Jagdverband 44: The Luftwaffe’s Mavericks

The dramatic story of Jagdverband 44, the squadron of aces founded by leading Luftwaffe pilot Adolf Galland equipped with the new Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.

Jagdverband (JV) 44 was formed as a result of conflict and dissent within the Luftwaffe’s high command. Following disagreement with Reichsmarschall Herman Göring, the commander of the fighter arm, Adolf Galland, was dismissed from his post and exiled. He was given permission to set up a small fighter unit with which to prove that the revolutionary Me 262 was the war-winning jet fighter he believed it to be.

Assembling a small group of disillusioned and weary Luftwaffe fighter aces and flying instructors, Galland – arguably the most famous German fighter ace of World War II – moved his unit, JV 44, to Munich, from where it operated the Me 262 against USAAF aircraft bombing targets in Austria and southern Germany.

In this reappraisal of JV 44, published 30 years after his acclaimed and bestselling first study of the unit, leading Luftwaffe historian Robert Forsyth assesses Galland’s motives for forming the unit and whether it can be regarded more accurately as a ‘Squadron of Aces’ or a ‘Squadron of Outcasts and Exiles’. The book contains numerous first-hand accounts sourced by the author during his research in the 1990s when he met with several former pilots from the squadron.