At dawn on 22 June 1941, German forces launched an attack along a vast front stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains against their ‘best ally’ – Stalinist Russia. The element of surprise, combined with the concentration of powerful formations, primarily consisting of armored and motorized units supported by the air force, allowed the Germans to penetrate deep into Soviet territory.

Barbarossa Victims, Luftwaffe Kills in the East, Vol. 1 is No.34 in the MMP Books/Stratus “Camera On” series of photo albums from the German perspective, typically focusing on weapon systems and vehicles. The beauty of these books are the photos taken by German soldiers during their wartime service. Typically, the “Camera On” series is written by Alan Ranger. This is the first by Tomasz J. Kopański, and he carries the series well.

Camera On Number 34 focuses on the Russian aircraft victims of Germany's Blitzkrieg against Russia during Operation Barbarossa. Besides being an incredibly concise overview of the opening phases of this decisive campaign, the photos are amazing and showcase the destruction wrought by a technologically equipped and better-trained military against one initially unprepared for what was to come.

Most of the book is period photographs with captions; only three full pages are dedicated to the foreword with a brief history of the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa. While there isn’t a table of contents, the book is broken down into the following:

• Foreword
• Glossary
• Gloster Gladiator
• Polikarpov I-15, I-15bis
• Polikarpov I-153
• Polikarpov I-16
• Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-3 (and MiG-1)
• Lavochkin Gorbunov Gudkov LaGG-3

Soviet losses along the entire front were enormous – the Soviets estimated 1,200 aircraft by noon on 22 June 1941, including 336 in aerial combat; the Germans reported 1,811 Soviet aircraft destroyed, including 322 in aerial combat. Remarkable that the numbers are very close, even more so that the Luftwaffe had fewer than 3,000 aircraft. At the end of the first day, the Soviets still had over 8,000 aircraft at their disposal. The book highlights the Luftwaffe’s advantages and their tactical superiority.

Even more intriguing is the author’s question of how the Soviets had been caught so off guard and why they suffered such huge losses. He gives several reasons:

After the 1939-1940 agreement with Germany, the ‘peace-loving USSR’ seized significant areas of Central and Eastern Europe: in September 1939, most of Poland’s territory (51% of its area), in March 1940, following the so-called Winter War, the southern part of Finland, and in June of that year, all of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia, which belonged to Romania.

The author goes on to state that after the shift in borders, the Soviets began shifting units, including aircraft further west with plans to attack Germany. Operation Barbarossa came before the concentration of Soviet troops while preparations were still being made, to include new airfields, facilities and new aircraft were delivered.

Barbarossa Victims, Luftwaffe Kills in the East, Vol. 1 ends with one page of photos of the LaGG-3. The second volume (available as a preorder now) shows one of the two LaGG-3 photos on its cover, so it most likely will pick up where the first volume ends. This is a book for aviation modelers wanting to replicate an early WWII Russian aircraft intact, or in various stages of destruction. The vignette and diorama options are amazing throughout this book with canvas frames devoid of their red stars collected by German souvenir hunters, the lattice framework, destroyed engines, broken propellers, etc. As a bonus, curious German onlookers provide further inspiration. A reader with casual interest in early WWII aviation will glean a lot about the German, and particularly Soviet airframes, pilots, training and tactics.

This is the fourth Camera On series I have reviewed, and I really like the format. Tomasz J. Kopański continues Alan Ranger’s quality and amazing photographs for modelers and historians looking for photographic inspiration of early war Soviet aircraft casualties. It is hard not to be inspired for models, vignettes and dioramas if early Soviet aircraft is your niche.

Profuse thanks to Casemate and IPMS-USA for providing the review sample.