* Character-based study of why the German air force was defeated* Recounts the Luftwaffe in combat from the blitzkrieg of 1939-40 and the Battle of Britain to the Eastern Front and the Normandy campaign From its secret post--World War I beginnings to its virtual destruction by the Allied air forces, the story of the German air force is best told by examining its leaders--brilliant, ambitious, ruthless, and deceitful men like Hermann Goering, the drug-addicted Luftwaffe commander; Erhard Milch, the half-Jewish head of aircraft production; and Adolf Galland, the general of fighters who often clashed with Goering. Mitcham profiles them and others while describing the Luftwaffe's battles--both in the skies and behind the scenes--and explaining why it was so decisively defeated.