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Duel Under the Stars

The Memoir of a Luftwaffe Night Pilot in World War II

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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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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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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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This is an excellent memoir from the other side - a few minor errors due no doubt to not all of the information being accessible relatively soon after the war ended when the book was written. Otherwise this is a brilliant read.

Brilliant authentic and well read memoir!

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This is a unicorn amongst WW2 non-fiction books.

This follows the personal story of the Luftwaffe (German airforce) in WW2 from the point the allies start bombing Germany, right to the end of the war. So it’s almost like an autobiography but focuses on life as a pilot and never really touches on his life outside of that.
The author never touches on politics or Nazi ideology and never speaks ill of the allies either. It’s a very objective combat and factual based story with segments of how he socialised with his comrades as a fellow pilot when he wasn’t fighting.
His role was specifically night fighting to protect Germany from bombers and the technical and tactical detail from his perspective each time he flights up to fight is superb. It allows you to appreciate the all aspects as if you were a Pilot,Commander,Engineer and a human, all in one. You don’t need any background knowledge but the book will smoothly run you up to speed.

Above all, you can tell he respects and empathises with the very pilots he was trying to shoot down and oozes a respectful admiration for all of them.

He also does a brilliant job of showing you the evolving mental perspective of Germans especially with morale as the years pass by.

A final bonus, is how he references German night fighting aces at various points in his story and highlights their achievements and their obituaries, by this point you would know how difficult night fighting is, and helps put a whole new perspective for the scale of their achievements

This is a hidden gem

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