Aviation Books Worth and Not Worth Reading

Many folks think Col. Tooms was indeed, as not noted DD, a bit of propaganda from the enemy. If you think there's someone very skilled and dangerous out there, it can get into your head during every encounter.

As for heroes, thank you for reminding me of that Boyington quote :) There are killers, and killing is needed in war. But in older cultures, a true warrior had to demonstrate more virtues than skill with weapons.

I often wonder if the contemporary American war hero concept has more to do with assuaging the guilt and misgivings of the public than it has with honoring the courage and martial achievements of soldiers. I have never known anyone who went to war and was better because of it, alas.

Jonathan
 
A book I read a while ago, I think I will read again was a book written by Peter Hann. The french version I have is called: ''La derniere Rafale". I think it translate: The last fleury.
Peter Hann was a german ace. It was a way to see how they were living it on the other side. It was not pretty. But there is quite a few good passes in there. Good book. Found a few references to what My Gran Pa lived. He was Belgium. Moved in Montreal in 62. He was at the front line during WWII.
I liked Goshawk Squadron too.

A.
 
Alain:

That's one I have not even seen...probably because it is in your preferred tongue. I like to say I was never much good at learning any language other than English. My cover was all the language classes I had to take. When I was in high school in Massachusetts Latin and French were mandatory and, in college, I took Spanish and Hebrew. Thus, my failure to take much away from these classes, beyond the testing in the classes themselves, I blamed on lack of aptitude. Now older, and at a stage in life when I find ego more amusing than serious, I know I was just plain lazy when it came to languages :oops:

Pardon that lengthy aside. I've read most of the Luftwaffe memoirs that appeared in English. The standards are The First and the Last, by Galland (I read that as a teenager when everyone else was reading The Lord of the Rings), Stuka Pilot (I'm blanking on the author...mostly because, unlike the others, that guy was a real Nazi), I Fought You From the Skies (Willy Heilman), Messerschmitts Over Sicily (Steinhoff), along with biographies such as The Blond Knight of Germany (Bubbi Hartmann, the highest scoring combat pilot in history), and a bunch of others.

The ones that gave that objective, dark picture you mention were Galland's and Steinhoff's. Messerschmitts Over Sicily is the best from a day-to-day pilot's perspective. Galland's, as he rose to the highest ranks of the Luftwaffe, gives great insight into the appalling flaws in German leadership.

Given the Jewish half of my heritage, and the fact that these guys were the enemy after all, I was reluctant to view them with objectivity at first. Yet most of these men, by German tradition, had no interest in politics and no involvement in those most hideous, sociopathic acts of utter horror that we rightly associate with the National Socialist government of the day. Soldiers don't choose the wars they fight. Those, however, who engaged in killing apart from any moral measure, even in war, I hope are vomiting wasps in hell for eternity.

Back to pure aviation, the aircraft that has always had the most appeal to me was the Messerschmitt 109. I finally got to sit in the one at RAF Hendon in the mid 90s. This was during a comprehensive photo shoot of German WWII aircraft cockpits I was engaged in for the online game I was producing back then. Our customers were not classic computer gamers. They were much older and demanded aircraft authenticity.

It frightened me as I learned just how advanced for their day many German aircraft were. Not the 109 though. It's appeal, for me, had nothing to do with technology or the war. There's something about that airplane that gets to me in a manner I cannot explain. I'm sure everyone reading this has a favorite military aircraft that has an inexplicable, deep draw for them.

But the best books have little to do with machines and everything to do with men.

Jonathan
 
Reading your lines Jonathan remind me of all the books I read and didn't rmember I did.... More then I though. I also read Galland.

One day I met a gentleman, an Engineer at Bombardier (ex Canadair.) This guy was saling the plans for Claude Piel. Emeraude ,Diamond, Beryl and all these familly of fine wood homebuild taking zillions of hours to put together.
He flew on ''Bloch 150" during the war. He was from Alsace so considered as German. He made me laugh because he did not really considerd himself as German but he got to fly, and the Bloch was a French airplane...go figure. That's all he wanted back then at 19 years old. As he was saying, back then, the media and the communication was not like today. Many pilot did not knew as much as we know today about politics and history. Of course, History as we know was unwraping, that story was not finished yet...
Anyway, He was told:
Want to fly? jumps in this bird and go flying. Stay alive if anyone go after you...He was happy. Him and his gang were flying.
But to what price? Other's life???I guess officer pilots had more education and knowledge of what was happening. He was not an officer. Late at flying missions. It was towards the end of the war. He never mentionned much about any engagment he had with the enemies. Probably good timing for him because from what he said about his airplane he was flying on, he wouldn't have lasted very long. He hated the sh...t out of it, but...he was flying.

I looked in a book for the Bloc 151. I found the 150 and 152. Same bird, better engine on the 152. 151 probably in between.
He explained it was a cow. It was pretty much conventional fighter shape ''a la Hurricane'' but with Radial engine. This guy just left about 2 years ago for a better world. He was in his early 80s. His daughter took over Claude Piel's plan built airplane. Which are actually very fine and performant birds. I'm happy I met that guy for the srories he told me.

The book from Peter Hann was translated from German to French, probably in english too. I'll make some research to see what tilte they might have given it in english.

Alain
 
Jonathan: your quot: vomiting wasp in hell for eternity!! l like this, it sounds really mean. :twisted:

Today we would say: May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their crotch, I may they have too short arms to scratch themself!

We can feel the influance of the middle east in this one! :lol:
 
I too was fortunate, Alain, to get to listen to some ex-Luftwaffe pilots first hand...the ones who spoke English that is :wink: The Champlin Fighter Museum, at Falcon Field in Mesa Arizona, used to hold gatherings of WWII pilots. They didn't mind telling their stories by that time in their lives.

I recall one fellow who described his tactics, flying a Messerschmitt 262 (the only operational jet fighter of WWII) against those vast American bomber streams toward the end of the war. Rather than employ the high speed, boom and zoom, passes the jet was suited for, he'd dive beneath the formation, and zoom into it from below - a nearly suicidal approch. When he saw the look of astonishment on my face he smiled. "I was 18 years old," he said. He didn't need to say anything more.

Jonathan
 
Forgot one!
"Ace of the Iron Cross" by Ernst Udet. You just GOTTA read that one if you haven't already.
Udet had the dubious pleasure of being shot down four times :shock: during "The Great War" and was VERY thankful the German Air Force had started using personal parachutes by then.
 
Yes, the Germans trusted the Jastas and their pilots. The Allies thought that if you gave pilots parachutes they might bail out, literally, of fights....an aggravating notion, as Arthur Gould Lee pointed out in that book Lynn referred to, appropriated titled No Parachute :)

Jonathan
 
"Skywriting" by Jame Gilbert: a collection of excerpts from the best of the best. You'd have to find it in either the library or used books, long since out of print.
 
Thanks, Jec!

Normally I'd hunt those large used book collections folks set up in big hangars at fly-ins. Thank to the Internet, however...

I just ordered one inexpensively from:

http://www.bookfinder.com/dir/i/Skywriting,_an_Aviation_Anthology/0312727879/

Unfortunately my web search reveled that James Gilbert passed away in February of 2006.

I appreciate the recommendation, Jec :)

Jonathan
 
Jonathan my friend- just finished "The Killing Zone". VERY dry reading with a touch of superiority on the part of the author over the pilots that screwed up.
Margaret (wife) LOVED it and will never fly with me again ("just kidding", she says). :shock:
All in all, some good points along with some tediousness. :?
Want it back?
 
It was all that I promised, eh Dave? Too many aviation books are written in that style, and who wants to read some guy who writes from the assumption that the reader is an idiot with a joystick.

If you recall, it was heading for the recycling bin before you asked me to send it to you. Keep it, burn it, toss it from an airplane: your choice. :)

Jonathan
 
I just picked up by chance 'Night Over Water' by Ken Follett at a used bookstore for a buck (hardcover too). I have not read it yet, so no good comments on that. It takes place on a trans-atlantic Pan Am Clipper two days after the start of WWII. The bulk of the story most likely takes place with the passengers, but I'm sure that Follett has researched the Clipper line and era and will fill in with some action on that front as well. His book, Pillars of the Earth, although not aviation related was excellent and thus I decided to chance the sum of 1-dollar on this used offering. I don't read fiction very often, but I'm due for an excursion. We'll see.....
 
The old phrase, "I'd buy THAT for a dollar!" comes to mind :)

Looking at your info I see you're new to this crew, Rodney, and this was your first post. Welcome, sir!!

Jonathan
 
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