Just Schmidt
Senior Airman
This is meant as a curiosum, but for the historiographically minded it can also be rather interesting.
I inherited this book from my grandfather who was a farmer, I think the correct English term is smallholder. He had a dream of becoming a pilote, and was quite ridiculed for this, but from early childhood I would pick up this book when visiting, already then it was well used. It is in Danish, by a John Foltman, and the title is "Flyviningens eventyr", literally "The adventure of flying".
What is so interesting about it is that it was published in german occupied denmark in 1944, and it is rather fun to see what information was available to civil society, and what it was allowed to publish. Though the Danish government had in the autumn broken with the policy of cooperation with the German occupiers, the civil service was still working with them, and Denmark was in quite a special position amongst the occupied countries. In fact we were barely accepted as an allied nation after the war. From the text in the book it is apparant that it was written after the Invasion of Sicily, as it is the last campaign mentioned.
It is not a book solely about the war, in fact it covers all aspects of flying up to then. But when it comes to the war, it comments on the major air campaigns, in a not very propagandistic way, not hiding the fact that the bob didn't turn out the way the Germans had hoped. One thing is that the sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales has the bombers move in first, disabling the AA, and only then the torpedo bombers are attacking. Doubtless that is how it had been presented then.
I find the tables about aircraft types and performance instructive. Though the legends are in Danish, I expect everybody here to be able to see what is going on. It may be helpful to know that the table is labelled the best known aircraft, it does not pretend to be exhaustive. I would also note that, in common with German usage, fighter is jager, litterally hunter. You will note that the Il 2 is thus labelled, and that its top speed is rather generous. Finally the B-17 is the only one with nickname given, it does seem that flying fortress was in genuine use during the war. It's also interesting that the only Italian fighter listed is the Re 2001. I'll let anyone who is interested go through the list themselves, you might have fun doing so.
I inherited this book from my grandfather who was a farmer, I think the correct English term is smallholder. He had a dream of becoming a pilote, and was quite ridiculed for this, but from early childhood I would pick up this book when visiting, already then it was well used. It is in Danish, by a John Foltman, and the title is "Flyviningens eventyr", literally "The adventure of flying".
What is so interesting about it is that it was published in german occupied denmark in 1944, and it is rather fun to see what information was available to civil society, and what it was allowed to publish. Though the Danish government had in the autumn broken with the policy of cooperation with the German occupiers, the civil service was still working with them, and Denmark was in quite a special position amongst the occupied countries. In fact we were barely accepted as an allied nation after the war. From the text in the book it is apparant that it was written after the Invasion of Sicily, as it is the last campaign mentioned.
It is not a book solely about the war, in fact it covers all aspects of flying up to then. But when it comes to the war, it comments on the major air campaigns, in a not very propagandistic way, not hiding the fact that the bob didn't turn out the way the Germans had hoped. One thing is that the sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales has the bombers move in first, disabling the AA, and only then the torpedo bombers are attacking. Doubtless that is how it had been presented then.
I find the tables about aircraft types and performance instructive. Though the legends are in Danish, I expect everybody here to be able to see what is going on. It may be helpful to know that the table is labelled the best known aircraft, it does not pretend to be exhaustive. I would also note that, in common with German usage, fighter is jager, litterally hunter. You will note that the Il 2 is thus labelled, and that its top speed is rather generous. Finally the B-17 is the only one with nickname given, it does seem that flying fortress was in genuine use during the war. It's also interesting that the only Italian fighter listed is the Re 2001. I'll let anyone who is interested go through the list themselves, you might have fun doing so.
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