The story of the Heinkel He 176 rocket powered aircraft has been clouded in mystery and incorrect information for many years. Only in the last few years have some of the real facts emerged. Although there had been a few rocket powered planes earlier (Espenlaub's E 7 and the Opel-Sander Rak-1), these both used solid fuel rockets. The He 176 was to be the first aircraft in history to fly using only liquid-fueled rocket power.

In the early morning hours (4 am) of 27 August 1939, five days before the outbreak of what would become World War Two, a small group of people gathered at the Ernst Heinkel AG grass airfield at Marienehe near Rostock. They were there to witness the first flight of the first turbojet-powered aircraft in history, the Heinkel He 178, piloted by company test pilot Erich Warsitz. This is the history of this magnificent aircraft, pieced together by author David Myhra, PhD from documents and reports long thought nonexistent. Computer artist Jozef Gatial has contributed the colored plates in the middle of this book, to show how the He 178 would have looked in real life.

At the end of the 1930s, the Luftwaffe command announced a need for a high-speed reconnaissance aircraft capable of performing bombing tasks. Heinkel introduced the P1055 concept designed by Rudolf Lusser. The plane was to have a range of 4,000 km and a maximum speed of 750 km/h. Soon the demand was changed and it was now to be a heavy fighter. The project was adjusted, but its fate was uncertain in the face of the volatile decisions of the RLM. At the same time, General der Nachtjagd Josef Kammhuber was looking for an aircraft that could be used as a modern night fighter. Ultimately, the P1055 design was modified and the He 219 V1 prototype was flown in this form in November 1942. Then it was significantly modified and the next prototypes were completed and the first samples of the He 219A-0 trial series (which also included some prototypes), equipped with FuG 212 and FuG 202 radar. Later, the newer FuG 220 were installed.