It was a 2022 Kickstarter campaign from Lombardy Studios that introduced me to Christer Berström’s Black Cross, Red Star: Air War Over the Eastern Front series of books.
Volume 1 covered the start of the war with “Operation Barbarossa.” That volume was featured along with JD Webster’s Fighting Wings-series wargame Wings of the Motherland in a post I wrote in January 2023.
Recently, the second volume of Black Cross, Red Star (and part of the fulfillment of the Kickstarter campaign) subtitled “Two Turning Points, December 1941-May 1942” an the third volume, “Stalingrad – The Air Battle, June-November 1942” arrived and now sag the bookshelves at Casa d’RockyMountainNavy.
Both newly arrived volumes of Black Cross, Red Star are somewhat-hefty, coffee table-sized books. Both are 380 pages (consistency!) and well-illustrated with many pictures, tables, graphs, maps, and color plates.
The reason I am so impressed with his work is the amount of primary source research he has done in archives and interviewing veterans. This includes resource centers such as the National Archives in the UK, the Bundesarchiv in Germany, the Russia State Archive, the US National Archives, and US Air Force Library. MANY OF THE PHOTOS AND INFORMATION APPEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ENGLISH IN THESE BOOKS.
Lombardy Studios
Likewise, every volume of Black Cross, Red Star deeply impresses me. These new volumes also surprised me in a way I was not expecting. Bergström not only talks about the battles and the weapons but also the people. By 1942, he notes, many of the Luftwaffe pilots had been in combat for three years—more if they fought in the Spanish Civil War. Many suffered mentally. Soviet pilots were also under extreme pressure to defend the motherland. It is positively shocking just reading the photo captions and realizing how few of the pilots shown survived the war, or even just 1942.
In Black Cross, Red Star I fully expect Bergström to talk about the personalties. I hoped that he could avoid hagiography—which he did—and am very pleased with how the fighting men and women on both sides are treated.
While these two new volume of Black Cross, Red Star now adorn the shelves of the RockyMountainNavy library, it also means that Wings of the Motherland will have to make a return appearance to the gaming table. Let’s hope that happens before another Fighting Wings-related Kickstarter, Tiger Wings, from Against the Odds magazine, fulfills.
Feature image courtesy RMN
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