World War II fighting jets /

This expanded version of Ethell and Price's The German Jets in Combat (1979) has been enlarged to include English, Japanese, and US developments in jet aircraft of the early 1940s, jet assisted planes, and some that were hardly airplanes at all, but rockets with some maneuverability and a very limited life expectancy. This thoroughly researched book by extremely qualified authors goes well beyond the narrow bounds suggested by the title. The political background in Europe and, eventually, Japan and the US is explored to create the context in which jet aircraft were created and in which great successes and equally great failures were played out. Against the backdrop of Hitler's Germany, industrial intrigue perhaps hastened the end of the war as the personal wishes of giants such as Messerschmit made decisions at odds with Hitler's, ultimately and unintentionally aiding the Allied invasion at Normandy. For Germany and Japan, the situation was too little, too late. Technically superior to the Allied entries, the Messenschmit 262 failed almost entirely on political and logistic grounds. Fascinating reading. Highly recommended. General. F. W. Yow; emeritus, Kenyon College