On November 23, 1942, Germany's Sixth Army was encircled at Stalingrad. The next day the first Ju 52 transports took off with supplies for the trapped army, launching the most ambitious and strategically significant German air operation on the Eastern Front. The Luftwaffe's chief Hermann Goering promised that his force could deliver enough supplies to keep the army alive and fighting, but the Luftwaffe's failure that winter left Sixth Army with no option but to surrender. Underappreciated in most accounts of Stalingrad, this book explains how Germany's most pivotal defeat of World War II stemmed from its use of air power. Eastern Front historian William E. Hiestand reveals how Stalingrad was not just a turning point strategically, but also in the Eastern Front air war, as the experienced but exhausted Luftwaffe was defeated for the first time by a Soviet air arm with greatly improved organization, aircraft, and tactics. Packed with rare photos, spectacular original artwork and explanatory diagrams and maps, this is a new and revealing history of the most important air campaign on the Eastern Front.