Continuing in their series on the air war on the Eastern Front, Midland now has From Barbarossa to Odessa; the Luftwaffe and Axis Allies strike South-east June-October 1941. Yeah, a long title, but there it is. This is Volume 1, the battle for Bessarabia 22 June to 31 July.

As you may well expect, this is a day to day diary of the events in the air at the time. What makes this volume especially impressive is that it includes the missions of the Axis Allies Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. Now the participation of some of these allies is greater than it is with others. For instance, Bulgaria remained neutral in the Axis-Soviet war. They were invaded by the Soviets in late 1944 and really only were able to provide a token resistance. However, the Soviets did attack Bulgarian Black Sea installations and confronted the Bulgarian coastal patrol units. The Slovak air force was really quite small and consisted of mostly obsolete and obsolescent aircraft but they did participate.

This means that the bulk of non-German participation was really with the Rumanians, who had territorial disputes with the Soviets anyway and were fighting as much to regain lost territory as anything.

The book starts with a background on the various services involved, and events that led up to the invasion of the Soviet Union. This is followed by an order of battle of the air forces and like I was, you'll be surprised at how large the Soviet air forces in the region were compared to the Axis.

Then we go into a day by day account of events. This section is divided into June and July for ease of reading with the events of the day starting with the first missions and ending with the last. Not only are mission details given, but there is information on base moves, new or different aircraft types that were involved and other interesting snippets of information pertaining to those events.

This is all accompanied by a superlative selection of photographs and a few profiles, though the book is not festooned with them as some might hope. There are also subsections that include information on specific pilots or events of note; the 'there I was' sort of thing that most of us love to read. This is not a book one rushes through. There is a considerable amount of information presented and the type font is rather small. However, it makes for a cracking good read and especially so as it has information on the lesser known forces involved in the conflict.

I am very much looking forward to other books in this series and I know that once you start reading one, you'll be drawn into it as was I. An excellent read and reference book.

October 2007

Review book courtesy of Specialty Press, where you can order your copy of this and many other superb aviation and modeling books. Visit their website at the link above or call them at 1-800-895-4585

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