Luchtvaart - Bulgarije: boeken - historie en vliegtuigen

The Bulgarian Air Force in the Second World War

Like many European air arms, the history of the Bulgarian Air Force between 1939 and 1945 was eventful and rather dramatic. A small country, located in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula, the Kingdom of Bulgaria entered into the fourth decade of the century as a still-neutral, but in fact strongly pro-German state. So it was not a surprise when it eventually joined the Axis on 1 March 1941, declaring war on both Britain and the US six months later.

In the course of the war the moderate and poorly-equipped air arm of late 1930s steadily matured during the wartime years into a small but capable force, able to mount fierce resistance to the Allied bomber raids against the country's capital Sofia in late 1943 and early 1944.

Only a few hours following the 9 September 1944 pro-Allied coup in Sofia, the Bulgarian air arm was immediately rushed into operation against the armed forces of the yesterday's partner - Nazi Germany. After the end of the war, Bulgaria fell in total dependency on the Soviet Union as a direct result from the 1944 Yalta agreement of 'spheres of influence' division of Europe.
The Bulgarian air force was radically reformed in the Soviet style and rapidly re-equipped with huge numbers of front-line aircraft, supplied by the new 'brother in arms'.

This study features a large number of rare and previously unseen photographs accompanied by specially-commissioned colour artwork showing camouflage and markings.

The Bulgarian Air Force in World War II : Germany's Forgotten Ally

The German Air Force (Luftwaffe) has been examined in a lot of works; much less well-known are the air forces of Germany´s allied countries like Hungary, Romania or Finland.

Because of its lesser degree of participation the history of the Royal Bulgarian Air Force remains hardly known. In this work we have tried to create a text that would enable all readers to understand and learn the most important facts in the history of all branches of military aviation in Bulgaria since the 30s to the end of World War II.
For this, it has been necessary to look for information in different sources, from the main ones to the lesser common ones, to try to complete the research and offer it in the most definite way but don´t trying to be exhaustive but as educational as possible.

Finally we use this work to pay tribute to all the members of the Bulgarian Air Force who fought in World War, a war whose consequences marked the future of the next 45 years in the country's history.