1961, Mano Ziegler. A decent HB copy.
A superb memoir by a pilot who flew the Komet and survived.
This is an unusual, but ultimately extremely rewarding account of the introduction to service of the ME163 Komet.
Written purely as a personal narrative by one of the pilots at the core of the introduction to service, it is largely free of technical detail and long on detailed descriptions of the daily flying activities as part of an experimental Luftwaffe unit. If that sounds boring, don't be put off, for the majority of the book you are standing in the authors shoes as he makes hugely risky flights or sees his fellow pilots crashing to their deaths in this massively dangerous and temperamental ac.
The author is frustrated by his unfulfilled desire to go into combat with the Me163 as he spends most of the period training replacement pilots or air testing new Komets. In one passage he describes how he has 28 volunteer Komet pilots who he is training on the airfield, in the space of one morning they witness three fatal accidents in front of them and his 28 volunteers turn into 7 as they all decide it is too dangerous. The story is more than just the introduction into service of the Komet, but it is a well written intimate description of life in an elite Luftwaffe unit in the closing stages of the war and the awful casualty rate that was encountered.
It's not perfect - the actual flying - perhaps understandable for an ac that only flew for very short periods - fills a tiny portion of the book and the period the book covers is purely the introduction to service of the Komet. The author comes across as a very interesting character and it is slightly disappointing that he doesn't touch on his earlier career, but as a study of the Komet fighter, it is a superb and touching resource.
By Siko
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