TIGER ‘ACE’ WITTMANN: a unique look at the medals and paperwork of the famous Tiger tank ‘ace’ and an examination of his tactical ability.

WHAT'S IN THIS ISSUE?

THE SORCERER’S CAULDRON 
We look at the visceral and vivid memoirs of Kurt Scheffel, a Stuka pilot who flew in action from Poland, in the Battles of France and of Britain, on the Eastern Front, and until the end of the war. 

A QUESTION OF TACTICAL ABILITY 
Panzer historian Wolfgang Schneider critically examines the frequently acclaimed role of Tiger ‘ace’, Michael Wittmann, in respect of the part he supposedly played during the battle for Villers-Bocage. 

IDFLIEG’S ERRORS 
During the First World War, Germany’s Idflieg, which oversaw the air service’s procurement and development strategy, made critical errors of judgement affecting the air force’s performance. 

CAPTIVE STUKA 
When an RAF fighter pilot in the Middle East had the opportunity to fly a captured Junkers 87 Stuka, he was astonished by how well it flew. Surprisingly, it became one of his favourite aircraft of all time.

THE KAISER’S BENEVOLENT PIRATE 
In August 1914, SMS Emden became a successful commerce raider in the Far East under Fregattenkapitän von Muller. His ethos was to capture or sink enemy commercial shipping but to spare lives. 

THE ACE WHO NEVER WAS 
When a Messerschmitt Bf 109 was shot down over Kent in October 1940, RAF investigators were puzzled when they found a rudder marked with an astonishing number of victory tallies. And yet they had never heard of the pilot they had in captivity. We unravel the intriguing story behind the aircraft and its pilot.

FRENCH PANZERS 
When France fell in the late spring of 1940, Germany found itself in possession of vast pools of equipment and materiel and quickly made use of captured French tanks which it pressed into Wehrmacht service. 

CHURCHILL’S IRON CROSS 
When Winston Churchill was presented with a trophy Iron Cross at the Tehran Conference in 1943, it was supposedly taken from an agent who was sent to kill him. But what is the truth behind that story?

THE MICHAEL WITTMANN GROUP 
Michael Wittmann was one of the most famous German combatants of the Second World War and Dietrich Maerz gives us a privileged and detailed lookat Wittmann’s decorations and related paperwork.

THE FORBIDDEN SYMBOL 
In a new occasional series, we give readers and contributors a chance to air their views in our ‘Opinion’ pages. In this issue, Joe Fry looks at the controversial use of swastikas in a heritage context. 

KEEPING AFLOAT 
We investigate why it was that some Luftwaffe aircrew, operating over Britain and the English Channel during 1940 and 1941, would carry with them rubber rings or vehicle tyre inner tubes. 

TIGER IN COLOUR 
In our new occasional Equipment in Colour pages, we feature the Tiger I tank of the Wehrmacht.

STUKA WRECK RECOVERY 
In our Conflict Archaeology feature we look at the excavation of a Junkers 87 Stuka shot down on Britain’s South Coast on 18 August 1940, now recognised as the hardest fought day of the Battle of Britain. 

REAL TO REEL 
In our occasional war film feature and following the Junkers 87 Stuka 'theme' of this issue, we take a look at efforts to source examples of the aircraft type for the 1969 film Battle of Britain and some of the innovative and unsuccessful steps taken to represent the aircraft in that film.

GERMAN BOMBS OF WW1 
In this issue’s Notes from the Armoury feature we examine a selection from the range of various German air dropped weapons in use by the Luftstreitkräfte during the First World War. 

PHOTOS FROM THE FRONT 
Our fascinating and specially colourised image from Richard J Molloy depicts a pair of German soldiers on the Western Front during the First World War pedalling a tandem generator ‘bicycle’. 

FILM POSTERS 
Again, following the Junkers 87 Stuka theme of this issue, our featured wartime film poster depicts one of the Luftwaffe’s feared dive bombers illustrated to promote an early war propaganda film.