Thumpalumpacus
Major
If the story about him explaining air power to Gen Sutherland is true, I'm a fan.
Books to stay away from
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If the story about him explaining air power to Gen Sutherland is true, I'm a fan.
Sorry, I've gotta defend William Green. His Warplanes of the Third Reich is an all-time classic, never to be surpassed. I love his Famous Aircraft of World War II which got me interested in the subject in the first place. A pioneering effort in 1960 to start getting out the real facts out about warplanes instead of propaganda.
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MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
The one that got me was in Lemay's book with Bill Yenne, Gen Stillwell stopped by Saipan and Lemay tried to explain to him what they were doing. Stillwell was as old school infantry as they came, and in Lemay's words, "Was not yet ready to admit that the wheel was useful in warfare." They met again at the surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri. Stillwell walked over to Lemay and said, "I was pretty familar with what Japan had before the war and I've been looking around by Tokyo. I see what you did. And I think that now I understand what you were talking about."
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MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
I love Green's little Fighters, Bombers, and Seaplanes/Floatplanes books as well as the Warplanes of the Third Reich book.
zeamerseagerbeavers
Airman
I'll see the Caidin caveat crowd—he was an effective novelist who used WWII aircraft as his protagonists—and raise you a LUCKY 666 by Drury and Clavin.
As I say in my Amazon review, it's well-written, a page-turner even, and certainly ends up doing solid honor to an historic crew. But it would have been even more of an honor to get the story right, which they only do in the most bullet-point fashion. It's a story of the Eager Beavers, but it's not the real story. Besides misunderstanding who actually was on the crew, it's a total hash of the actual events, missing the actual formative events in the crew's origin, flipping the order and character of major events, inventing others, and misunderstanding, based on my interviews with his squadron mates and wife, Zeamer himself.
An illustrative example, from my Amazon review:
Everyone who reads it says it's a great book, and it does tell the story the authors choose to tell very well. That story is just wrong in so many ways, major and minor, that it flirts with the line between nonfiction and fiction. For anyone interested in the real story and then some, you can find it on the website.
As I say in my Amazon review, it's well-written, a page-turner even, and certainly ends up doing solid honor to an historic crew. But it would have been even more of an honor to get the story right, which they only do in the most bullet-point fashion. It's a story of the Eager Beavers, but it's not the real story. Besides misunderstanding who actually was on the crew, it's a total hash of the actual events, missing the actual formative events in the crew's origin, flipping the order and character of major events, inventing others, and misunderstanding, based on my interviews with his squadron mates and wife, Zeamer himself.
An illustrative example, from my Amazon review:
Everyone who reads it says it's a great book, and it does tell the story the authors choose to tell very well. That story is just wrong in so many ways, major and minor, that it flirts with the line between nonfiction and fiction. For anyone interested in the real story and then some, you can find it on the website.
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ian hathaway
Recruit
- 5
- Jun 13, 2016
Very controversial I know - The Most Dangerous Enemy by Stephen Bungay. Controversial because it is a very well written book, a good read, and on the surface well researched and believable. You may as well ready it from the back cover forwards, it's a case of writing the conclusions and analysis first then looking for evidence to support those conclusions to pad out the rest of the book. But some people still believe it to be the definitive work on the Battle of Britain, but realistically there is nothing new in there except for the authors interpretation of the facts.
A.G. Williams
Airman 1st Class
- 182
- Oct 10, 2020
Firepower - read the review.....
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Deleted member 68059
Staff Sergeant
- 1,058
- Dec 28, 2015
Ah.. Schiffer publishing.
They produce a great breadth of content quality wise as they basically dont edit authors manuscripts. So if you`re lucky the authors were diligent and its great, or...
They produce a great breadth of content quality wise as they basically dont edit authors manuscripts. So if you`re lucky the authors were diligent and its great, or...
drgondog
Major
I agree. They published my Our Might Always - History of the 355th FG, did a superb job quality wise but zero content editing - not that any major publisher has the kind of staff to fact check such works. Osprey also did a great job, but only corrected me once - over riding post final edit me citing the A36 as Mustang. They slipped an Apache on me in an image citation.
Deleted member 68059
Staff Sergeant
- 1,058
- Dec 28, 2015
I can believe it.
Its 100% why I picked Mortons to publish my book, purely because the editor (Dan Sharp) is probably the only book editor (certainly in Britain) who knows enough Luftwaffe archive material to actually offer me historical corrections, suggestions for further files to read and so on, not about engine engineering, but his knowledge of Luftwaffe airframe programmes is prodigous. I`m sad to say I dont think many authors are so lucky, that only came about because Dan was at the same archive I was and we got chatting by happenstance.
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
In one article I cited the F-4 version of the P-38 as first version in combat in the Pacific, when one was on a recon mission and had an engine shot out by a Japanese fighter but still managed to outrun its attacker. The Aviation History Magazine editor commented that it could not have been in combat because it had no guns.....
Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
That's exactly what I told a Navy PO2, when he wanted me to submit him for a Combat Action Ribbon. I told him indirect fire (a few stray mortar rounds) doesn't count as combat in the army.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I remember you mentioning this once before. It's still funny.
I hadn't heard that story. It's worth retelling, along with the rest of Kenney's bio.
The Genius of George Kenney | Air & Space Forces Magazine
He was a superb leader and organizer. He also knew how to get along with MacArthur.
www.airforcemag.com
It is a good read, granted and the statistical research alone is worth it. That he reveals nothing new isn't really the point, it's how it is presented. I've got a few books on the Battle of Britain and for context, Bungay does a good job. By far the best in terms of pure data is the After the Battle tome, otherwise, the overwhelming majority of BoB books use variations on the same information. Some of those authors I swear have read The Narrow Margin and have been struck by the urge to write a new book...
BOBO
Recruit
"Guide to German Night Fighters in World War II (Kagero/ engl.) from E.M.G. Matines"
Influenced by the advertising, I was tempted to buy this book with great excitement and anticipation. The disappointment was great for me when I leafed through the book by KAGERO (author: Martinez, Eduardo M. Gil, Softvover, 140 pages, 4 pages Wrobel color graphics). At least 90% of the images are very dark as a copy of a copy of a copy, partially out of focus or completely exaggerated retouching photos are used, although you can even find better photos on the web.
Print titles from 50 - 20 years ago are given as sources, which, according to the current state of affairs, have many errors that have apparently also been adopted.
The focus of my expectation of this guide was current information on the camouflage of the night fighter types of the German Air Force. Two pages of ramblings and nothing concrete can be found on pages 125 to 128, with large pictures. The translation of the text made me shudder at the nonsense written there. Maybe Google failed here when translating from Spanish?
I also expected to find Bf 109D/E/G pictures from the early days of night hunting for the individual fighter types. A dark photo of a Bf 109E has to serve for this . I returned the book to the seller, junk and with a lot of false statements and speculative information. My advice: stay away from this junk.
The bottom picture of the Bf-109E is said to be a night fighter, what kind of garbage is being told here?
As already mentioned - just gibberish, nothing concrete, no word on brightening, darkening, on the use of RLM76 .... nothing.
Influenced by the advertising, I was tempted to buy this book with great excitement and anticipation. The disappointment was great for me when I leafed through the book by KAGERO (author: Martinez, Eduardo M. Gil, Softvover, 140 pages, 4 pages Wrobel color graphics). At least 90% of the images are very dark as a copy of a copy of a copy, partially out of focus or completely exaggerated retouching photos are used, although you can even find better photos on the web.
Print titles from 50 - 20 years ago are given as sources, which, according to the current state of affairs, have many errors that have apparently also been adopted.
The focus of my expectation of this guide was current information on the camouflage of the night fighter types of the German Air Force. Two pages of ramblings and nothing concrete can be found on pages 125 to 128, with large pictures. The translation of the text made me shudder at the nonsense written there. Maybe Google failed here when translating from Spanish?
I also expected to find Bf 109D/E/G pictures from the early days of night hunting for the individual fighter types. A dark photo of a Bf 109E has to serve for this . I returned the book to the seller, junk and with a lot of false statements and speculative information. My advice: stay away from this junk.
The bottom picture of the Bf-109E is said to be a night fighter, what kind of garbage is being told here?
As already mentioned - just gibberish, nothing concrete, no word on brightening, darkening, on the use of RLM76 .... nothing.
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I have a lot of WWII books on aviation and can reliably state that all have some errors. The defining part hat makes up the difference between a bad book and a decent book is whether the author has proofread his work. I used to find errors in WWII books and then write the author telling him of the error. Received some interesting letters in reply.
Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 42,902
- Mar 26, 2007
What would be the trouble with black 109E njg?
eBay: Messerschmitt Bf109
Please remember that this picture was in a series and all of then including the me110 posted elsewhere were all NJG. pic below was not in that series but since we are discussing all black 109... Gildner
ww2aircraft.net
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Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
It looks like overall RLM 70/71 with RLM 65 underside. The highlights around the gun troughs is interesting.Wgat would be the trouble with black 109E njg?
eBay: Messerschmitt Bf109
Please remember that this picture was in a series and all of then including the me110 posted elsewhere were all NJG. pic below was not in that series but since we are discussing all black 109... Gildner
Is that some sort of flash suppression?
