The Stalingrad Air Lift

Robert Forsyth is a British writer with a lifelong interest in the Luftwaffe. Military aviation readers surely know his dozens of highly focused short works in Osprey’s "Dogfight and Duel" series (130 pages or less), rich with pictures and technical detail. While prolific in this realm, Forsyth shows himself to be a historian of the highest order having written three definitive “big” works for the serious students of World War 2 aviation: a history of the Luftwaffe’s support of U-Boat operations (2017, 479 pages), an accountof Galland’s elite fighter group JV44 (1996, 356 pages), and now, in 2022 To Save an Army.

How crowded is the field (pun intended) on Forsyth’s subject? Searching “Stalingrad airlift” on both Amazon and WorldCat, I found fewer than ten titles. The only finds from this century were a handful of US staff college papers, a 96 page book by Osprey, and a 144 page book from 2010. To my surprise, no separate Wikipedia article exists.

An author writing about Stalingrad’s ground battles does not need extensive background for the air dimension. A story of the airlift, however, must include both air and land, so Forsyth has much scene setting to do. He details the state of the German war effort as it stood in mid-1942 in terms of losses, logistics, and strategic aims [p. 44]. Despite heavy losses in men and machines and neither Russia nor Britain defeated, Hitler still pursued an Vernichtungsstrategie (annihilation strategy). With Germany very poor in natural resources [p. 45], this could only be attained by capturing the Caucasus oil fields. Operation Fall Blau was developed, and Stalingrad’s upcoming place in history was sealed.

Hitler’s disassociation from military reality led to underestimating enemy moral and material capabilities [p. 69] and disastrously split his forces in pursuit of too many objectives [p. 68]. The reader may be surprised that Russian preparations for Operation Uranus counterstroke were well known but were ignored by high command [p. 99].

I gained a new understanding of the relationship of the Luftwaffe to the Wehrmacht. Despite its formidable reputation the Luftwaffe was “overleveraged towards local support” [p. 52]. Transport officers held little power in the Luftwaffe [p. 57]. Goering’s promise to supply the 270,000 trapped men required stripping planes and crew from training units, the African and Atlantic theaters [p. 205] and even civilian assets from Lufthansa [p. 127]. Only the abilities of Generals von Richthofen, Fiebig and others allowed this doomed effort to achieve what it did.

Those interested in W.W. II already know the reputation of German combined arms warfare, but should remember that this did not automatically happen. Instead, it was re-earned in each theater as new units and leaders operated together. Forsyth describes the evolving cooperation between ground commanders, intelligence units, airfield logistics, and tactical units in the September 1942 approach to the city [p. 82]. A high sortie rate was achieved. However, the bombing campaign’s success had an unintended result [p. 87] which worked against friendly forces.

The Russians in this contest were even more successful developing advanced combined arms operations. The famous December raid on the Tatinskaya airfield [p. 176] was a costly but important first test of the emerging Soviet concept of Deep Battle. By contrast, Operation Wintergewitter failed completely in its attempt to break through to Stalingrad [p. 197].

Two utterly different races were at war. A German gives grim testimony [92] to the animal-like hardiness of Red Army soldiers. The air war was no less savage - Soviet pilots used a tactic [84] unthinkable to the German mind. An omission was noted by my father who borrowed the book: no mention is made of the number of civilians killed during the Luftwaffe raids, the upper estimates of which are in the tens of thousands. In my opinion, histories of combat – especially urban combat – should never ignore civilian casualties. In a previous review I opined that authors should not “befriend” their subjects; Forsyth’s omission may be an example of this.

That aside, the depth of Forsyth’s research honors the maxim that “amateurs talk tactics; professionals talk logistics”. However, the talk of Luftwaffe logistics professionals was not always accurate. Over and over, the supply tonnage delivered was far less than promised. Indeed, this is the main narrative of the airlift. Estimates of aircraft carrying capacity were overstated [p. 131]. Certain supplies delivered were tragicomically useless [p. 169].

Aircraft enthusiasts will not be disappointed in the technical details. A short chapter summarizes the specifications of the most common workhorse aircraft of the airlift such as the He 111 and Ju 52 [p. 118]. Plenty of detail is also given to rarer types such as the Ju290 or Fw 200. A section of glossy plates features both period photos and full color drawings. Even the humble but vitally important airdroppable containers get a color plate [p. 256].

I wondered if the human dimension would be overlooked in a work so deep in facts and figures. Thankfully Forsyth proves he can write people as well as planes. Focusing mainly on high-ranking leaders, only a few voices from the lower ranks are heard, though I consider this appropriate for the scope of this work. At a person’s first mention Forsyth often provides a concise background and description of his personality, as personality counted for so much during this prolonged emergency requiring superhuman efforts. So colorful some of were these introductions [p. 60, 246] that I was reminded of Tom Clancy’s novels whose characters’ appearances and motivations are always thoroughly fleshed out. The reader will sense the great care the author took to present his subjects, as it is a historian’s privilege to channel persons long gone who might otherwise be forgotten to time.

This book has personal significance for me. I served as a fighter aircraft mechanic in the USAF in the 1990s. Even in peacetime, the work was difficult and dangerous, spare parts often in short supply. Russia’s greatest ally, its winter climate, had devastating effects on men and machines. Temperatures fell and stayed below freezing, with disturbing effects on mechanics’ health and safety [p. 209]. As I well recall, gloves cannot always be worn during maintenance. The effects of exposure and malnutrition affected pilots’ ability to fly [p. 241]. Whiteouts, wing icing, mechanical failures, airfield conditions and other weather influences resulted in a shocking percentage [p. 199] of non-combat losses.

A superficial remark on the prose: in the introduction and acknowledgements, sentences were heavy with descriptors and interjections. I feared that it would be a tough read, as my American sensibilities favor the Mark Twain maxim (“If you see an adjective, kill it”). Thankfully the wordiness did not occur as the author launched into the main topic.

I fully recommend this book. This is not a casual read such as Paul Craig’s Enemy at the Gates, with its vignette style with no footnotes. Forsyth’s presentation in To Save an Army is professional and comprehensive – he knows he is writing a tome for the ages. It is for specialists but, 1) he has his Osprey shorts for the popular crowd, and 2) major military operations deserve such an expert modern treatise. Fluency in German allows him to draw on primary documents, whether strength tables, weather schematics, staff logs, etc. Finally, Forsyth displays a remarkable integrity when, in his final chapter, he explains why he does not offer original conclusions on the airlift because, in his words [p. 286], it would be “facile for an author to hypothesize with the benefit of nearly 80 years’ comfortable hindsight”. Instead, he presents the summaries and recriminations of the leaders involved, in memoirs and interviews in the years and decades afterwards.

Note: To Save an Army is also available in e-editions.

StrategyPage reviews are published in cooperation with The New York Military Affairs Symposium

www.nymas.org