassed and this English language translation is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the realities of the war in the air in the Great War.

This book represents the most comprehensive history of Germany during the First World War.