Lipfert first takes us through his initial experiences where it was not only an acheivement to come back in one piece but to actually navigate your way home amongest the vastness of flat land with lack of landmarks was perhaps the greatest acheivement of all. With this book you will see a green pilot who is barely able to land his plane, gradually build in confidence and ability and mature to the cunning and expertise of an ace. There are many aerial combats described of in this book and done in such a way that one felt as though they were actually there in the cockpit with Lipfert, adrenalin and all.
Upon reading this book you start to realize it is sometimes just a matter of luck if you survive a war. For example, Lipfert crashed his plane into a house where his BF109 literally disintergrated with the exception of himself and the cockpit which came to rest some distance from the house, but he still lived to tell the tale.
There are also some lighter moments such as when beer had to be flown in disguised as a bomb strung underneath a Messerschmitt when all the alcohol supplies had run out. Lipfert also admitts to having flown off on more than one mission a bit tipsy!
All in all a very enjoyable book telling you how it was in the air on the Russian front.
Lipfert, who died in the early '90's, wrote an engaging little memoir. Despite publisher's claims, you'll find little about Hartmann, Barkhorn, or Steinhoff; you will, however, get a new appreciation for the skill of Lipfert's opponents, the Soviet airmen.
Like all of the German memoirs, there is little technical information in the book--if you don't know much about the Bf109 now, you won't know much more when you finish Lipfert's book.
I risked blowing $25 on yet another disappointing book, but I rate it more highly than "The First and the Last;" "Life and Death of the Luftwaffe;" "The Final Hours;" "I Flew for the Fuhrer;" "I Fought You From the Skies; "Heaven Next Stop;" and perhaps even more highly than "Stuka Pilot."
