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Duel Under the Stars

The Memoir of a Luftwaffe Night Pilot in World War II

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Duel Under the Stars

By: Wilhelm Johnen, James Holland - Foreword
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
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About this listen

Wilhelm Johnen flew his first operational mission in July 1941, having completed his blind-flying training. In his first couple of years he brought down two enemy planes. The tally went up rapidly once the air war was escalated in spring 1943, when Air Marshal Arthur Harris of the RAF Bomber Command began the campaign dubbed the Battle of the Ruhr.

During this phrase of the war Johnen's successes were achieved against a 710-strong force of bombers. Johnen's further successes during Harris's subsequent Berlin offensive led to his promotion as Staffelkapitan (squadron leader) of Nachtjagdgeschwader and a move to Mainz. During a sortie from there, his Bf 110 was hit by return fire and he was forced to land in Switzerland.

He and his crew were interned by the authorities. The Germans were deeply worried about leaving a sophisticatedly equipped night fighter and its important air crew in the hands of a foreign government, even if it was a neutral one. After negotiations involving Göring, the prisoners were released.

Johnen's unit moved to Hungary and by October 1944, his score was standing at 33 aerial kills. His final one came in March the following year, once Johnen had moved back to Germany.

©1956 Richard Bärenfeld Verlag, Düsseldorf and Wilhelm Johnen; copyright 2009 by Verlagshaus Würzburg GmbH & Co. KG; translation copyright 2018 by Greenhill Books; foreword copyright 2018 by James Holland (P)2018 Tantor Air Forces Armed Forces Military Military & War World War II War Aviation Memoir Success Military World War Ii
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The narrator having a very upper British accent makes for an interesting choice, and in my view a clever choice. it's impossible to tell the author apart from his British pilot counterparts. Swap the aircraft model numbers and city names, you'd never know... and that's the point, and perhaps points to why the adversarial respect between pilots. Those looking for a guy supporting national socialism, or wanting a guy apologising for stuff he didn't do, speaking out against his country will be disappointed, this is a night fighter pilots memoirs, and that's all, and it's brilliant. I knew nothing at all about fighter planes at night, and it was always a mystery to me what exactly went on after sun down. I'm very glad I listened, and had no idea they already had a radar, and early versions of chaff. Having the cover of night, I very much got the impression despite losses, there were no where near as many friends lost as most other German ww2 memoirs, which makes for a much easier listen than most German ww2 memoirs, something I have struggled with in past. one of the best catalogue included audio books I've heard

Brilliant and Different - A Night Fighter

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I've read this book, in its printed form, many times. It is fascinating to hear the night fighter story from the other side. But I simply couldn't get on with the voice of the narrator of this audio book. Otherwise it'd have been 5 stars. I think Amazon offer it as a Kindle book, together with the Audible narration add-on, so I'd highly recommend you buy the Kindle version and, maybe, try the add-on narrative. You can always return the narration if you don't like it. The book is well worth reading.

A great book, but didn't like the narrator

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loved this book, not really into aviation but this was a fascinating listen, glad I listened to it

really enjoyed this book

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The writer has done an excellent job of sharing his story beyond statistics. There are accounts in this book that are full of pilot and crew respect which is why I titled this review humanity. The threat of life must have been constant and overwhelming yet the crew appear to either except or ignore to survive. I was interested in how the writer discusses use of technology and radios to build an warning system. For the Audible version I was uncertain about the narrator at first but that soon passed.

Humanity

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Well read, easy to understand on any level of listener and very informative.

A solid description of the evolving cat and mouse between the Luftwaffe and Bomber Command.

I highly recommend this title.

Excellent historical document

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