Inside the front cover, the words “The author wishes to acknowledge a special thanks” are definitely not the author’s idea of English grammar! My manuscript said “Special thanks for their assistance to ...”

There was not space in the book for a more extensive list of acknowledgements, So I'm offering them online instead.

Unpublished sources for the book include material from the Bundesarchiv-Militårarchiv in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Allied operational and intelligence data held by the National Archive at Kew, London, the Imperial War Museum, London and by the USAF Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB, Alabama.

The main text and text boxes frequently make use of ULTRA, intelligence derived from decrypted German signals. Such material is not infallible: the original messages might contain errors (e.g. figures, dates, times) and used cover names whose meaning the decoders could often only guess at; sometimes plans were announced and not carried out, sometimes the sender misunderstood the true situation. Some radio signals were missed by the Allies, messages by landline could not be intercepted. Nevertheless, ULTRA got it right most of the time (as comparison with surviving German documents shows) and is an invaluable source for those events where its decrypts are available.

A variety of contemporary published sources in English was consulted along with some especially valuable German ones:

Ulf Balke, Der Luftkrieg in Europa, Band 2 (Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1990) ISBN 3-7637-5884-4

Siegfried Radtke, Kampfgeschwader 54 von der Ju 52 zur Me 262 (Schild Verlag, München 1990) ISBN 3-88014-098-7

Arno Rose, Mistel (Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1981) ISBN 3-87943-421-2

Rudi Schmidt, Achtung, Torpedos Los! (Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1991) ISBN 3-7637-5885-2

German magazine articles by Michael Balss on KG 40 and by Georg Schlaug and Günther Ott on supply missions in 1945 were a great help also.