To Save an Army: The Stalingrad Airlift

Using contemporary photographs and previously unpublished sources, Robert Forsyth analyses the human, strategic, tactical and technical elements of the most dramatic operations arranged by the Luftwaffe.

Stalingrad ranks as one of the most infamous, savage and emotive battles of the 20th century. It has consumed military historians since the 1950s and has inspired many books and much debate. This book tells the story of the operation mounted by the Luftwaffe to supply, by airlift, the trapped and exhausted German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. The weather conditions faced by the flying crews, mechanics, and soldiers on the ground were appalling, but against all odds, and a resurgent and active Soviet air force, the transports maintained a determined presence over the ravaged city on the Volga, even when the last airfields in the Stalingrad pocket had been lost.

Yet, even the daily figure of 300 tons of supplies, needed by Sixth Army just to subsist, proved over-ambitious for the Luftwaffe which battled against a lack of transport capacity, worsening serviceability, and increasing losses in badly needed aircraft.

Using previously unpublished commanders' diaries, original Luftwaffe and Allied intelligence documentation and specially commissioned artwork, this gripping battle is told in detail by the soldiers who fought it.