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edwest
27th November 2005, 03:13
This book by Dan O'Connell is a worthy addition to the four volume series previously published by Classic. Visually, this book is another fine example of Classic's high quality presentation skills, with text that is easy to read and photos well placed.

Since I am a relative newcomer to the study of such aircraft, but reasonably well acquainted, I will say this. It provides many pieces to the puzzle of what is known about each aircraft and the men who flew them. With only a tiny fraction of Luftwaffe records surviving the war, this will be a very valuable reference for current researchers and those to come. What advantages the internet has for spreading information and establishing contacts and sharing information, books still have the value of being easier to handle and requiring only a source of light to be read. The information will not crash one day and disappear.

This book also shows what a group of researchers in cooperation with one determined and committed individual can accomplish. And as something of a researcher myself, I know there is a lot of work involved in such an undertaking. To quote Phil Butler from his excellent War Prizes: "The above references are representative rather than exhaustive. They give no clues to the many unproductive files which were also checked!" It is this willingness to work and share that keeps everyone going forward. It is part of the search for the truth about what happened that will, I believe, lead to other books of this type being published in the future. The sands of Egypt are still giving up clues to the past, I think more has yet to be written about this relatively recent part of history. Bravo Dan O'Connell and to all of the Contributors for a job well done.



Ed West

Dan O'Connell
27th November 2005, 07:16
Ed, first off, a heartfelt thank you for the kind words. You mentioned a number of very excellent points, first being that Phil was right. The references noted are perhaps 1/3 of the actual documents used; thousands were not, many were not noted due to similarity, and it's not a book of reference documents in the end, although I feel it's been adequately and reliably referenced in the constraints of how much room we had to work with in the book. Classics did an outstanding job squeezing it all in. Next, the "unknown entries" area was included specifically to offer`information for future historians; there will never be an end to the research, and I KNOW more information will present itself in the future, and hopefully these entries will give some solid clues for future work.
Most importantly, I never in a million years could have amassed all this information on my own. It took many individuals who were not selfish to share their own hard won knowledge and experience, to allow me the oportunity for the challenge to put it all together. Yes, I spent countless hours putting it together, translating the raw original documents, endlessly cross checking the information, etc etc, and coming up with what I believe is the truth as best as I am able to present it, but it could NOT have been done with out input from people all over the world. This presentation simply could not have been done with out their help. The list of those to thank is to long to present at this moment, but gentlemen, you know who you are. And you all have my warmest thanks for the opportunity. I hope I did it right for you. Dan