Books to stay away from

I have run model airplane engines at night, and if the night is dark enough, the blue flame from the exhaust extends from 1/2" to 1". At night one must be very careful of the prop. Perhaps Caiden sniffed model fuel?

special ed said:

Perhaps Caiden sniffed model fuel

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That would explain a lot.

special ed said:

I have run model airplane engines at night, and if the night is dark enough, the blue flame from the exhaust extends from 1/2" to 1". At night one must be very careful of the prop. Perhaps Caiden sniffed model fuel?

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Are you talking about Martin Caidin? His name was never spelt with an 'e'. Or is it someone else?

Sabrejet said:

Are you talking about Martin Caidin? His name was never spelt with an 'e'. Or is it someone else?

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As much crap as he got wrong, getting his name wrong is fair game.

Catch22 said:

Unfortunately that happens, as that pamphlet wouldn't have been actually made and laid out in house. The text would have been written by the Smithsonian, but all it takes is one person missing something during the proof reading and that's what you get.

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NASM suffered in their early days by having to utilize the Smithsonian Press which was bureaucratic and self-important. They often resisted galley proof reviews, and image swapping or "spell correct" of technical or historic terms were common. I hope that's improved.

I find the Yefim Gordon books useful and they may be more accurate than some of the William Green / Gordon Swanborough books on Soviet Aircraft. Might depend on the details we are looking at. I will take the production changes and model changes at face value most of the time. I will tend to discard a lot of the combat reports as to damaged inflicted on ground units.
Nobody could accurately count the numbers, types of vehicles/guns destroyed in air raids/bombing attacks. We know the British could not do it with the Typhoon attacks
being an English only reader/speaker I have to sort through some of the translations and retranslate some of the words. When discussing engine cylinders does "ribs" or "ribbing" actually mean ribs or does it mean "fin/s" or does the original language not have separate words for the two? And what is reason for the "ribs", Strengthening of the of the part or cooling?
I could be wrong but I don't think there were very many years when a Russian author could disagree with the "official" history very much and still get access to official records/documents for his next project as the least punishment.

I think the most recent stinker of a book that I had the misfortune to read - it was a gift from a friend He had received it as a present and when he was finished, cuz he knew that I was a Mustang nut, he kindly mailed it to me and said to keep it.

That book, is probably the worst book out of my 200 or so books (mostly) on WWII aviation: "Wings of War" by White and White. For those of us old enough to remember the 1960s movie, "Love Story," Andy Williams later recorded the theme song that started off with this question: "Where do I begin???"

So...here's where I begin to talk about this book:

I don't know if their out-and-out wrong information, wrong dates, wrong terms ... the laundry-list of screw-ups goes on-and-on was from their own knowledge base or if someone "helped" them put this book together.

First, there's this: The book is supposed to be the story about developing the Merlin Mustang and the cover photo is an NA-91 Allison Mustang (and yes, I know, the two XP-51B prototype Merlin Mustangs were modified NA-91s, but the one on the cover --- nope!). The authors call the first production Mustangs "P-51As," seemingly made up terms that, for the life of me, in over 50 years of reading (and writing about Mustangs and other warplanes), I've never heard ... calling bombs "steel jugs," large bombers called "sky arks" and "sky ships," "sky rams," "battlewagons" ... Me109s were said to attack the "egg baskets" (bombers). The full external wing tanks for long missions on P-51s were said to weigh "108 lbs" (there WERE, of course, 108 gallon external tanks that, filled with fuel, weighed almost 700 lbs each. Nazi planes, in one instance, were said to be "knocked off like carnival pins." They talk about "lizardlike Focke-Wulfs and stingray Messerschmitts." The sky on one bomber mission was said to be a "hot honeyed sun."

The trigger for the Mustang's guns is said, twice, to be the button on top of the stick. THAT's the bomb-release button...the trigger for the guns is on the front of the stick where the index finger can pull it to fire the guns.

Near the end of the book the authors state that 15,000 P-51As, Bs, Cs and Ds had been "milled out of NA plants..." and "shipped to the European Theater of Operations."

I could go on, but y'all are bored to tears already, I'd wager.

THEN, the book ends with the back cover. It's got a couple of Mustang drawings that HONESTLY --- when I was in Jr High (in the early 1960s), I drew Mustangs that looked more like Mustangs than the ones on that back cover.

Who put this crap book together for these people? Maybe they knew even less about Mustangs than the authors.

Ending, I'll paraphrase what a good friend and Mustang expert and author said upon reading the book: "If this book was for sale in a brick-and-mortar bookstore, it would have to be filed in the "FICTION" section.

The book cover's wording seems to just skirt plagiarism.

Jesus pleeze us, the lower drawing on the rear cover is closer to a P-75.

drgondog might have a few choice words here too.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Jesus pleeze us, the lower drawing on the rear cover is closer to a P-75.

drgondog might have a few choice words here too.

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I pointed out some serious issues with his characterization of Echols, much of the simple factual errors regarding development and model stuff. Amazon put me on time out for a week. Tom covered many of the points. I could not find more than a few facts, fewer than I would expect for an AI supported effort.

That looks like a Martin Baker MB 5 three view.

I'm reading an interesting book. Something like "The P-51B The Bastard Stepchild That Saved The Eighth Air Force" or something.
I now no longer confuse Echols with Eaker.

Thumpalumpacus said:

As much crap as he got wrong, getting his name wrong is fair game.

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Yup. Yup.
Martinstrassercaiden (as he described himself late in his career) was, frankly, a buffoon and plagiarizer.
But
In the 1950s into the early 60s he passed for an Aviation Historian when there were few genuine Aviation Historians. Eventually his audience outgrew him. But in a distant way, we might credit him and a few others such as Edwin P Hoyt with establishing the basis for the informed readership of literate historians of the past 40-50 years.
Sidebar:
Sad to recall how many of the circle have departed the pattern, including Jeff Ethel, Walt Boyne, Norman Franks, Bill Hess, Frank Olynyk, and other contributors to our corporate knowledge.

Barrett said:

Yup. Yup.
Martinstrassercaiden (as he described himself late in his career) was, frankly, a buffoon and plagiarizer.
But
In the 1950s into the early 60s he passed for an Aviation Historian when there were few genuine Aviation Historians. Eventually his audience outgrew him. But in a distant way, we might credit him and a few others such as Edwin P Hoyt with establishing the basis for the informed readership of literate historians of the past 40-50 years.
Sidebar:
Sad to recall how many of the circle have departed the pattern, including Jeff Ethel, Walt Boyne, Norman Franks, Bill Hess, Frank Olynyk, and other contributors to our corporate knowledge.

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Caiden was the first military aviation author I read. I had to unlearn so much bullshit, but that's okay.

To Caidin and Green's credit, they inspired several young generations' interest in WWII military aviation.

New Release Book.
Valiant Wings Publishing.
Airframe & Miniature No.6 Second Edition
The North American P-51 Early Mustang
(including the A-36A, P-51 & P-51A to C)
A Complete Guide to the USAAF's Famous Fighter
by Richard A Franks
Published October 2024

NOT ONE I WOULD RECOMMEND – "RUN AWAY!!"

I will declare up front, copy of this book which is the subject of this review, purchased by myself (given my interest in all things Allison Engined Mustangs).

I also declare that I am the author of another book on the same/similar subject, but more on that shortly.

The first edition of this title came out in 2013 and was 192 A4 pages in a soft cover 'bookazine' format. I was critical of the content of the first edition as it contained quite a few errors of fact and a large number of omissions. One particular problem was the over reliance on photographs of early Mustangs in USAAF service and restored 'warbirds' in the USA, with minimal photographic coverage given to the early Mustang I, IA and II used by the RAF - which given the origins of the Mustang is a pretty big oversight. What photos were included were ones that were pretty well known and did not always work well to illustrate what the author wanted to put forward. One of the issues I raised with the first edition, was the lack of any information on the RAF units that used the early Mustangs, along with a description of the types of operations and use the RAF made of their early Mustangs, and that is something added to this edition, but more on that later.

Jump forward to 2024 and the announcement of a 'Updated and Expanded' edition, now totalling some 272 A4 pages. When it was announced I decided to purchase a copy of the new 2nd edition, to see what changes and improvements might have been made. Would they fix the earlier problem? Would they correct the errors, include more about RAF Mustangs, and produce something that would be properly useful for its intended audience?

Then the copy of the book that I purchased arrived and on my first glance I could see a lot of the old problems remained. Some areas I had raised concerns about appeared to have been addressed, but then digging into those new parts, new and more problems. To quote a certain fictional tv character "Oh, the pain!"

In flicking through the pages of this new edition, something started to catch my eye. The more I looked, the more my concerns grew.

As some of you may be aware, back in 2023 I authored a book, photo heavy, on the N.A. Mustang in RAF Service - Allison Engine Variants, for the Wingleader Photo Archive series. Many of the photos used came from the Wingleader Photo Archive, but many photos used came from my personal collection and those of the Squadron Archive of the RAF Squadron that I am the historian for.

Imagine my surprise, and then growing concern, in seeing a number of the photos used in the book I authored, from my collection and the Squadron Archive, printed in this new book. Many directly 'lifted' straight from 'my' book, even to the point of including the arrows that were added to a number of the photos to direct the reader to the objects being discussed in the captions of the photos. A number have had selected segments of the photos copied, cropped and used to illustrate particular points in their narrative or captions, but the source, original photograph is still recognisable to me.

A quick check with the publisher of 'my' book, indicated that they had not been approached about re-use of any material by the publisher or author of the Valiant Wings book.

So the creators of this particular book have copied and used material, primarily photos, without seeking or obtaining permission from myself as the author or from my publisher.

If you have had some previous interest in the early Mustangs and were to purchase a copy of this book and look at the illustrations and text, you would soon start to realise how badly researched and how inaccurate this book is. As an example, on the pages relating to the Mustang Mk I (NA-73) and Mustang Mk I (NA-83) they say the NA-73 series Mustang Mk I had AH serials – nope – only ever had AG series serials issued or reserved. In an accompanying line illustration of the NA-83 Mustang Mk I they use, it shows the port/left wing leading-edge window for the gun camera fitted to the NA-73, not the NA-83. They then have a photo purportedly showing a clear view panel which they say was fitted to some of the NA-73 and NA-83 Mustang Mk I, which actually of a P-51A/Mustang II - no NA-73 or NA-83 Mustang I to best of my knowledge and research ever had this fitted (note this photo shows the arrow from the original photo in 'my book', and then they have added their own arrow!!).

They then go on over many pages to give inaccurate information about all manner of aspects of the early Allison engine Mustangs, including differences between the different sub-models and differences between aircraft within the production batches; what were original 'as built from the factory' features versus those that were in service modifications; the nature of the camera installations, armament, gun sights, IFF and radio equipment and associated antennas, etc, etc. They also miss a range of distinctive features that help date photos of RAF Mustangs by virtue of when mandatory RAF modifications were implemented for the various marks of RAF Mustangs.

Quite a few of the photos they use they also mis-identify the subject aircraft sub-model, so incorrectly captioning a photo of a NA-83 Mustang Mk 1 as a NA-73 Mustang Mk I, or a Mustang IA as a Mustang I, and similar for photos of a Mustang II – the distinctive identifying feature being evident in the photos used.


They have created sub-designations for the same basic airframe such as the "Mustang Mk I (Reconnaissance)" or "Mustang Mk II (Malcolm Hood)", designations never used by the RAF. They have created a similar designation for the Mustang IA and II and for the USAAF P-51As. They also refer to the sole A-36A tested in the UK by the RAF, giving it the designation "A-36A Invader Mk I", which I have never seen in any official Air Ministry, RAF, Ministry of Supply, Ministry of Aircraft Production or similar wartime UK Government body documentation. Whereas "Mustang I (Dive Bomber)" does show up in original AM/RAF documentation as a proposed designation for the A-36A if it were to be adopted for service by the RAF - which of course is wasn't - well not as a dive bomber in the ETO.

And so it goes on.

Earlier on I mentioned about information on RAF units that used the early Mustangs and the types of operations. Well they did add a section with a short precis history of most of the RAF squadrons that operated the early Mustangs, and a short overview of the types of operations the RAF used their early Mustangs for. The Squadron histories, unfortunately, riddled with errors. I don't know where they got their information from, but it is inaccurate for many of the RAF Squadrons. For example, the precis history for No.16 (AC) Squadron RAF, very short, lacking in any form of detail, and says "RAF Andover 01/01/43 where it converted to the Curtiss Tomahawk Mk II in February 1943". Now that would likely have come as a bit of a surprise to No.16 (AC) Squadron it was still flying their Mustang Is on operations until the end of October 1943, before re-equipping with the Spitfire PR.XI. However No.16 (AC) Squadron did receive two Curtiss Tomahawks that were fitted with vertical camera installations in early February 1943, to use alongside the Squadron's Mustangs until such time as some of the Mustangs received the vertical camera installation modifications. Similarly as I go through the details for each of the little 'potted histories" for each of the RAF's early Mustang units, I find more and more errors.

The information they provide on the types of operations conducted by the early Mustangs is basic at best and overlooks a range of named operations that the Mustangs flew as well as minimal information with regard to a number of the early significant operations that were flown. This material added to the page count, but really hasn't added much in terms of accurate information.

Throughout they refer to the A-36A by the 'A' name. This is interesting as they include in their bibliography a number of more recently published books that do acknowledge and set out the current and correctly factual situation regarding the name of the A-36A being Mustang, with the documented 'nickname' in the MTO of Invader. That includes Matt Willis 'Mustang - the Untold Story' and they have a picture of its cover in the bibliography. Surprisingly, they don't list P-51B Mustang by Marshall & Ford. I think the bibliography may reflect books of interest to the reader/modeller, rather than books they actually consulted/read/understood in researching and writing theirs.


In summary, not a book I would recommend as an authoritative and accurate source of information on the early Mustangs. Has too many errors of fact. There are better books out there, and more will be coming in the future I am sure.

What I worry about is having someone quote this book at me as their source of definitive information on the early Mustangs in one of the many forums, FB pages and similar situations online. Or seeing it used as a source for future books on the Mustang or for adding new material to the Wiki pages on the Mustang.

The one area of this book that is reasonably well done is the part relating to the modelling of the early Mustangs. It includes a number of Mustang model builds in various scales, along with listings of the various kits that have been released of the early Mustangs, aftermarket accessories and decals, so something that will keep modellers happy.

Not Recommended.

ColFord said:

The one area of this book that is reasonably well done is the part relating to the modelling of the early Mustangs. It includes a number of Mustang model builds in various scales, along with listings of the various kits that have been released of the early Mustangs, aftermarket accessories and decals, so something that will keep modellers happy.

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Did they by any chance correct the errors I pointed out relative to the correct modeling of the SCR-274-N installation in the early Mustangs? You may recall that I pointed out that not only had Accurate Miniatures made some significant errors in an otherwise laudable attempt to model SCR-274-N installations but in one publication an author had further compounded those errors with purely fanciful details.

Mlflyer, they don't mention the issues with accuracy of the radio installation in the Accurate Miniatures 1/48th kits of the early Mustangs. This issue does not have a build included of an AM 1/48th kit, but does have a build of the Italeri re-pop of the AM A-36A, but the radio equipment doesn't get mentioned, with the build being largely 'out of the box' with just a couple of minor enhancements by the builder. I know the other book and build of the AM early Mustangs you are referring too, where with a lack of knowledge, modelling fantasy ensues.

Look at this winner! So this is what AI thinks a plane looks like. The best comment is: