This Was The Enemy Volume Three: Supplement is the third book in Charles E. MacKay's This Was the Enemy series on the German air force. It was published by A Mackay (Publisher) Ltd on 11 August 2026 and runs to 218 fully illustrated A5 pages (ISBN 9781066634507). The first two volumes tell the Luftwaffe's story in order. The supplement gathers ten separate studies instead: Luftwaffe statistics, two de-briefs on Hermann Goering, a 617 Squadron raid, two aircraft guns, a mine, German jet engines for Japan, the Berlin Airlift and a single Messerschmitt. This article sets out what each study covers and how the book sits beside the rest of the series.
Where the supplement fits in the series
This was the Enemy: The Luftwaffe 1945 is the first volume. It starts in 1919 with the co-operation with the Soviet Union at Lipetsk, designed to circumvent the Versailles Treaty, and follows the rebirth of the German air force as the Luftwaffe through the Condor Legion in Spain, the war with Poland, Norway and Denmark, the demise of France and the Battle of Britain.
This Was the Enemy Volume Two: Aeroplanes, Armament, Bombs, Downfall turns to procurement. It follows the German aeronautical and armaments industry from its rise in 1934 to its collapse in 1945, with the work of Rheinmetall Borsig and Mauser on aircraft guns and every class of German bomb.
Volume Three does not continue that narrative. It is a supplement of ten studies that each stand alone, ranging from the statistics of 1923 to the Berlin Airlift. The guide to the Luftwaffe history books suggests where to start the series and how the three volumes divide the subject.
Luftwaffe statistics, 1923 to 1945
The first study gives the full range of Luftwaffe statistics from 1923 to 1945. Figures run through the whole series. Volume One uses newly researched statistics on how the Condor Legion's campaign in Spain was organised, and Volume Two's account of aircraft production, and of its destruction by Allied bombing, draws on the British Bombing Survey Unit and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey.
Volume Three puts the statistics for the whole period in one place. A reader working through either of the earlier volumes can turn to the supplement to see a figure for one year against the full run from 1923 to 1945.
Two de-briefs on Hermann Goering
Volume Two describes how Hitler had the knack of appointing, through Goering, the wrong people for the wrong jobs at the wrong time, and gives Ernst Udet as its example. Volume Three adds two sources on Goering (Göring) himself.
The first is the de-brief of Hermann Goering. The second is Hanna Reitsch's de-brief on Hermann Goering. Printed in the same book, the two let a reader set Goering's own answers beside what Reitsch said about him, and both can be read against Volume Two's account of the appointments he made.
Raids, guns and the Dumbarton mine
Four of the studies deal with an attack or a weapon.
617 Squadron at Limoges
The book covers the 617 Squadron raid on the Gnome et Rhône aero-engine works at Limoges in February 1944.
Recoilless guns for aircraft use
Volume Two shows the automatic weapons and converted artillery pieces that Mauser and Rheinmetall Borsig made for aircraft. Volume Three adds a study of recoilless guns for aircraft use.
The 30 mm Aden cannon
Under the heading Spoils of War, the book gives the evolution and history of the 30 mm Aden cannon, which it traces from the German Mauser MG 213. It is a direct line from the German armament work described in Volume Two.
The BM1000 Dumbarton mine
The book gives the history and deployment of the BM1000, the mine it calls the Dumbarton Mine.
Jet engines for Japan, the Berlin Airlift and Bf 109E-3 AE479
German technical aid to Japan on jet engines has a study of its own. Readers who want the British side of German jet-engine work in 1945 can turn to The Fedden Mission to Germany Final Report, the report of the British mission that inspected German jet engines, wind tunnels and the underground works at Nordhausen that year.
The Berlin Airlift has a study of its own too, taking the supplement beyond the end of the war.
The last study gives the history and fate of one aircraft: Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3 Werk Nr. 1304, AE479. The book's cover shows a Bf 109 in flight.
In memoriam
The book carries an In Memoriam to F.W. Karl Hier, born on 10 September 1912 at Gleisdorf, in the Weiz district of Styria, Austria, who died on 15 November 1940, aged 28.
The series in order
This Was The Enemy Volume Three: Supplement collects all ten studies in 218 A5 pages. It follows This was the Enemy: The Luftwaffe 1945 and This Was the Enemy Volume Two: Aeroplanes, Armament, Bombs, Downfall in the series. For the German Air Force and German Naval Air Arm of 1914 to 1918, before any of the three, start with German Aircraft in the Great War.