Here the author describes his experiences as a Luftwaffe Anti-Aircraft Assistant from 1944-1945: “It was simply a question of us fifteen to sixteen-year olds manning the anti-aircraft guns on the ground defending ourselves against the airmen in the bombers and fighters 20,000 feet above our heads.” Letters, reports, documents and above all, the author’s complete diary and photographs do so much to authenticate this time capsule. He describes how it was in those days, the final two years of World War II, both on the ground and in the air, manning the guns and systems of the 7th German Anti-Aircraft Brigade, or on operations with the bombers of the 15th US Air Fleet - including insight into the lives of the schoolboy troopers “down here” and the bomber crews “up there”. About the AuthorMSc Eng. Gerhard Oberleitner was born in Ybbs an der Donau, Austria, on April 7, 1928, the younger son of a Master Carpenter. He attended grade school in Ybbs, and the first to fourth years of high school in Vienna 19. He was supposed to attend the fifth to eighth high school years in Amstetten, but after the first trimester of the 6th grade, he was drafted as a Luftwaffe Anti-Aircraft Assistant. Almost up to the end of World War II, he served with a heavy AA battery in St. Valentin.

The primary objective of this source edition is to provide readers with original documents, allowing them to form their own impression of the development, manufacture and operation of the Heinkel He 162. By linking this accumulated data with the historical situation of those times, we hope to have facilitated a more objective assessment of the "Volksjäger" project.For the purposes of this book, around 200 file documents were selected from a multitude of material on the Heinkel He 162 and reproduced in their original state. Complementing them are some 140 photographs, 50 scale drawings, 30 colour plates and innumerable citations from contemporary documents, teleprints, orders, lectures, reviews and intelligence reports.To make orientation easy, documents and illustrations are arranged in chapters that follow the historic pass off: Project, devlopment of the Heinkel He 162, manufacturing of the "Volksjaeger", in action within the Luftwaffe and allied war booty are the most important topics. For the first time the production and delivery numbers of the Heinkel He 162 have been broken down. Most of the original documents are not translated, but discussed in the text. A German-English glossary helps to understand the content of those original files.Rounding off the publication is a comprehensive annex giving details of propulsion units, camouflage schemes, armament, the cockpit, plus the various versions of the Heinkel He 162. An index of individals, place names and subjects and a list of sources and literature, both covering several pages, completes this supremely detailed retrospective of this famous German aircraft.About the AuthorThe author, Peter Müller, was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Swiss Army and is now a military historian. For the past quarter of a century, he has researched armament from 1914-1945.