Stuka-Pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel: His Life Story in Words and Photographs

Hardcover 22x29 cm, 280 pages. The Ju87 dive bomber was already obsolescent after the Fall of France and Holland, but in the hands of skilled and courageous pilots like Rudel it continued to strike terror into the infantry, armor and warships underneath it's siren-screeching vertical plunge. Some have recoiled at Rudel's dedication to the Nazi cause, but as the British fighter ace Douglas Bader says in his foreword, one cannot easily demonize raw courage and skill merely because its practitioner fought for a morally corrupt cause. Rudel's postwar career, first in Argentina then upon his return to Germany in 1953, shows that his admiration for Hitler's "military genius" and the Nazi cause was undiminished. On this account, he had a difficult time finding a German publisher for his war diary. But by then the Cold War and German industrial regeneration (in which Rudel played some part) made many German politicians and military men look the other way. In the early 1950s anti-Bolshevism was back in fashion as the Soviet menace overshadowed any concerns about German "de Nazification". However controversial his political views, Rudel was a highly skilled, audacious airman and adventurer and it's these qualities that shine through his fascinating narrative of close air support missions in the face of daunting opposition. One of the little-known facts about Rudel is that his advice was sought by US Air Force planners when developing the close air support plane that eventually became the A-10 "Wart Hog" --one of the most successful CAS aircraft of modern times and a worthy successor to the likewise gawky but deadly Stuka. 9780887402524 / 0887402526