Explores the small German air detachment solely devoted to protecting
Italian possessions in North Africa in 1941.
Adolf Hitler considered the Mediterranean an unimportant theater of the
war, leaving it to the troops of Benito Mussolini who wanted to dominate
the "Mare Nostro." Nevertheless, when the Italian army was defeated on
the Libyan-Egyptian border at the beginning of 1941, the Führer was
forced to help his ally by sending an air detachment first to Sicily,
then Africa.
This latest in the Casemate Illustrated series examines that tiny
expeditionary force, solely devoted to protecting Italian possessions in
North Africa. When General Erwin Rommel launched his Afrika Korps to the
east, the Luftwaffe had to go on the offensive to cover that advance.
With over 100 images, this book explores how German and British air
forces were quickly reinforced and, in the following months, Germany was
forced to engage more and more aerial units on what was initially
considered a peripheral arena of the war for the German High Command.
Losses in bombers and fighters were high on both sides and when, at the
end of 1942, the Allies landed in Morocco and Algeria on the back of the
Afrika Korps, the Wehrmacht's fate was sealed. The depleted Luftwaffe
did its best but could not change the course of the battle. The last
German units capitulated in Tunisia in May 1943.
