Air power played a decisive role in the Balkan operations and was the main reason that led Adolf Hitler to embark on a campaign against Greece, fearing that it would become a base for British bombers to threaten the Romanian oil fields in Ploiești. The history of air operations over Albania, Yugoslavia, and Greece during the period 1940-41 is extremely fascinating and full of unknown aspects, numerous surprises, adventurous escapes, tragic sacrifices, and incidents of outstanding heroism where the virtues and flaws of each nation were vividly depicted. Thus, it was not surprising that the climax of that campaign was also the apotheosis of air power with the German occupation of Crete.

The reader will find in the pages of this book that the British efforts to assist the Greeks in their unequal struggle against the Axis forces were much more complex and multifaceted than is widely known and that this struggle continued even when the British planes were forced to withdraw completely from Crete. The intense action moves from the mountains of Epirus and Macedonia, where the few and poorly equipped Greek pilots initially faced the Italian Air Force, to Yugoslavia, which disintegrated under the weight of the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg, and from the Aegean and the Cretan Sea, where the powerful Luftwaffe dominated completely in the spring of 1941, to the decks of British aircraft carriers from where the Royal Navy's fighters operated.

This book demonstrates the crucial role of modern aviation in the defense or conquest of territories and how timelessly similar the challenges faced by airborne fighters are.