Luftwaffe Bomber to Nightfighter Volume I: The Memoirs of a Knight's Cross Pilot

_'Suddenly, flash bombs to my right, I instantly dive low to avoid being a direct target. We stay down, close above ground … before too long life returns in the area and we spot men milling around; Richard and Pitt let them have it, but good. We’re down to our last bit of ammunition. Some Russians have frozen in fear, others lift their arm, others still lie flat on the ground. Not a single one remembers to get up and fire.'_On 21 June 1941, assigned to Luftwaffe bomber wing Kampfgeschwader 53, the 23-year-old Arnold Döring took off to fly his first mission against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. From that day, he kept a diary describing his operations in vivid detail. These diaries, here translated into English for the first time, give a unique perspective on the action on the Eastern Front, from the point of view of a bomber pilot. Döring’s accounts not only give technical aspects but are also filled with suspense and excitement with their close descriptions of bombing raids and narrow escapes from enemy fighter planes. This unembellished account gives an honest and meticulous record that moves rapidly from one area to another, from one operation to the next. With a detached professionalism, Döring offers us thrilling, action-packed snapshots of life as a Luftwaffe nightfighter. Döring flew a total of 392 aerial attacks and was awarded the Knight’s Cross in April 1945. **Thomas Baumert** is Professor of Economics at theComplutense University of Madrid. Besidesmultiple research articles and academic books andmonographies in the field of Economics andHistory, he has also published several biographicalstudies. His interest in the history of the Luftwaffewas spurred in his early youth by his neighbour, aformer Luftwaffe member who had been shotdown in in the Battle of Britain. He subsequentlygot to know several Luftwaffe veterans who sharedtheir war and peacetime experiences with him. In2016 he edited the Spanish translation of PeterSpoden’s nightfighter memories _Enemy in the__Dark_. **James Holland** is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer and broadcaster, specialising in the Second World War. The author of a number of best-selling histories, including, most recently, _The War in the West_, he has also presented – and written – a large number of television programmes and series.