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Juhan Sotahistoriasivut

Dan Sharp’s Spitfires Over Berlin: The Air War in Europe 1945

12/10/2015

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A very good purchase, this collection of articles proceeds chronologically through the first part of the year 1945. 130 A-4 size pages. At first it gives the development of the situation in the autumn of 1944 followed by an article on the Operation Bodenplatte, the surprise attack against Allied airfields on January 1, 1945 by the Luftwaffe.

This  12 pages article is good but of course if one wants a definite account of the operation the real thing, Manhro’s and Pütz’ excellent Bodenplatte book is a must, but that is of course not surprising. The text is informative and the photos are well-chosen. The figures of the LW losses are clearly taken from Manhro’s and Pütz’ book but they are only partially given, the infomation that 47% of the LW losses were by Allied AA and 23% were by Allied fighters is only a partial truth because according to the Manhro’s and Pütz’ book in addition 5% of the losses were by either Allied AA or Allied fighters and 11% were to unknown causes. The German flak, contrary to the old myth, contributed only 5% of the German losses.

The story of the shooting down of three Mistels by four P-51 Mustangs from the 55th Fighter Group on Feb 3, 1945 is a good one. It gives besides the good information on the combat a brief history of the Mistel and the planned attack on Scapa Flow by Mistels and flare-dropping Ju 88s and 188s and the fates of the four Mustang pilots during the last few months of the war. Out of the four one was shot down by the deadly German Flak and went missing, possibly murdered by furious civilians, another became a prisoner of war when his attempt to rescue a friend downed by Flak failed and one was killed either because he stalled at low level or because of he was shot down by ground fire.

Squadron Leader Clive Rowley has written an interesting article on the Australian ace Tony Gaze’s life. While serving in the RAF Gaze got 1½ jet kills while flying Spitfire XIVs before being posted on May 1, 1945 to command ‘A’ Flight of 616 Squadron on Meteor III jets. Naturally the eight pages article concentrates on his combat career and its ups and downs. The only complain I have is that Me 262s of KG 51 is sometimes given as a Me 262 of JG 51, which is totally wrong, JG 51 was a conventional fighter unit equipped in 1944 – 45 with Bf 109Gs and fighting in the Eastern Front, the only exception was the IV./JG 51 which during the last month of the war was equipped with Fw 190s, before that it also had Bf 109Gs. Also the KG(J) 51,  which Rowley sometimes uses, is wrong, the unit was a bomber/fighter-bomber unit not a fighter unit formed out of a bomber unit. Rowley gives a different WNr. and code to Gaze’s Me 262 victim, 500064 and 9K+CL than John Foreman and S. E. Harvey in their a bit dated Me 262 Combat Diary, 110615 and 9K+NL but the unit and the pilot are same even if both give the unit designation wrongly. Smith and Creek agree with Foreman and Harvey in the WNr., they don’t give the code, and give the unit designation rightly. But Andreas Brekken’s/Aviation History Society Norway’s webpage agree with Rowley see http://www.ahs.no/ref_db/lw_loss_public.asp?lossid=103175, so while both Andreas and Smith & Creek are very good researchers in this case I tend to believe Andress in that at least in loss documents the WNr. and code is given as 500064 and 9K+CL.

The eight pages Natter article is very good.

Yaks over Köningsberg, the story of the French Normandie-Niemen fighter regiment operations over Kaliningrad area/East Prussia in the early part of 1945, pure chronology based only information from one side other than the OoB of the Luftwaffe’s Luftflotte 6 on the 11 January 1945. One notice on it, while it is true that ground-attack versions of Fw 190s could be used as pure fighters as the author writes they were handicapped by the weight of their extra armour. In the introduction part of the article unit’s pilot losses during its early part of existence are compared to the claimed victories which is doubly misleading, firstly over-claiming was common in all air forces and secondly pilot losses were fewer than aircraft losses. Luckily in the main part of the article which tells the story of its participation to the fighting over East-Prussia also those losses where pilots survived are mentioned.

Ram Them! is a good blow-to-blow article on the Sonderkommando Elbe’s ramming attacks on April 7, 1945 with well-chosen B/W photos. It concentrates to the action between SKdo Elbe and USAAF heavy bombers and doesn’t spend much space on the fighter vs fighter combats between Luftwaffe fighters and USAAF escorts, mentioning only a couple air victories achieved by P-51 pilots or delve much the moral/ethical discussion amongst German commanders on the advisably of ramming attacks. But that is quite understandably, in a short article like this it is good to have a clear focus. The author is in opinion that only ten bombers were lost to the Elbe pilots while Weir in his book on the subject writes that USAAF seems to have lost 13 bombers to the Sonderkommando Elbe pilots. Also according to Caldwell’s Day fighters book Sonderkommando Elbe pilots got 13 or 14 bombers. According to Freeman’s The Mighty Eight War Diary at least eight and according to Boehme’s JG 7 history twelve heavy bombers at most. In the end of the article there is a short note on the Oberst Hajo Herrmann’s final wartime scheme – Sonderkommando Bienenstock, demolition teams flown on Fieseler Fi 156 Storck light STOL planes behind enemy lines.

King of Fighters The Best Single-seater of 1945.
The author rightly pointed out the importance of pilot quality in fighter combat and so paper figures were not all important The article claims that Bell P-63 Kingcobras were used against Germany in small numbers by the Soviets but because of the lack of corroborating evidence Yefim Gordon in his Soviet Air Power in World War 2 (2008) and in his and Sergey Komissarov’s US Aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia (2008) writes that he/they stick(s) to the generally accepted version of events that the Kingcobras did not see combat on the Soviet-German front. So in its place there should be Bell P-39Q or N, if one Lend-Lease Eastern Front plane is wanted to be included. And why not, P-39 was widely used by Soviets until the end of the war and three (2nd, 3rd and 5th) of their five top aces got most of their kills while flying Airacobra.
While generally acceptable article but on the Soviet fighters there are a number of points on which I have a different view. The maximum climb rate given for the Spitfire LF Mk. IX (4,470 ft/min) seems to be that of the much rarer HF Mk. IX, which was lower than that of the real one for LF Mk IX, namely 5,080 ft/min at sea level and 4,725 ft/min at 2,000 ft with the boost of +25 lb/sq.inch. while using 100/150 grade fuel, and with +18 lb/sq.inch boost (100/130 grade fuel) 4,620 ft/min at sea level. As for Spitfire Mk. XIV the given 4,700 ft/min is correct for +18 lb/sq.inch boost, but during the last 1½ months of the war in Europe +21 lb/sq.inch boost was allowed with 100/150 grade fuel making possible the climb rate of almost 5,100 ft/min at sea level. On the contrary the rate of climb given to Tempest Mk. V (4,700 ft/min) seems to be optimistic, the maximum figure I have seen is 4,380 ft/min at sea level.
On Republic P-47 Thunderbolt the Spitfire version to which it and North American P-51 Mustang are compared is missing, the claims made are true only when the US planes are compared to Spitfire Mk. XIV, Spitfire LF Mk. IX was slower than P-51D at all altitudes and slower than P-47D at medium and high altitudes. And both mentioned US fighters zoomed better than any WWII era Spitfire. And not only Mustang but all WWII fighters powered by liquid-cooled engines were vulnerable to even light battle damage to their cooling system.
Contrary to claim of the author, P-38L didn’t lack stopping power, its armament, while not exceptionally heavy, was a good average for a late war fighter.
Lockheed P-80A had the same six .5 M2 as P-51D Mustang but its machine guns were all concentrated to the nose giving more concentrated and effective fire pattern.
While the first Lavochkin La-7s that reached combat zone had max speed of 406 mph and rate of climb 3,396 fpm, the late La-7s from late 1944 onwards had max speed of 418 mph and rate of climb 4,762 fpm , so in early 1945 and under 2,000m only Hawker Tempest was faster than it and Bf 109K-4 had equal speed. Spitfire Mk. XIV with +21lb boost became faster at little under 3,000 m and with +18lb boost at little under 4,000 m. Spitfire Mk XIV with +21lb boost out climbed it at all altitudes as did Bf 109K-4, but Spitfire Mk. XIV with +18lb only above appr. 1,500 m. La-7 was an excellent low- and medium altitude fighter and these were the altitudes where most of the Eastern Front air combats were fought. It suffered from engine unreliability which arose from the engine installation not from the engine itself. And while roll-over bar was recommended for production La-7s, according to Ves̆ts̆ík’s Lavoc̆kin La-7 book it wasn’t installed and that seems to be the case. But it isn’t all bad, according to the article La-7 had bigger spinner than La-5FN, I don’t remember seeing that information before but when I measured the spinners from the line drawings in Gordon’s Lavochkin’s Piston-Engined Fighters the results confirmed that. So at least according to the line drawings the information is correct. A pair more complains; the second photo seems to shows a Lavochkin La-5F not a La-7 and La-7 was powered by Shvetsov ASh-82FN not by ASh-82FNV, maybe the author means Shvetsov M-82FNV which was the prototype/pre-production version of the engine of which was installed in La-5FNs and La-7s. Its production version was at first designated as Shvetsov M-82FN but soon re-designated as Shvetsov ASh-82FN to honour its chief designer Arkadiy Shvetsov.
On Yak-3 there is a bit different problem, according to Gordon’s Soviet Air Power book the max. speed of it was 398 mph not 407 mph given in the article, but performance, especially the maximum level speed, of the partly wooden Soviet fighters varied even more than the metal Western ones. And I have seen Soviet/Russian graphs showing both 401 and 405 mph as the maximum speed for Yak-3. But again it is the maximum rate of climb that is my main problem, the table in the article shows 3,650 fpm while Soviet graphs showed 4,330 fpm, which is the rate of climb that would explain why Soviet pilots had so high regard on that little fighter and why German pilots thought it being so dangerous opponent. It seems that the author has got his Soviet aircraft specifications from Wikipedia, where somebody has calculated the Soviet rates of climb by simply using the time to altitude information from Gordon’s Soviet Air Power book and converting it to a rate of climb by dividing the altitude (16,400 ft) by the time needed to reach it. The results definitely aren’t the maximum rates of climb of those planes.
While as I wrote above, it seems that Bell P-63 Kingcobra didn’t see combat in Europe during the WWII, the climb data given in article seems to be too low, the internet site says 3,600 ft/min, according to Dean it was even better. This is in line with the time to height information in Gordon’s and Wagner’s books.  According to Dean P-63 had the best rate of climb of the all USAAF fighters seeing series production during WWII.  Otherwise the description of P-63 is ok and rightly pointed out reasons why USAAF didn’t use it as a combat plane, the lack of range and high altitude performance, it was low and middle altitude fighter.
Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-9, the speed given is that without compressibility correction which is the way how German data was rather often given, so almost 10 mph too optimistic when compared other planes whose maximum speeds are usually given with compressibility correction. Also its rate of climb seems to have given as 2,350 ft/min, which is same as given in Kens’ and Nowarra’s old Die deutschen Flugzeuge 1933-1945 and Wood’s/Gunston’s Hitler’s Luftwaffe for Fw 190A-8  when a German document I have seen gives 11.7 m/s which converts to 2,303 ft/min for Fw 190A-9. The same document gives only 9.7 m/s, that is 1,909 ft/min, for Fw 190A-8 but also 14.0 m/s (2,756 ft/min) with emergency power with increased boost.  On the other hand 3,445 ft/min for Fw 190A-8 with 1.42 ata boost is given in my very poor copy of the Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau-Flugmechanic-L graph dated 12 Jan 1944. The maximum RoC isn’t better with 1,68 ata but this higher boost gives significantly better RoC between 1.500m and 5.500m. The figure 2,677 ft/min A-8 1.32 ata is given in Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau-Flugmechanic-L graph dated 13 Nov 1943. A Soviet test gives maximum 3,563 ft/min with special power and 3,150 ft/min with the combat power (probably means Steig- und Kampfleistung) but the Fw 190A-8 used in it was without outer wing cannon and also had smaller fuel load and was 314 kgs lighter than the standard Fw 190A-8 in German flight tests graphs. I admit that Fw 190A-9 was a hard nut to open and in the end I didn’t find a reliable source for its rate of climb but IMHO the maximum RoC of a normal Fw 190A-9 fighter should be at least 3,445 ft/min.
The speed of Fw 190D-9 given seems to be some 8 mph optimistic relative to the delivered production aircraft because it assumes the installation of the engine gap seal. On the other hand, the speculation that the speed without MW50 might has been as low as 360 mph is rather odd, Soviet data gives that speed as appr. 390 mph, and Soviet data for Fw 190s tended to be clearly lower than values in German or Western Allied documents. Also the rate of climb value given, 3,300 ft/min, is rather conservative, in early 1945 Fw 190D-9 was capable to 3,405 ft/min with take-off power and 4,232 ft/min with special emergency power (Sonder-Notleistung).
I would not call Messerschmitt Bf 109 as long-suffering. On the Bf 109K-4, only the Bf 109K prototype had a slightly bulged canopy, the production machines had the standard Erla/Galland canopy.
The DB605DM was cleared up to 1.75ata, the DB605DB pushed the limit up to 1.8ata, and both could be sustained with use of either B4 fuel + MW-50 (as mentioned in various documents, even if it was an afterthought in the DM case) or with C3 fuel. With 1.8 ata boost and 2,800 rpm 605DB produced 1,850 ps/1,825 hp. Without MW-50 with B4 fuel it produced 1,430 ps/1,410 hp. However the DB605DC max power, with 1.98 ata boost and 2,800 rpm could be achieved only with use of C3+MW-50. It then produced 2,000 ps/1,973 hp. Problems were the scarcity of methanol for the MW-50 and the limited supply of high octane C3 for Bf 109 units because Fw 190As and Fs could use only it, so usually Bf 109 units had to be content with lower octane B4.
The given range seems to be too short when compared to the Spitfires but the same figure is given in Poruba’s and Janda’s Messerschmitt Bf 109K book. On the other hand Martinek’s article gives the range of Bf 109G-10 as 650 km, which converts into 404 miles and G-10, while otherwise very similar to K-4, had fixed tailwheel and lacked the outer wheel well covers (but often the tailwheel was locked down and outer wheel well covers removed in operational K-4s) so it’s range should have been shorter than that of K-4 or when compared to a K-4 with modifications just given in parentheses, the same. A plane had many different ranges depending on engine settings used and the flight altitude but IMHO the 404 miles range is truer when compared the ranges of Spitfires given in the article.
Messerschmitt Me 262 part is OK but again there was no KG(J) 51, it was simply KG 51.
Messerschmitt Me 163, MK 108 wasn’t slow firing with its 650 rounds/min rate of fire but it had fairly low muzzle velocity, 540 m/s (1,770 ft/s).
On the conclusion part of the article, IMFO Meteor III wasn’t non-operational but because of snaking and its poor rate of roll it wasn’t a top-class fighter in 1945. In the end the author concludes that the choice for the title of the best fighter in the ETO has to be made between Spitfire XIV and Me 262 and he chooses Spitfire XIV. I agree, that if the choice is made without thinking of the range and the combat altitude, the choice is between the two but even with the haste and desperate situation in which Me 262 was rushed into service and all the problems which followed from that, Me 262 would have dominated the duel between these two planes if the combat had begun from equal positions. Spitfire might survive because of its better horizontal manoeuvrability and acceleration but to win it should have to surprise the Me 262 or the Me 262 pilot should have to make a bad error.
So while otherwise passable article on the late war fighters in ETO it fails badly on the Soviet planes.

Then Wee Willie Ran out of Luck, an excellent article on the “career” of the Boeing B-17G-15-BO 42-31333 Wee Willie” and some of the numerous crews who flow combat mission on it during its 128 missions. Also showing the dramatic pictures of its fiery end on April 8, 1945 over Stendal on its 128th mission. My only complaint is that I’d have liked information on what was done to it at the completion and modification centre at Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Next article is on Hans-Guido Mutke’s dive on April 9, 1945. IMHO a bit unnecessary article because we had only Mutke’s word on the incident and he came into public with his story only 44 years after the incident. But this article takes only two pages and also tells how Mutke flying the Me 262A-1a/R1 “White 3” WNr. 500071 ended in Switzerland on 25 April 1945. The plane is nowadays at the Deutsches Museum in München.

Canadians against the Komet. An interesting article, but it still does not give a definite answer what was the target of the only combat use of the Sondergerät SG 500 Jagdfaust. Not that I criticize the author, it is often impossible to dig out the truth because of the overclaiming and conflicting eyewitness report. The lack of the Luftwaffe records doesn’t help, more so when we talked about the last months of the war with all the chaos on the German side. The author things that the Me 163 pilot Fritz Kelb attacked one of the Lancasters of 433 Squadron RCAF or 405 Squadron RCAF. According to Ethell’s & Price’s book, Kelb shot down a B-17. Different Wiki articles give different victim. Wiki article on Me 163 says “resulting in the destruction of a Halifax bomber, although other sources say it was a Boeing B-17”, Wikiarticle on Sondergerät SG 500 Jagdfaust says that “Fritz Kelb downed an RAF Lancaster using it.”

Then a two pages article on the well-known combat between a Piper L-4 Grasshopper and Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.

Piston Engine Zenit, a good and impartial article on Focke-Wulf Ta 152. At first a very short overview of the development and production of the Ta 152 followed by a description of its combat use at JG 301.  But the author forgot the very brief JG 11 part, it got 4 to 6 Ta 152s near the end of April 1945, but during its last movement during the war, from Neustadt-Glewe to Leck, two out of a formation of four Ta152s from the Stab JG11 were shot down by Spitfires during the transfer flight and the third had to make a belly-landing at Lech airfield.

Then an article on a murder of a shot down USAAF P-51 pilot.

And then the article which gave the tittle of this publication, Spitfires Over Berlin, the story of a Spitfire XIV formation from 350 (Belgian) Squadron combating with Focke-Wulf Fw 190s over the western fringes of Berlin. The Belgian side is well told but there is next to nothing on the German side, so very one-sided story. Besides the quotes from the Allied pilots’ combat reports the other interesting point is a couple photos showing rather battered Spitfire XIVs of the 350 (Belgian) Squadron, fitness of some parts of the engine cowling seemed to have been rather poor.

On the other hand the next article on the activities of the Luftwaffe on April 24, 1945 is interesting, even if the situation was hopeless to Germans and fuel reserves were very low, the Luftwaffe flew over 800 combat sortie on that day, of which nearly 500 were fighter sorties, almost 250 fighter-bomber, ground-attack and anti-tank sorties and some 90 recce, most flown by Fw 190s and Bf 109s. With only six pages it is only a short overview as the author himself admit but very interesting one.

The Ringmaster’s Grand Finale. April 26, 1945: JV44 and Adolf Galland.  The article is a good one, so I have nothing to complain on it but the subject. JG 7 was much more important Me 262 fighter unit than Galland’s JV 44 but much less well known, at least in English speaking world, so I would have been much more eager to see an article on the former unit.

Then a nice article on the Heinkel He 162A and the only possible air kill achieved by a He 162A pilot. It also gives information on the all nine fatal accidents suffered by He 162A pilots during its use in WW2, a couple more French and British pilots died in He 162A accidents after the war but that is outside the scope of this publication. These is even a photo of the wreck of Flying Officer Tom Austin‘s Tempest V JN877 but it is also clearly stated that we will probably never know for sure if Leutnant Rudolf Schmitt shot down the Tempest because of the time difference and not even the place where the Tempest crashed was exactly a match with the combat area reported by Schmitt. Austin reported that he had suffered a catastrophic engine failure and some sources say that the loss was allocated to a German AA unit. There are several fairly small photos of He 162As but what I miss is a photo showing the ventilation disc on the port side of the canopy of He 162.

The last but one article, Final Dogfight May 8, 1945 gives one probably answer but in fact there were later air combats in Europe, mostly friendly fire cases. USAAF Lockheed F-5 photo-reconnaissance planes (unarmed version of the famous Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane) of the 39th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron/10th Photographic Group, belonging to the 9th U.S. Air Force were then operating from Y-10 airfield in Wiesbaden, Germany.
On 8 May 1945, the unit was on a Prisoner-of-War Camp Pin-Pointing Mission in Dresden airspace, i.e. in the area recently seized by Soviet troops. Several Soviet Yak fighters of the 106th Guards Fighter Air Regiment from Cottbus airfield attacked Captain Malcolm L. Nash. Second Lieutenant Lazuta wrongly took Nash´s F-5E for a German Focke Wulf Fw 189 (twin-fuselage plane like F-5), and shot it down in Reichenbach area, approx. 40 kilometres West of Dresden. Captain Nash made a belly landing in the field. Though he escaping serious injury his F-5E was totally demolished.
On 9 May 1945 afternoon, the 39th Photo-Reconnaissance Squadron sent six Lockheed F-5s to search for the missing Capt. Nash. Two of the F-5s piloted by 1/Lt Thomas P. Petrus and 2/Lt. Thomas Jackson, flew as far as Prague. By coincidence, this happened when six Soviet US built Bell P-39 Airacobras patrolled the area. They were part of the 100th Guards Fighter Air Regiment. Soviet fighters covered Soviet tanks advancing to Prague, and one of them, Major Vasilyi A. Pschenitchnikov, took the American twin-fuselage F-5 for a German Fw 189 and shot down the plane over Prague. While 1/Lt Petrus, suffering heavy burns, saved his life on parachute, Maj. Pschenitchnikov on his return added to his score the kill of „Fw 189“, his thirteenth and the last WW2 kill.
There was also at least one another dogfight on 9 May: Ju88, from possibly II/KG200 (144032), was attacked and damaged by FAA fighters over Skagerrak.
And on 11May 1945 Anson XII PH539 of the Desert Air Force Communication Flight was attacked by three Yak fighters while off course. It force-landed in a field near Graz, Austria and struck trees.

The last article is Aftermath May 9, 1945 and beyond. It is on the Allied war booty planes and scientific intelligence during the last days of the war and immediate afterwards. There is a list of the Watson’s Whizzers’ Me 262s and a list of the German aircraft captured by the British and US. Surprisingly it seems that  British gave all four Focke-Wulf 190Ds they had captured to US while they kept few 190As and F-8s plus a two of the three Ta 152Hs themselves.  Not surprisingly there are many night-fighters, mostly Junkers Ju 88G-6s but I was a little surprised of the number of Messerschmitt Me 163Bs captured by British, at least 23.

All in all I am very positively surprised at this purchase, almost all articles are good and interesting with well-chosen pictures, almost all them clear even if some are rather small in size. It gives interesting and many-sided picture of the last five months of the air war on the Western Front. Only major complains is the lack of articles on the Soviet Air Forces and the underestimations of the performance of Soviet fighters.

Main sources:
Motorenmustern for DB 605D series engines

Boehme, Manfred, JG 7 The World’s First Jet Fighter Unit 1944/1945 (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1992).
Caldwell, Donald, Day Fighters in Defence of the Reich A War Diary, 1942 – 45 (Barnsley: Frontline Books,
               2011).
Dean, Francis H., America’s Hundred-Thousand The U.S. Production Fighters of World War II (Atglen, PA:
               Schiffer Publishing, 1997).
Ethell, Jeffrey & Price, Alfred, World War II Fighting Jets (Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, 1994).
Foreman, John and Harvey, S. E., Me 262 Combat Diary (New Malden: Air Research Publications, 1990).
Freeman, Roger A., The Mighty Eight War Diary (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1990).
Gordon, Yefim, Lavochkin’s Piston-Engined Fighters (Hinckley: Midland Publishing, 2003).
Gordon, Yefim, Soviet Air Power in World War 2 (Hinckley: Midland Publishing, 2008).
Hermann, Dietmar & Wunderlich, Markus, Die kurze Karriere der Focke-Wulf Ta 152, Flugzeug Classic, Apr.
                2010.
Kens, Karlheinz and Nowarra, Heinz J., Die deutschen Flugzeuge 1933-1945 (München: J.F. Lehmann Verlag,
                2. Ausgabe, 1964)
Manhro, John and Pütz, Ron, Bodenplatte The Luftwaffe’s Last Hope (Crowborough: Hikoki Publications,
                2004).
Martinek, Josef, ‘Bf 109G-10 – the most agile “Gustav”’, Zlínek, No. 4 / Vol. III.
Murawski, Marek J., JG 1 “Oesau” 1944-1945 (Lublin: KAGERO, 2002).
Poruba,T and Janda, A, Messerschmitt Bf 109K (Hradec Králové: JaPo, 1997).
Price, Alfred, The Spitfire Story (London: Cassell & Co, Revised Second Edition, 2002).
Shores, Christopher and Williams, Clive, Aces High (London: Grub Street 1994).
Smith, J. Richard and Creek, Eddie j., Me 262 Volume Three (Crowborough: Classic Publications, 2000).
Ves̆ts̆ík, Milos̆, Lavoc̆kin La-7 (Praha: MBI, 2000).
Wagner, Ray (Ed.), American Combat Planes (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., New
               Revised Edition, 1968)
Weir, Adrian, The Last Flight of the Luftwaffe (London: Cassell & Co, 2000).
Wood, Tony/Gunston, Bill, Hitler’s Luftwaffe. A pictorial and technical encyclopedia of Hitler’s air power in
               World War II
(:Leisure Books, Reprinted, 1984).

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-IX.html
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit14v109.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/P-63/P-63.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/leistungsdaten-1-10-44.jpg
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/fw190d9test.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Methanol.pdf
http://users.atw.hu/kurfurst/articles/MW_KvsXIV.htm  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler-Benz_DB_605#Variants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163_Komet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdfaust
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=40780
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=7258



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A nice little publication on Aer. Macchi C.200 Saetta

2/1/2015

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Picture
Gianni CATTANEO’s Aer. Macchi C.200. Ali d’Italia 8 (1997)

A nice little 62 pages publication on Italiy’s premier early war fighter, richly illustrated, bi-language text (Italian-English), only the two pages long modeling notes is only in Italian. There are 1/48 scale 5-view drawing of  the VII Serie plane showing also wing airfoils, several 1/72 scale line profiles showing the slight variations of the type from the first prototype to the single C.201 prototype,  5-view colour drawing  and several colour profiles. Also some photos from manuals, especially of the cockpit area. The publication explains well why it was so difficult for the Italian air force to accept wholehearthly monoplane fighters and the reason behind the tendency to high speed stall of the first C.200s and how this problem was solved in this otherwise supreme manoeuvrable and well behaving little fighter.  When it first flew on Christmas Eve of 1937 it had some very modern features such as a constant speed propeller, flush rivetting all-around, self-sealing fuel tanks and initially a fully-enclosed cockpit. E.g. most RAF fighters got CS propellers only during the early summer of 1940. And in Spitfire flush rivetting was extended to the fuselage only in January 1943. Whether fuselage was flush riveted or not had very marginal effect on plane’s maximum speed but the fact that C.200 had flush riveted fuselage shows that its chief designer Mario Castoldi had used all means available to overcome the handicaps produced by the low-powered engine he had to use.

There is also an account of the operational use of the C.200 Saetta which is fairly inclusive, e.g. the essentials of the rather unknown actions of the Italian fighters in the Soviet Union in 1941 – 1943 are told.  The loss of the HMS Zulu on 14 September 1942 is usually attributed to the Luftwaffe, usually to the Ju 87s of III./StG.3 like by Smith and Rohwer and Hummelchen or more generally to the Luftwaffe like by March, but Shores and Massimello and the Wiki article allocate it to C.200 fighter bombers. IMHO the timing and the report of the captain of HMS Zulu indicate that it was more probable that the Luftwaffe hit Zulu even if the fact that the bomb penetrate through the side of the ship into its machinery spaces seems to indicate a low level fighter-bomber attack but German Ju 88s often used glide bombing against ships and so also could produce a hit piercing ship’s side. At least C. 200s sunk MTB 308, ML 352 and ML 353 on that day.

Sources:
Gavin BAILEY’s The Narrow Margin of Criticality: The Question of the Supply of 100-Octane Fuel in the Battle
   of Britain in English Historical Review Vol. CXXIII No. 501.(2008)
Roberto GENTILLI’s The Italian Air Force in Russia in Air Classics Volume 8 Number 12 October 1972.
Jack GREENE’s & Alessandro MASSIGNANI’s The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940 – 1943 (2011).
William GREEN’s and Gordon SWANBOROUGH’s The Sprightly Saetta in Air International Vol 13 No 6
   December 1977
Edgar J. MARCH’s British Destroyers. A History of Development 1892 - 1953 (1966).
Giovanni MASSIMELLO’s and Giorgio APOSTOLO’s Italian Aces of World War 2. Osprey Aircraft of the Aces •
   34 (2000).
Eric B. MORGAN’s and Edward SHACKLADY’s Spitfire. The History. Fifth impression (revised)(2000).
J. ROHWER’s and G. HUMMELCHEN’s Chronology of the War at Sea 1939 – 1945. Second, revised and
    expanded edition (1992).
Christopher SHORES’ and Giovanni MASSIMELLO’s A History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940-1945
   Volume Two (2012).
Peter C. SMITH’s Ju 87 Stuka (1998).

http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/42-09.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Zulu_%28F18%29


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Yefim Gordon’s Soviet Air Power in World War 2 (2008). A good book on the VVS and its aircraft during the Great Patriotic War.

25/12/2014

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Picture
This is a good book on the VVS (the Soviet Air Force) and the planes used by the VVS. The book begin with a survey of the Soviet aircraft industry in the run-up to and during the Great Patriotic War, 22 June 1941 – 9 May 1945,  (24 pages with many tables on production plans and production of aircraft and aero engines and plenty of b/w photos of production lines, also photos of many Soviet top-ranking aircraft industry officials and notable aircraft and aero engine designers) followed by a survey of the organization and equipment of the Soviet Air Force before and during the Great Patriotic War (34 pages, again with numerous tables on the VVS strengths, losses and the composition of high-level units and numerous b/w photos) followed by a survey of the Soviet naval aviation during the Great Patriotic War (32 pages). Then comes the main part of the book, Soviet Combat Aircraft of 1939-1945 (339 pages). There the author goes through the development and operational use of the Soviet combat planes from well-known Il-2s and Yaks through less-well known Su-2 and KhAI/Neman R-10 to prototypes that didn’t enter production. He gives info on every subtypes and variants. Here at latest it becomes clear that the table of contents is far too cursory, especially because there is no index  and the aircrafts are not described in the alphabetical order and, because there are no subchapters shown in the table of contents. The first subchapter is Mikoyan combat aircraft of 1939-1945, then Yakolev combat aircraft of 1940-1945, then Lavochkin combat aircraft of 1936-1945 and so on. E.g. Yermolayev Yer-2 article is put between Myasishchev’s and Petlyakov’s combat aircraft.

Next comes a survey of the Lend-Lease aircraft (78 pages) and the last one is of the Soviet pilots in the Great Patriotic War (29 pages), it concentrated almost entirely on fighter pilots and included three tables of the top Soviet fighter pilots; the official list of Soviet  aces as of November 1967(the top 50), the top 10 Soviet aces of Great Patriotic War Variant 1 (information gleaned from the Internet in 2007) and the top 16 Soviet aces of Great Patriotic War Variant 2 (information gleaned from the Internet in 2007). The text of this last chapter has very strong Soviet era atmosphere.

Usually the technical descriptions of the planes are fairly informative but of course in a book on so large subject there are some points where a reader would have hoped a deeper analyze. E.g.  Yermolayev Yer-2 article is a bit unsatisfactory especially on the last, diesel powered bomber version. The maximum bomb load of the type isn’t given, the only information on the subject is that the prototype DB-240 could carry 2,000kg of bombs internally and 1,000kg externally, that is all. There isn’t for Yer-2 the specifications in tabular form as there are for almost all other types. But in the older Yerim Gordon’s and Dmitri Khazanov’s Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War Volume Two gives the same information in its text but gives in its tables the following maximum bomb loads: for the prototype  4,000kg, same for the first two production versions and for the last, the ACh-30B diesel engine powered version, 5,000kg.  The Yer-2 wiki article, which seems to be one of the better ones, gives the bomb load of the prototype as same as Gordon in his text but says that the ACh-30B engined last version had the maximum bomb load of 5,000kg carried in an internal bomb-bay.  Nowhere is information how the bomb-bay was modified to allow carrying 2½ times more bombs in it or was the reason that e.g. armour piercing bombs took less room than high explosive bombs of the same weight. Also e.g. Lavochin La-5 development could have been told with more technical details about e.g. how exactly was the inadequate oil cooling in the prototype solved and how different subtypes (37, 39 and 41) differed from each other. After all the differences between Type 37 and Type 39 are given in Gordon’s earlier Lavochkin’s Piston-Engined Fighters book.

IMHO the best in the book are the analyses of the flight characteristics of the planes based on Soviet flight tests made during the war. These tests not only gave information on maximum speed, rate of climb etc. but also quantitative information on turning times, how much height was achieved during a combat turn (chandelle) etc.

Comparisons with comparable German aircrafts are usually fair but the fact that new Soviet planes are compared with the planes the Luftwaffe already had fairly common use in the Eastern Front because those were types on which Soviet technical intelligence had more or less accurate information. Usually the Soviet information was accurate but their data on different Focke-Wulf Fw 190 versions is worse than the data given by German and Western Allies sources.  However e.g. on page 303 where IL-10 is compared with a Fw 190 attack version (the exact version isn’t specified) Gordon claimed that at low altitudes IL-10 was only 15 – 20 km/h slower which is in line with the Soviet figures on the speed of the Fw 190Fs, but when compared with information from German and Western Allies sources, Fw 190F-8, which entered into service some 10 months earlier than IL-10, was appr. 40 – 45 km/h faster than IL-10 at lower levels. More odd is the claim that the normal bomb load of a Fw 190 attack aircraft by the end of the war was 150 kg when in fact Fw 190F-8s from 1./SG 5 carried 250 kg or 500 kg bomb loads when they operated in Finland during summer 1944, 250 kg bomb  load being somewhat but not significantly more common. Same is true for III./SG 3 during its operations in White Russia and in Baltic states in summer 1944, and Lt. Helmut Wenk, flying the closer IL-10 contemporary Fw 190F-9, operated usually with 500 kg bomb loads at the end of April 1945, his bomb loads during the last days of war varied from  250 kg to 700 kg. Gordon rightly pointed out that IL-10 was surprisingly maneuverable for a big armoured 2-seat attack aircraft and that it was clearly better armoured than Fw 190 Fs with more powerful cannon armament and a rear gunner with  a heavy 12.7mm machine gun. But contrary to the Gordon claim that the bomb load of Fw 190F was lighter than that of IL-10 they were fairly similar (450 – 700 kg normal and some 1000 kg maximum for Fw 190F-8 vs 400 kg normal and 600 kg maximum for IL-10), so in fact Fw 190F-8 was capable to carry somewhat heavier bomb loads but that was a downside of the better and much heavier armour protection of IL-10.

And comparing the performance of the SBB-1 prototype, the first flight in early 1941, to that of Bf 109E and not to that of clearly better early Bf 109F, is a bit misleading because Bf 109F was fast replacing the 109E in the combat units at that time. In fact when Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, 75% of the Jagdgruppen participating the attack were already equipped with Bf 109Fs and only 25% still with Bf 109Es.
In the case of Pe-3 it is ok to compare the performance of the prototype with those of Bf 110 C but maybe it would have been fair to mention that the production of the clearly better Bf 110 F began only four months later, in December 1941 even if the first Bf 110 Fs were delivered to the Luftwaffe only in February 1942 because of the initial problems with their DB 601 F engines.

Gordon writes that Handley Page Hampden was slow, sluggish and had insufficient defensive armament. Now the last point is definitely true but Hampden should have been faster than its Soviet counter-parts, DB-3T and Il-4T, especially at lower altitudes which were where it really mattered for a torpedo bomber. On sluggishness, I first thought that that was also an error because I recall some British memoirs where the memoirists said that the cockpit of Hampden pilot was fighter like and that it could be flown somewhat like a fighter. While e.g. H A Taylor agree with that claim, Eric Brown is clearly more critical and noted that Hampden suffered from rudder overbalance which limited evasive manoeuvres. Much of the problem could have been overcome by good training but probably Soviet pilots, who had got the Hampdens unexpectedly, didn’t learn all the remedies. The VVS received only 20 Hampdens left behind by the 144 RAF and the 455 RAAF Squadrons after their brief deployment in Murmansk area so there was no urgent incentive to thorough testing of the type in the Soviet Union. So after all Gordon seems to be right on the sluggishness. And in Hampden part the Soviet sinking claims are checked against German sources, those made by the crews of the Soviet and US made torpedo bombers were not and are very overoptimistic.

What I missed in the ANT-42/TB-7/Pe-8 heavy bomber article was a description of the modifications needed to make the M-82 powered version capable to carry a 5,082kg bomb, Pe-8 was the only plane alongside the Avro Lancaster capable to carry such super-heavy bombs during the World War II in Europe. Gordon also clearly wrongly claims that in 1942 it was decided to use 1,850 hp Shvetsov M-82 radials to power new Pe-8s, Maslov rightly writes that when Pe-8 production was restarted in 1942 it was decided to power the bombers with 1,330 hp M-82 radials and only in later part of 1943 new build aircraft were powered by 1,850 hp ASh-82FN engines. Gordon’s ANT-42/TB-7/Pe-8 comparison with the B-17 is IMHO misleading. Gordon writes that B-17 was able to carry only sixteen 100 kg bombs and its turrets had only two machine guns while ANT-42 prototype could carry forty 100 kg bombs and its gun armament included two turrets with 20 mm cannon.  B-17 prototype Boeing Model 299 could carry sixteen 136 kg bombs  (USAAC/USAAF didn’t have 100 kg bombs in its inventory) or e.g. eight 272 kg bombs (altogether 2,177 kg) internally, one must remember that B-17 was designed as a medium, not a heavy bomber for the USAAC. In 1940 produced B-17Cs still had max 2,177 kg bomb load and was armed with four 0.50-inch and one 0.30-inch hand operated machine guns. It was the first version to see combat in July 1941 while serving in RAF. All these early versions had rather weak defensive armament when compared to the later B-17 versions from B-17E onwards (which was the first with power operated turrets, its first flight was made on 5 September 1941 and its first combat on December 1941, max. bomb load according to Freeman in The Great Book of World War II Airplanes article was only 1905 kg, others say twelve 500 lb/227 kg bombs, or eight 1,000 lb/454 kg, or four 2000-pound/ 907 kg bombs, which means 3,629 kg maximum. The defensive armament was eight 12.7 mm + one 7.62 mm machineguns. So while it is true that TB-7/Pe-8 prototype ANT-42 could carry heavier bomb load and had heavier defensive armament than the B-17 version in production at that time, the B-17 versions used in combat in Europe by the USAAF were (B-17E was used in ETO as a combat aircraft only a few weeks by one bomber group) improved B-17F, which entered production in April 1942 and began combat operations in August 1942, which had max bomb load of 7,983 kg, of which 4,354 kg internally, but that was for a short range missions only and with armour piercing bombs as the internal load, which were suited only against heavy warships and other hardened targets. Normal maximum internal load for the B-17F and G versions was 2,722 kg HE/GP bombs, either twelve 500 lb/227 kg bombs or six 1,000 lb/454 kg bombs. In later Fs and Gs there was a possibility for carrying two heavy bombs (max 4,000 lb bombs) externally but that option was seldom used. Usually bombers could carry heavier bomb loads for shorter range and lighter bomb loads for longer range missions. Usually B-17Fs carried 1,814 kg to 2,268 kg bomb loads during their long-range deep-penetration missions in Europe. The defensive armament was 10 to 11 12.7 mm machineguns, I’d say more powerful defensive armament than that of the TB-7/Pe-8. During the early Great Patriotic War some TB-7s still had the one 20 mm and six 7.62mm gun defensive armament. Later the two 20 mm and three 12.7mm gun armament was the norm. The production run of the B-17E, the first version with the twin machineguns turrets was 512, which was clearly more than the 93 Pe-8s produced but definitely was not the main production model, the main production models were B-17F, 3,405 produced and B-17G (the same bomb load options as in B-17F but one extra twin mg turret), 8,680 produced. But it is true that TB-7/Pe-8 had bigger bomb bay and so had more options as possible bomb loads . During the 6./7. Feb 1944 bombing raid on Helsinki to which Pe-8s of the 45th Air Division participated, the 15 Pe-8s dropped 75 bombs, altogether 55,960 kg of bombs incl. two 5,000 kg bombs, that means on average 3,731 kg bombs per plane, the distance from their base SE of Moscow to Helsinki was some 900 – 950 km, about the same that from England to Berlin. The bombing altitude varied between 5,250 and 7,200 m. On 6 March 1944 474 B-17s dropped on average 2,134 kg of bombs/plane on Berlin. The bombing heights used by 8th AF B-17s were usually between 6,500 and 8,000 m. So about same time against targets about the same distance away Pe-8s carried on average over 50% heavier bomb loads but flied somewhat lower on average. Of course the massive daytime formations meant that B-17s had to spend considerable time circling over England during forming up, easily over two hours burning lots of fuel. All in all in 1941 TB-7 was clearly more capable than B-17C or the 1941 production model B-17D (which was in essence modified B-17C but had e.g. two more 12,7 mm machine guns), at least on paper. Performance figures for B-17C were 520 km/h at 7,620 m, service ceiling 11,278 m, range with 1,814 kg bomb load was 3,219 km and maximum range 5,472 km; for B-17E were 510 km/h at 7,620 m, service ceiling 11,156 m, range with 1,814 kg bomb load was 3,219 km and maximum range 5,311 km; for B-17F 481 km/h at 7,620 m, service ceiling 11,430 m, range with 1,814 kg bomb load was 3,219 km and maximum range 4,635 km; for B-17G were 462 km/h at 7,620 m, service ceiling 10,851 m, range with 2,722 kg bomb load was 3,219 km and maximum range 5,472 km. While with 2,000 kg bomb load and full fuel tanks the TB-7/Pe-8 powered by AM-35As, the most reliable and the most built version of the type had a maximum range of 3,600 km. With M-40 and M-30 diesel engines its range was 5,460 km and with M-82s it was 5,800 km. Respective maximum speeds were 443 km/h, 393 km/h and 420 km/h. Service ceilings were 9,300 m, 9,200 m and 8,000 m. Maximum bomb load was 4,000 kg (but according to Wiki article 4,000 kg internally and two 500 kg bombs externally) but for the M-82 engined version 6,000 kg. Maslov also gives at which altitude the maximum speeds were achieved for the AM-35 and M-40 versions, 6,360 m and 5,680 m respectively. In practice TB-7 wasn’t ready to operations when it was pushed to combat service in August 1941 because of its engine problems.  And B-17 was improved during the war more than TB-7/Pe-8. So B-17 was faster and could operate higher than contemporary TB-7/Pe-8 but the Soviet plane could carry heavier bomb loads and while the AM-35A powered version did not have significantly longer range with than B-17s the M-82/ASh-82FN powered late Pe-8s had. And the M-82/ASh-82FN powered Pe-8 was capable to carry the massive 5,082 kg bomb.  Because TB-7s were used as night bombers it would have been better to compare them to the RAF heavy bombers. Lancaster, which entered combat in March 1942, carried at average appr. 4,000 kg of bombs during their night raids on Berlin and bombed from 6,000 m. Almost all Lancasters were B I and III versions, the maximum speeds for the bomb carrying Merlin XX engined early B. I were 462 km/h at 3,505 m and 435 km/h at 6,096 m. Range with 3,175 kg bomb load was  4,313 km, with 4,540 kg bomb load was 3,621 km, 2672 km with 6,350 kg bomb load and 5,070 km without bombs. The performance figures stayed more or less same during the production run. Besides slightly less effective Hercules powered B. II, of which 300 were built, there was B. VI with better performance but only 9 B. Is and B. IIIs were converted to B. VI standard by installing Merlin 85 two-stage supercharger engines, but these needed more maintenance and were less reliable in service use than the standard engines, so they were taken off front-line service in November 1944, a little later than the Pe-8 according to Gordon. Lancaster Mk VI maximum speed was 504km/h at 5,578 m. More exact contemporary to early TB-7s was the Avro Manchester, by the end of 1940 18 (only 12 according to Mikhail Maslov’s article) production TB-7s and 19 production Manchesters were produced plus two prototypes in both cases. Manchester’s max bomb load used operationally was 4,695 kg (it was modified to be able to carry its full designed bomb load of 6,350 kg during the summer of 1941 but there is no record of a load greater than 4,695 kg ever being carried on operations). By late summer of 1941 Manchesters were frequently operating at 4,267 m often with a bomb load of 3,629 kg. I didn’t find info on the loads carried to Berlin but its maximum ranges were 2,623 km with 3,629 kg bomb load and 1,931 km with 4,699 kg and its defensive armament was the same as almost all of the Lancasters, namely eight 7.7 mm machine guns in three turrets. The maximum speed of Manchester was 426 km/h at 5,182 m and service ceiling 5,852 m. In the summer of 1941, while its Vulture engines were not entirely satisfactory, many of the problems of Vulture were if not solved at least alleviated. So AM-35A powered TB-7 had clearly better performance than its contemporary Avro Manchester but the successor of Manchester, Avro Lancaster caught up, it was slightly faster but had somewhat shorter range than late Pe-8s but was fitted with much better navigational equipment.

In the book Gordon clearly indicates that the 255th IAP of the Northern Fleet would have used P-47Ds during the war but in his and Komissarovs’ US Aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia the writers stated that this appears to be a mistake and the 255th IAP converted to Thunderbolts only immediately after the VE Day.

One annoying trait in the otherwise good book is the combat history parts, these have distinct Soviet era atmosphere. Numbers of German planes are exaggerated as are Luftwaffe losses, e.g. there are pair of figures for the strength of the Luftwaffe units participating the Operation Barbarossa, one which is the correct one and the other which in fact is closer to the Luftwaffe entire strength and it is the latter one which is usually used in the book as the strength of the Luftwaffe attacking the SU on 22 June 1941 and when the strength of the Luftwaffe is compared to the strength of VVS in the Western SU, same on the Stalingrad campaign and Kuban campaign, the latter not well known in the West but seen very important by the Russians. Happily there are few exceptions, when also the real plane losses suffered by the Axis are told. In fact on the 21 April 1943 combat by Red Banner Baltic Fleet Air Force with the Finnish Air Force Gordon  is overly pessimistic when he writes that while Soviet fighter pilots according to the Soviet sources shot down four Finnish aircraft according to Finns they lost none when in fact Finns acknowledge two Brewster B 239 losses , both pilots being also lost. Then there are some very strange claims as that the German statistics indicate that Soviet naval aviators sank three cruisers, seven destroyers etc. when all western, incl. German, sources say no cruisers, only one destroyer, Z 28, and even this is not totally sure because some sources say that it was sunk by the RAF, two torpedo boats, T 18 and T 36, of which the latter was almost the size of a contemporary Royal Navy fleet destroyer, the former a somewhat smaller than RN Hunt class escort destroyer plus one old and very small Romanian torpedo boat were sunk by the Soviet aviation as well as a number of smaller naval vessels and several merchant ships. The old Soviet story that Ivan Kozhedoob/Kozhedub shot down Walter Schuck’s Me 262 is repeated even if the shooter was in fact Joseph Peterburs/55th FS/20th FG flying a Mustang. Also those very optimistic Soviet claims on the achievements of the SPB Zveno, an ingenious combination of obsolete TB-3s and obsolescent I-16s armed with two 250kg bombs, operations against Romania during the late summer 1941 are repeated.

On the Soviet air attacks on 25 June 1941 on airfields in Finland Gordon repeats old Soviet era claim that ‛up to 30 enemy aircraft were destroyed on ground and another eleven German fighters fell to the Soviet guns’ when in fact only one Finnish bomber (a war-booty SB) was slightly damaged by bomb fragments and a couple of Finnish fighters were slightly damaged by bombers defensive fire. In Southern and Central Finland there were no Bf 109s at that time and the Soviet bombers were intercepted by fighters of the Finnish Air Force. And in fact Soviet aircrews claimed nine Me 109s and two Fokker D.21s shot down. Also no German fighters were lost in Lapland nor in Northern Norway where Soviet Air Forces also made bombing raids. But Gordon gives the right number (23) of Soviet losses to Finnish fighters and AA (FiAF fighters shot down 21 and AA two, one of latter being  an I-153). In addition VVS lost one SB in accident and one was shot down in error by a Soviet fighter plus one I-153 which landed in error in Finland. And in Northern Norway and in Northern Finland they lost one U-2 and one I-16 to Germans, one SB in accident, one I-15bis to own AA and one I-16 to unknown reason.

Gordon writes that Tu-2s of 334th Bomber Division/BAD made a particularly devastating bombing attack against Vyborg/Viipuri railway yard on 17 June 1944, in fact while the bombing was fairly accurate, the results were not particularly devastating, in fact much more devastating attack against the yard was made two days earlier by Il-4 and Pe-2 units. Gordon also writes that during the first three months of large scale operations by Tu-2 bombers Luftwaffe fighters shot down 10 and German anti-aircraft artillery seven more. These figures probably included the two of the three Tu-2s lost during the first operations of 334th BAD with Tu-2s which were directed against Finns in early June 1944 (one to Finnish fighters, one to Finnish AA fire. The third failed to return from a mission, reason unknown).

Leaving out some of the wartime stories of heroic deeds there would have been space to briefly describe e.g. how long the Su-2 was used in operations.

Contrary to the claim in the caption of a colour profile on the page 81 when the Junkers Ju 52 passenger and transport plane ‛Kaleva’ of the Finnish national carrier Aero O/Y was shot down by two DB-3Ts of the 1st MTAP/the Red Banner Baltic Fleet on June 14, 1940 over the Gulf of Finland it was on a normal scheduled flight from Tallinn to Helsinki and not operating for the Finnish Air Force. And at that time there was a peace between the Soviet Union and Finland. There was crew of two and seven passengers onboard including an American courier with the US Department of State with the American Embassy code books and other secret documents and two French diplomatic couriers with over 250 pounds of diplomatic messages. That was two days before the full-scale occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union.

So, a book well worth of its price, especially strong in the flight characteristics of the aircraft dealt with. The book also gives useful information on VVS organizations, e.g. the combat aircraft TOEs of the VVS combat units during the Great Patriotic War which is important because these fluctuated greatly during the war period, e.g. that of a IAP(fighter regiment) between 20 and 77.
IMHO the best single-volume all-round book on the VVS, the Soviet military aircraft and the Soviet aviation industry during the Second World War available in English.

Weaknesses are the lack of index which hampered its use as a handbook, more so because the aircrafts were not presented in alphabetical order. Also the complete lack of 3-view drawings. IMHO they are very useful aid and to my mind more important than the colour profiles, which are usually subjective interpretations from BW photos.  There are numerous colour profiles in the book, they look good but how accurate they are, I cannot say. But the few colour profiles of the same planes as in the Osprey’s Combat aircraft series books on Il-2 and Pe-2 Guard Units of World War 2 and Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 102 MiG-3 Aces of World War 2 are different, some very different. Clearly Andrey Yurgenson who has made the colour profiles to Osprey’s books had interpreted differently the material than the artists who have made the colour profiles in the Gordon’s book, which is a bit odd because Yurgenson is one of the artists who. But Yurgenson’s colour profile number 2 in Rastrenin’s Osprey Combat aircraft 71 Il-2 Shturmovik Guard Units of World War 2 (2008) seems to me being closer the plane of Maj. N A Zub/Zoob on the photo on the page 31 in that book than the colour profile of Zub’s/Zoob’s plane on the page 290 in the Gordon’s book. The same photo is printed also in Gordon’s and Komissarov’s Il-2 and Il-10 book but in it the caption doesn’t identify it as Zub’s/Zoob’s plane. Of course it is possible that Zub/Zoob used two different Il-2s in the winter of 1941-42 with slightly different font in the slogan and with different sizes number. But the other colour profiles of same planes in the books mentioned above have at least clearly different shades of colours if not entirely different colours. So IMHO many of the colour profiles could have been replaced by 3-view drawings, but this is of course a matter of opinion.

Also some photos are clearly misplaced e.g. on page 143 there is according to the caption a photo of Yak-1 when in fact there is a photo of the Curtiss P-40M of VVS captured by Finns. The same photo with another wrong caption appears on the page 289 in place of an IL-2 photo and finally it can be found in its right place with the right caption on p. 438. Also on the page 303 in place of a photo of an early production IL-10 there is a photo of a DB-7B which reappeared with its right caption in right place on the page 464.

Main sources:
1./SG 5 Erfolgsmeldungen.
I./SG 5 Gefechtsmeldungen.
AN 01-20EF-1 Appendix II B-17F Flight Operation Data

Lennart ANDERSSON's Soviet Aircraft and Aviation 1917 – 1941 (1997).
Dénes BERNÁD et al. From Barbarossa to Odessa Volumes 1(2007) and 2 (2007).
Chaz BOWYER's Avro Manchester. Aircraft Profile 260 (1974).
Eric M BROWN's Wings of the Weird and Wonderful  Volume 2 (1985).
Jeffrey L. Ethell's and Alfred Price's Target Berlin. Mission 250: 6 March 1944 (1992).
Roger FREEMAN's B-17 Flying Fortress in The Great Book of World War II Airplanes (1984).
Roger A. FREEMAN's B-17 Flying Fortress in World War 2 (1990).
Roger A. FREEMAN's The Mighty Eight War Diary (1990).
Roger A. FREEMAN's The Mighty Eight War Manual (1984).
William GREEN's & Gordon SWANBOROUGH's Hampden… Defender of Liberty in Air International November
    1984.
Carl-Fredrik GEUST's Helsingin ja Kannaksen taivaalla 1944 – Neuvostoliiton kaukopommitusilmavoimien
    toiminnasta in Sotahistoriallinen Aikakauskirja  13 (1994).
Carl-Fredrik GEUST's Ilmavoimat iskee, esitelmä Helsingissä 23.11.2011.
Carl-Fredrik GEUST's Neuvostoliiton ilmavoimat Kannaksella in Eero ELFVENGREN Eeva TAMMI (toim.): Viipuri
    1944. Miksi Viipuri menetettiin? (2007).
Carl-Fredrik GEUST's Neuvostoliiton kaukotoimintailmavoimat kesän 1944 suurhyökkäyksessä Kannaksella in
    Sotahistoriallinen aikakauskirja 23 (2004).
Carl-Fredrik GEUST's – Dimitrij HAZANOV's Jatkosodan alun neuvostopommitukset in Sotahistoriallinen
    aikakauskirja 20 (2001).
Carl-Fredrik GEUST's - Ohto MANNINEN's Jatkosodan alkurysäys Suomen pommittaminen 25.6.1941 in
    Sotilasaikakauslehti 3/1995.
Yefim GORDON's Lavochkin’s Piston-Engined Fighters (2003).
Yefim GORDON's and Dmitri KHAZANOV's Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War. Volume One
    (1998).
Yefim GORDON's and Dmitri KHAZANOV's Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War. Volume Two
    (1999).
Yefim GORDON's and Sergey KOMISSAROV's Ilyushin Il-2 and Il-10 Shturmovik (2004).
Yefim GORDON and Sergey KOMISSAROV with Dmitriy KOMISSAROV US Aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia
    (2008).
William GREEN's Famous Bombers of the Second World War. Second edition revised (1975).
Atso HAAPANEN's Kesäsota (2006).
William N. HESS's Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. Queen of the Skies. Wings of Fame Volume 6 (1997).
Gerhard KOOP’s & Klaus-Peter SCHMOLKE’s German Destroyers of World War II (2003).
Igor KOPILOW's La-5-hävittäjän kehitys in feeniks 3•2014.
Igor KOPILOW's Suhoi Su-2 in IPMS Mallari 139, 3/2001.
Heikki KAURANEN's – Jukka VESEN's Simolan pommitukset (2006).
Kalevi KESKINEN's Kari STENMAN's Suomen ilmavoimat Finnish Air Force VI 1944 (2008).
Dmitriy KHAZANOV's  and Aleksander MEDVED's MiG-3 Aces of World War 2 (2012).
Dmitriy KHAZANOV's  and Aleksander MEDVED's Pe-2 Guard Units of World War 2 (2013).
Ahti LAPPI's Viipurin ilmatorjunta in Eero ELFVENGREN's Eeva TAMMI's (toim.): Viipuri 1944. Miksi Viipuri
    menetettiin? (2007).
Heinz MANKAU's & Peter PETRICK's Messerschmitt Bf 110/Me 210/Me 410. An Illustrated History (2003).
Mikhail MASLOV's Petlyakov’s Long Range bomber in Model Aircraft Monthly Vol 7 Issue 9 September 2008.
Francis K MASON's The British Bomber since 1914 (1994).
Kenneth MUNSON's US Warbirds from World War 1 to Vietnam (1985).
Martin MIDDLEBROOK's The Berlin Raids. R.A.F Bomber Command Winter 1943-44 (1988).
Alfred PRICE's Focke Wulf Fw 190 in Combat (1998).
Oleg RASTRENIN's Il-2 Shturmovik Guard Units of World War 2 (2008).
Jukka RAUNIO's Joroinen 25.6.41 in Suomen Ilmailuhistoriallinen Lehti 4/1996.
H A TAYLOR's Flying the “Flying Suitcase” Viewed from the Cockpit in Air Enthusiast September 1971.
Walter THOMPSON's Lancaster to Berlin (1985).
Hannu VALTONEN's Lento-osasto Kuhlmey (2011).
Hannu VALTONEN's Luftwaffen pohjoinen sivusta (1997).
Ray WAGNER's American Combat Planes. New Revised Edition. (1968).
Elke C. WEAL et al: Combat Aircraft of World War Two (1977).
M. J. WHITLEY’s German Destroyers of World War Two. 2nd ed (1991).

Avro Lancaster R5868 74-A-12

http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b17_5.html 
http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b17_6.html
http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b17_7.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Lancaster/Lancaster.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleva_%28airplane%29
http://fly.historicwings.com/2013/06/the-kaleva-shootdown/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petlyakov_Pe-8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yermolayev_Yer-2
http://209.61.188.48/discussion.cgi?id=3051&article=31419 (The old now dead site of the Luftwaffe Discussion Group: 12 O’Clock High !) Rune Rautio Losses at the Artic front 25.06.41 11 Nov 2000.
http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/45-03.htm

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/destroyer/zerstorer1936a/z28/history.html

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Smith, J. Richard and Creek Eddie J., Me 262 Volume One

15/4/2014

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Smith, J. Richard and Creek Eddie J., Me 262 Volume One. Classic Publications Burgess Hill, West Sussex 1997. ISBN 0 9526867 2 4. 224 pages, Dimensions: 30.6 x 22.8 x 2 cm

Simply an excellent book, full of relevant information, technical drawings and specifications. It is also a book for modelers, plenty of good quality b/w and some colour photographs, many colour profiles and an appendix on Luftwaffe’s camouflage and markings. Unfortunately difficult and very expensive to get nowadays.

This volume, the first of four, covers development of the Me 262 from its initiation to the eve of the beginning of its operational testing, in other words to the end of 1943 but the development history is taken to mid- 1944, with information on the use and careers of the ten prototypes and the first seven pre-production aircraft (Me 262 S1 – S7) and the initial production methods.

The book begins with good survey of Willy Messerschmitt’s career and the history of his firm, altogether 26 pages.
Then followed a 16 pages thorough chapter on the German jet engine development, which covers well the three jet engines that influenced the design of the Me 262 (BMW P3304, BMW P3302 (BMW 003) and Jumo 004). The BMW 003A, a different engine from the P3302, which flew in later Me 262 development aircraft, is also discussed, even if it did not influence the airframe design.  The story of the development of Me 262 itself began on the page 56. The book has many photographs of wind-tunnel models that were prepared to evaluate the several stages of airframe design that began with what looks like a straight-wing Me 309 derivative or cousin and ended with the swept-wing fighter that went to production. Also other descriptions of technical matters is very good e.g. the descriptions of Zeiss TSA 2D and Lofte 7H bomb sights

There are four appendices:
Appendix. 1. Camouflage and Markings
Appendix. 2. Me 262 Prototype Flights
Appendix. 3. German Reaction Engine Designation System
Appendix. 4. Messerschmitt Personalities and Company Organization. This is an extensive list of Messerschmitt personalities, often accompanied with a micro biography.

For modellers the Appendix 1 is interesting, for those interested in Me 262:n development the Appendices 2 and 4 are very useful.

Difficult to find something to criticize but there is always something.  
The index could be more detailed and there are some annoying typos. Also when the writers wonder why Hitler didn’t cancel his order to concentrate initially purely on the Me 262 Jabo/bomber versions soon after the D-Day when the main reason behind his reasoning, the ability of Jabo/bomber version to bomb invading Allied troops on the beaches, had disappeared they forget the effect of the Operation Fortitude, which kept Germans waiting for the “main landing” because it deluded them to believe that the D-Day was only a diversion. And there are some errors when the authors write on some side topics, e.g. the claim that LW was able to fly only about 100 sorties on D-Day, when the right figure is 300+. Also their claim on the effectiveness of the ‘Big Week’ seems to be based on what Allied thought they had achieved, at least German aircraft production figures don’t show the level of production drop in March1944 mentioned in the book.

And thanks to Arno for lending his copy.


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FlyPast Special Wellington

10/12/2013

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FlyPast Special WELLINGTON

This was a pleasant surprise, IMHO a very good product from Key Publishing Ltd, 96 pages long info package, includes a short but good article on Vickers Wellesley (Wellington’s immediate predecessor) and a longer one on Warwick (Wellington’s planned successor in production lines)

The story of 14 Squadron activities in 1945 is well written; I compared it to the information from the history of the squadron, Winged Promises by Vincent Orange et al.

Less well known Wellington operations under Coastal Command  are also well presented but on the Wellington operations in the Mediterranean area there are only a few crash photos.

Besides the lack of information on the Mediterranean and Far East operations and the lack of cockpit photos, IMHO the only omission is that there is no mention of the fact that  the geodetic construction had some problems as had the structure of Wimpy. Even if the article on Warwick Air-Sea-Rescue planes is good and very interesting I would have preferred a good article on the Wellington operations in the Mediterranean area in its place.

The articles  are:
- The short article on Vickers Wellesley which incl. a table of Wellesley operational losses.
- Barnes Wallis and the birth of the Wellington
- Variants and oddities with a photo or two of most of them. Also technical specifications and outline
    drawings of the Mk III and a colour profile and colour plan of DWI Wellington, the flying mine-sweeper.
- Directory of RAF, Free European Air Forces and Commonwealth Wellington front-line squadrons and
    support units from the UK to the Far East giving the badge, motto, codes, dates the unit was equipped with
    Wellingtons, variants used, theatres and role for each squadron mentioned. Of course not all squadrons
    had the badge or the motto. With 17 b/w photos and three colour profiles.
- The Wellington period of the 14 Squadron  (Nov. 1944 – May 1945).
- The use in Bomber Command
- A first-hand account on the Kiel raid on 11th Sept. 1941.
- An article on air-sea rescues of Wellington crews including a diagram of dinghy installation on a
    Wellengton.
- Loch Ness/Brooklands Wellington Ia
- A short  history of 524 Squadron, the E-boat hunters.
- The Warwick article.
- The post-war use.

IMHO a well worth of having.


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Robert Forczyk's Fw 200 Condor vs Atlantic Convoy 1941 - 43. Osprey Duel 25 (2010)

5/10/2013

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Forczyk’s book is IMHO good. For its size it gives a good background information, describes enough the actions and gives good overview on the importance of Focke-Wulf Fw 200C to the Battle of Atlantic and reasons for its early successes and its ultimate failure against Allied convoys. The two maps convey very well the essentials of Condors’ anti-convoy operations and the four tables are clear and convey well the essential information as do the diagrams on anti-aircraft systems of armed merchant ships  and low-level attack  tactic used by Condors. But there is at least one mistake in the table “Condor losses by cause”. The 3rd column header “AA from land/merchant ship” should be “AA from merchant ship/ land” or the numbers in the column should be reversed.

Typically to Duel series there is chronology and two minibiographies, that of Edgar Petersen, quite self-evident choice and that of Eric Brown, the very famous test pilot, maybe not so self-evident choice but Brown was one of the Martlet pilots on the Royal Navy’s  first escort carrier HMS Audacity whole of its short career and claimed two Fw 200 Condors. And the arrival of escort carriers was really the turning point  in the Fw 200 Condors vs Atlantic convoys battle.

Forczyk is more in home with Condor than with Royal Navy's  weapon systems. Contrary what Forczyk writes, 12pdr(3”) wasn’t the main heavy AA gun of Royal Navy in 30s, 4” was and at the end of decade 4.5” dual purpose gun had entered  in service. 12pdr might be the most common heavy AA gun installed onto merchant vessels during the WWII but that is a different thing.  And the rate of fire wasn’t the main problem of 2pdr pom-pom besides the unreliability of early versions, it wasn’t significantly lower than that of excellent 40mm Bofors, but the fairly low muzzle velocity of the pom-pom was.

The Royal Navy had begun to understand the need for anti-aircraft protection of Great Britain’s merchant shipping by late 30s and sloops constructed in late 30s had powerful AA armament. Bittern-class sloops, 2 of the 3 ships had six 4" AA guns (3x2), HACS AA fire control director, four .5" AA guns (1x4) and Egret-class sloops, 3 ships, 8 x 4-inch AA guns (4x2), Fuze Keeping Clock AA fire control system, 4 x .5-inch AA (1x4) were commissioned 1936 – 39 and just nearing completion were first of the  Black Swans, 12 were launched between 1939 and 1943, including four for the Royal Indian Navy; twenty-five Modified Black Swans were launched between 1942 and 1945, including two for the Royal Indian Navy. Their armament was 6 × QF 4 in (102 mm) Mk XVI AA guns (3 × 2), Fuze Keeping Clock AA fire control system, 4 × 2pdr AA pom-pom plus 4 × 0.5-inch (12.7 mm) AA machine guns (original), 12 × 20 mm Oerlikon AA (6 × 2) (modified). The first of Black Swans was commissioned on 3 November 1939 and the second on 27 January 1940 and 3 more during the first part of 41, i.e. at the height of the Condor menace.

Also there were the Hunts of which 19 were commissioned in 1940. They were modeled on the 1938 escort sloop Bittern. The Hunt class was to ship the same armament of three twin Mark XIX mounts for the QF 4-inch (102 mm) gun Mark XVI. The guns were controlled by a Fuze Keeping Clock AA fire control computer when engaging aircraft plus a quadruple QF 2 pounder mount Mark VII. While sloops were restricted to speeds under 20knots by a treaty Hunts were small destroyers with top speed of 27 knots (50 km/h). The first twenty were ordered in March and April 1939. They were constructed to Admiralty standards, as were contemporary destroyers, unlike the frigates which conformed much more to mercantile practice. The demanding specifications in an overworked Admiralty design department resulted in a major design miscalculation. When the detailed calculations were done the centre of gravity was lower than expected and the beam was increased. As the first ships were being completed it was found that the design was as much as 70 tons overweight, top heavy, leaving them dangerously deficient in stability. The first twenty ships were so far advanced in construction that it was necessary to remove the 'X' 4 inch mount and add 50 tons of permanent ballast. These ships became the Type I group, and had the multiple 2 pounder gun relocated from behind the funnel to the more advantageous 'X' position. The design deficiency of the Type I was rectified by splitting the hulls lengthwise and adding a 2½ foot section, increasing the beam and the margin of stability sufficiently for the designed armament to be shipped. These ships became the Type II group. Under the 1939 Emergency War Programme 36 more Hunts had been ordered: three of these were completed to the original (Type I) design.

The main problem for the RN was that the unexpected collapse of France and occupation of Norway by Germany not only opened opportunity for Condors to attack against southern convoy routes but also allowed medium-bomber anti-shipping attacks in Irish Sea and in the waters around Ireland, so these ships were urgently needed besides the North Sea also in this new danger area.

Analyze seems otherwise good, but near the end the 20mm Oerlikon fixation goes to annoying dimensions. Even after Forczyk has told that the more powerful anti-aircraft protection of convoys had forced KG 40 to abandon the low-level attacks and with the new Fw 200C-4 version, which was equipped with the good Lofte 7B bombsight, it began to bomb from 3,000m (10,000ft) to avoid light automatic AA fire, he still regard the number of Oerlikons as measurement of how good AA defense a convoy had.

Another small error in the book is that the first escort carrier with a hangar deck wasn’t HMS Biter but both HMS Archer and HMS Avenger  had begun to escort convoys already during the spring 1942.

In spite of some errors the book is a good introduction to Fw 200 Condor and its use as maritime bomber and reconnaissance bomber and the Allied efforts to combat this menace.


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Some of my favorite memoirs of WWII pilots

2/9/2013

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What are the best aviation books? Of course the answer is very subjective, depending on one’s taste and interests. IMHO some very good books which give good picture of what the air war was about during the WWII are following.


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Das Tagebuch Hauptmann Helmut Lipfert is very good and it is translated to English as The War Diary of Hauptmann Helmut Lipfert: JG 52 on the Russian Front 1943-45. Translator is David Johnston. Schiffer Publishing Ltd (1998) ISBN-13: 978-0887404467. 224 pages
 
I have read only the both Finnish editions of which the later, translated by Hannu Valtonen is clearly better translated. But I liked very much even the first version even if the translation wasn’t so good. Action packed memoirs began when at the end of his training at Ergänzungsjagdgruppe Ost, which was like a British OTU, he was informed on 26 Nov 1942 that he will be posted to JG 52. There is nothing on his previous life, not even on his war service as a NCO at the Signal Battalion 37 in the 1st Panzer Division or his flight training. And the books end at the end of the war, nothing even how the surrendering happened or to whom he surrendered.

Helmut Lipfert was born on 6 August 1916 in Thüringen. A former Arbeitdienstführer and Unteroffizier with the Panzerwaffe, Lipfert transferred to the Luftwaffe in 1941 and underwent fighter pilot training. Lipfert was posted to 6./JG 52, based on the Southern part of the Eastern front, on 26 November 1942. He gained his first victory on his 18th combat mission shooting down a Russian LaGG-5 fighter on 30 January 1943. His 10th victory was recorded on 25 June. He achieved his 20th victory on 5 September. During September 1943, Lipfert assumed command of 6./JG 52. On 8 October, he shot down five Russian aircraft to record his 30th through 34th victories. He got his his 50th victory on 12 November. By the end of 1943 his victory total had reached 80. After his 88th victory on 25 January 1944, he was sent on leave, not returning to the front until the end of March. He was awarded the Ritterkreuz on 5 April. His 100th victory was achieved on 11 April 1944 and his 150th on 24 October 1944. On 15 February 1945, Hauptmann Lipfert was appointed Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 53 based in Hungary. He shot down his 200th victim on 8 April 1945. On 17 April 1945 he was awarded the Eichenlaub for 203 victories. Following the dissolution of I./JG 53, Lipfert was transferred to JG 52, where he was assigned to 7./JG52 until the end of the war. Post-war Lipfert became a schoolteacher. He died on 10 August 1990.
Helmut Lipfert was credited with 203 victories in over 700 operational sorties. All his victories were recorded over the Eastern front and included two four-engine bombers and 39 Il-2 Sturmovik ground-attack aircraft. Additionally, he claimed 27 unconfirmed victories.


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Johannes Kaufmann's 'Meine Flugberichte'. I have read the Finnish edition of the book, Sotilaslentäjänä 1935-1945 Koala, Helsinki (2002)  ISBN: 9525186369
translator Hannu Valtonen, number of pages: 226 , 32 photos.

Johannes Kaufmann, born 15.10.1915, last rank: Hauptmann. Units: I./SKG 210, I./ZG 1, 9./JG 4.
9 victories on the Eastern Front and 4 in West (2 fighters and 2 heavy bombers-Herausschüsse). This is from Hans Rings & Coll. unpublished summary of claims.

Kaufmann had quite an interesting career. For those able to read German a very useful small book with a lot of insight in German military aviation. Staffelkapitän 9./JG 4. Very strong in its description of LW training system. Not so much descriptions of combat activities but still gives a good indications what it was to fly ground attack sorties on the Eastern Front.

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If you cannot read German (or Finnish) there other good memoirs of Luftwaffe pilots, e.g. Hermann Buchner’s Stormbird: Flying Through Fire as a Luftwaffe Ground-Attack Pilot and Me 262 Ace Hikoki 2000 ISBN 1 902109 00 7    176 pages.

It gives fairly good info on training in Luftwaffe and as extras on the elementary flight training in the Austrian Luftstreitkräfte, on life in Austria just before the Anschluss and on the life of a Me 262 jet fighter pilot. As in Kaufmann’s book, it also told the story of an ground attack pilot on the Eastern Front and it has more action.

 Buchner is credited with 46 tank victories and 58 aerial victories, including 12 while flying the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, accumulated in 631 combat sorties.

A couple excellent memoirs of Finnish Air Force aces:
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Eino “Eikka” Luukkanen’s memoirs, translated as Luukkanen, Eino. Fighter Over Finland: the Memoirs of a Fighter Pilot. London: Macdonald & Company Ltd. 1963. (Reprinted 1980 by Arno Press, NY as ISBN 0-405-12191-1. and in 1989 by Time-Life, NY as ISBN 0-80949-620-8.) 254 pages.

Excelent memoirs on the desperate fight of Finns against colossal odds during the Winter War (30 Nov. 1939 - 13 March 1944) and on the victorious years 1941 - 42, on the hard fight in 1943 and on the desperate fight against great odds during the Summer of 1944 while flying Fokker D.XXsI, Brewster B-239s, war-booty Polikarpov I-153s and in the end Bf 109Gs as the CO of the premier Messerchmitt Bf 109G unit of the Finnish Air Force, HLeLv 34. He was credited with 54 kills while flying 441 operational sorties.
See more on him http://www.saunalahti.fi/~fta/finace03.htm


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Eino Ilmari Juutilainen's Double Fighter Knight.(translated by Nikunen, Heikki).  Tampere, Finland: Apali Oy, 1996. ISBN 9-52502-604-3. 255 pages

The top scorer of the Finnish Air Force with 94 kills and flew 437 operational sorties. Very good action packed memoirs.

And one Soviet memoirs
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IMHO best Soviet memoirs are Vasily B Emelianenko's Red Star Against the Swastika: The Story of a Soviet Pilot over the Eastern Front. Greenhill Books; First edition (2006) ISBN-13: 978-1853676499  240 pages
 
Emelianenko was highly decorated Il-2 pilot serving 7th GShAP ( before March 1942 known as the 4. ShAP) means 7th Guards Ground Attack Air Regiment/4th Ground Attack Air Regiment. He was awarded the highest decoration - the Hero of the Soviet Union. He went on to complete a total of ninety-two sorties. His plane was shot down three times, and on each occasion he managed to pilot the damaged aircraft home, demonstrating remarkable resilience and bravery in the face of terrifying odds. Emelianenko's vivid memoirs provide a rare insight into the reality of fighting over the Eastern Front and the tactics of the Red Army Air Force. The book isn’t only a memoirs of Emelianenko but also a short history of his air regiment. In the end of it there is a long list of personel losses of the regiment.

And last but not least three memoirs of pilots who served in RAF
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"Johnnie” Johnsson’s Wing Leader  Chatto & Windus, London, 1956
 
 I read the book first time in early teens and have liked it since. IMHO one of the very best memoirs of a WWII pilot.

Even if Johnnie is well known in the English speaking countries, here is the main facts on his life.
James "Johnnie" Johnson the highest scoring RAF fighter pilot to survive the war, he shot down 38 enemy aircraft in the skies over Western Europe between June 1941 and September 1944. Originally from Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire , graduated as a civil engineer in 1938.  Failing to get into the Auxiliary Air Force and the Volunteer Reserve at his first attempt, he joined the Leicestershire Yeomanry. But shortly after this, the Air Ministry invited him to attend a selection board for the VR, in which he was successful and became a Sergeant Pilot (under training).  Undertaking his training at weekends at Stapleford Tawney and Marshal's at Cambridge before Service flying training at RAF Sealand, being commissioned in 1940. Operational training at Hawarden was followed by his first posting to No 19 Sqn at Duxford.
At the point 19 Sqn were experiencing problems trying to introduce the first cannon armed Spitfires into service and the Sqn had no time to complete Johnnie's training.  He therefore found himself posted to No 616 Sqn at Coltishall which had been pulled out of the front line to recover.  He shared his first victory with 'Cocky' Dundas in January 1941.  A move to Tangmere meant that his score began to mount and he was soon commanding  'B' Flight of 616. Johnnie stayed with 616 during it's moves between 11 and  12 Groups throughout 1941 and early 1942 flying Spitfire I's, II's, V's and high altitude VI's.
Then in  July 1942 he took over No 610 (County of Chester) Sqn at Coltishall.  Shortly after taking over 610 were part of a West Malling Wing involved in 'Operation Dynamo', the Dieppe Raid.  They eventually rejoined No 11 Group in January 1943 and Johnnie's score continued to rise.  March 1943 brought promotion to Wing Commander and command of the Canadian Wing at Kenley.  With the build up for the invasion of France, the Kenley Wing became No 127 Airfield (later recalled Wing) in No 83 Group of the 2nd Tactical Air Force and started preparing for it's role on the continent.  However by late 1943, he had been in constant action since early 1941 and it was decided that he should be rested from ops and was appointed to the planning staff at No 11 Group.
Six months later, he once again found himself commanding a Canadian Wing, No 144, preparing for the forthcoming invasion.  Flying furiously during the pre-invasion stage, the invasion itself and the post invasion period, the Wing built up a creditable reputation.  However, following deployment of the tactical Wings on the continent it became obvious that one Group Captain controlling three Wing was too cumbersome.  Therefore a reorganization took place resulting in the disbandment of No 144 Wing and reallocation of it's squadron's to the remaining Wings.  As a result, Johnnie found himself once more the Wing Leader of No 127 Wing.
Having led his Wing through France, Belgium and into Germany he was promoted to Group Captain in March 1945 and moved to command No 125 Wing at Eindhoven.  He ended the war at Celle and was credited with 34 confirmed and seven shared victories, three and two shared probables, ten and three shared damaged and one destroyed on the ground.
During the Korean War he was attached to the USAF in order to gain experience of jet fighter operations.  On return from Korea he became OC Flying Wing at RAF Fassberg in Germany, before becoming the first Station Commander of the newly opened RAF Wildenrath.
He finished his RAF career prematurely in 1966 on completion of his tour of duty as AOC, Middle East Air Force.  Since retiring he has worked as a consultant and served as a Director of a number of companies based around the world as well as writing a number of books.

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Neville Duke’s War Diaries Grub Street  First Edition (1995) Hardcover: 240 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1898697169.

I valued this book highly because it was based on Duke’s war-time Journals. Editor Norman Franks gives enough background and complementary info but the core of the book is the diaries. It is a very good mix and gives out well what Duke knew and felt during his combat career.
 
Neville Frederick Duke DSO, OBE, DFC & Two Bars, AFC, FRAeS (11 January 1922—7 April 2007) was a British Second World War flying ace. He was the most successful Western Allied ace in the Mediterranean Theatre, and was credited with the destruction of 27 enemy aircraft during his 486 sorties and some 712 operational hours. After the end of the war, Duke was acknowledged as one of the world's foremost test pilots. In 1953, he became holder of the world air speed record when he flew a Hawker Hunter at 727.63 mph (1,171.01 km/h) over Littlehampton.
He was born in Tonbridge, Kent and started working as an auctioneer and estate agent before attempting to join the Fleet Air Arm on his 18th birthday. He was rejected and joined the RAF instead as a cadet in June 1940.
Duke underwent pilot training and was commissioned at 58 OTU, Grangemouth in February 1941, before being posted to 92 Squadron at Biggin Hill in April, flying Supermarine Spitfire Mk Vs. By August 1941, Duke had claimed two Messerschmitt Bf 109s shot down. When the unit was withdrawn for a rest in October 1941, Duke was posted to North Africa to fly with 112 Squadron on the Curtiss Tomahawk. On 30 November 1941, Duke was shot down by the high scoring German ace Oberstabsfeldwebel Otto Schulz from Jagdgeschwader 27. On 5 December, he was again shot down by a pilot from JG 27. However, his own tally of victories continued to mount and, after the squadron was re-equipped with the more capable Curtiss Kittyhawk, by February 1942, Duke had at least eight victories, resulting in the award of the DFC in March. He completed his first tour of operations the next month and then spent six months instructing at the fighter school in the Canal Zone.
In November 1942, Duke rejoined 92 Squadron, which has been transferred to North Africa flying the tropicalised Spitfire Mark V. He became a flight commander in February 1943 and received a DSO in March. By the end of his second tour in June, Duke had amassed a further 14 victories to his total and was awarded a Bar to his DFC.
Promoted to Squadron Leader, Duke was posted to No. 73 Operational Training Unit at Abu Sueir as chief flying instructor before returning to operations in March 1944 for his third tour, as CO of 145 Squadron in Italy, flying Spitfire Mk VIIIs. He claimed five more aircraft shot down in May, gaining a second Bar to his DFC. On 7 June, Duke was shot down by flak and bailed out into Lake Bracciano, almost drowning when unable to release his parachute harness. He sheltered with Italian partisans until U.S. troops arrived. Duke scored his final kills on 7 September 1944, becoming the Mediterranean Theatre's top Allied fighter ace at the age of 22.

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Tony Jonsson’s Dancing in the Skies. Grub Street the Basement; First edition (1995). ISBN-10: 1898697035. 208 pages

I really liked this, a good read and seemed to be very honest and true. I read it side by side memories of one Finnish ace, not Luukkanen's or Juutilainen's, who forgets or “forgets” to mention some embarrassing events of his career. Of course I knew the career of the Finnish ace beforehand and on the other hand almost nothing on Jonsson’s career but Tony tells numerous errors he made, so my impression is that his memories are honest. Besides some minor complains that usually come into mind while reading memoirs I have only a couple complains, firstly he didn’t give dates of many of his combats, which is a pity, because I like to cross-check events and secondly in his forewords he tells that he had left away parts of his descriptions of his early life in Iceland from the English edition. Because IMHO Iceland is very interesting place (have been there once) I’d have like to read more on life there in 30s. So the book is well worth of having.

Thorsteinn Elton Jonsson was born in Reykjavik on 19 Oct 1921. His mother, who dies in 1936, was English. Tony travelled to the UK in April 1940 and succeeded to join the RAF. After training he was posted to 17 Squadron in July 1941 to fly Hurricanes but was posted to 111 Squadron in Sept. 1941on Spitfires. He participated in the Operation "Torch", the invasion of French North-West Africa. There he claimed four victories and one probable Nov 1942 - Jan 1943 while flying Spitfire Vs. When his tour ended in March 1943 he returned to UK and was commissioned.

In Jan 1944 he was posted to 65 Squadron as a Flying Officer, now flying Mustang IIIs and was to claim four more victories over Normandy by the end of July 1944. His second tour ended in December 1944 and he returned to Iceland, flying target tugs there, then returning to UK for training to multi-engined types after which he flew Dakotas between England and India. He left the RAF in Dec 1946. He then joined Icelandair as an airline pilot. His war-time tally was 8 destroyed, one probable and 3 damaged. He died on 30 December 2001.

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    Author

    My name is Juha Vaittinen, I am 60+ years old MA, my main subject was general/world history. I have worked appr. 25 years at a couple archives. I have been interested in military and aviation history for decades.

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