Hanna Reitsch flew almost every German military aircraft in World War II, including the rocket-powered Me 163, and was closely associated with the development of the flying bomb, the V1, which so nearly brought disaster to Britain just when it seemed that victory was in sight. Reitsch, who had left her medical studies to take up aviation before the war, held the world gliding record for women. With the outbreak of the war, however, her role became a military one and she was almost killed when she crash-landed the Me 163 on testing. In April 1945 she ran the gauntlet of Russian anti-aircraft fire to fly with Colonel-General von Greim into Berlin, where he had been summoned by Hitler to be appointed the new Chief of the German Air Staff. She gives a graphic and vivid account of her ensuing meetings with Hitler in the bunker. Hanna Reitsg was an outstanding pilot and a remarkable woman. Her readable and fascinating memoirs are equally remarkable, reflecting as they do her sheer exuberance in the joys of flight for its own sake as well as providing insight into the plans of the Luftwaffe and its operations during the critical years of the war.