Allied Jet Killers of World War 2

Allied fighter pilots began encountering German jets--principally the outstanding Me 262 fighter--from the autumn of 1944. Stunned by the aircraft’s speed and rate of climb, it took USAAF and RAF units time to work out how to combat this deadly threat as the Luftwaffe targeted the medium and heavy bombers attacking targets across the Reich.

A number of high-scoring aces from the Eighth Air Force (Drew, Glover, Meyer, Norley and Yeager, to name but a few) succeeded in claiming Me 262s, Me 163, and Ar 234s during the final months of the campaign, as did RAF aces like Tony Gaze and ＂Foob＂ Fairbanks. The exploits of both famous and little-known pilots will be chronicled in this volume, detailing how they pushed their P-47s, P-51s, Spitfires, and Tempests to the limits of their performance in order to down the Luftwaffe’s ＂wonder weapons.＂

Stephen Chapis has been a warbird photojournalist for Warbird Digest (WD) magazine since 2007 and was named Assistant Editor for the magazine in 2014. In addition to WD, Stephen has been published in Aeroplane, Combat Aircraft, EAA’s WARBIRDS, FlyPast, Red Alert (Redstar Pilots Association magazine), and World Airshow News. In addition to his 300 hours logged in the air as a private pilot, he also has logged more than 75 hours in the air as a photographer.

Andrew Thomas joined the RAF to fly straight from school and he has maintained his enthusiastic interest in the history and development of the Service from which he has recently retired. Specialising in the history of the RAF and the Commonwealth Air Forces, he has previously published more than a dozen volumes in the Osprey Aircraft of the Aces series.

Jim Laurier is a native of New England, growing up in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He has been drawing since he could hold a pencil and throughout his life he has worked in many mediums creating artwork on a variety of subjects. He has worked on the Osprey Aviation list since 2000, and in that time he has produced some of the finest artwork seen in these volumes.