Book Description
Publication Date: January 1, 2010
For the first time in English, this action-adventure narrative about elite German airborne troops covers recruitment, organization, training and combat on all fronts.
Bought this book from Amazon for USD27.21 (hardcover). It was a very good book. Anyway, below is a review from one reader, David L. Poremba "the past in review" (Windermere, Florida) that sums up what I feel about the book.
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German World War II veteran Kurowski does for the paratroopers what he has done previously for other branches of the German Armed Forces - recount their complete battle history from the small unit viewpoint in an informative narrative, replete with first-person accounts.
Beginning with the formation of airborne forces, Kurowski describes the proposed World War I drop by American forces led by General Billy Mitchell (which never occurred as it was scheduled for 1919). He then moves to the Russians, who were developing their airborne tactics as early as 1923. During the same time period, he states that the Germans were acquainted with the idea of airborne envelopment but it remained in the theoretical stage until the mid-1930's, when the Fallschirmjager was established and kept secret until the invasion of the Lowlands in 1940.
The main event in Jump Into Hell is the large scale paratroop drop onto the island of Crete in May, 1941. Although the Germans eventually secured the island, casualties were so high that Adolf Hitler forbade any more massive drops. The chapter on the campaign in Russia, followed by Sicily and Italy to the end in 1945.
Based on eyewitness interviews after the war, Jump Into Hell is an excellent history of one of Germany's elite fighting units.
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