Re: "Fighting Hitler's Jets: The Extraordinary Story of the American Airmen Who Beat the Luftwaffe and Defeated Nazi Germany", by Robert F. Dorr
 

Dear Richard,


Publishers have come and gone, as have trends. I truly have to wonder "what were they thinking" on occasion. Have new owners decided something more tabloid will sell? What do they really know about publishing or the sensibilities of their audience? There will always be a changing of the guard. Frankly, I don't know what to think since I do not frequent the gossip corners of the book publishing world. There will always be dedicated authors and publishers who know what this niche in history is about. However, there seems to be a trend to trivialize a serious conflict. Flyboys indeed. My father was a World War II vet and like most of his vet friends, rarely talked about what he saw. As a boy, I recall watching a war movie and asking my father if it was like that. His reply, "Son, it wasn't like that at all." He didn't dwell on things and always spoke plainly.

Historical non-fiction took the biggest hit in the publishing world after the planned Wall Street disaster of 2008. Still, let us soldier on.


Best,
Ed

Re: "Fighting Hitler's Jets: The Extraordinary Story of the American Airmen Who Beat the Luftwaffe and Defeated Nazi Germany", by Robert F. Dorr
 

Ed, you have touched on something that bugs me and other US citizens: the appalling ignorance of our people regarding "history". On top of their ignorance, they do not care. If it happened, that's so "yesterday". I am still stunned at people, knowing my interest in WWII history, who ask, did the Holocaust really happen? Similarly, when doing presentations on the American Revolutionary War in uniform, etc., I am asked, "Did you fight in the war?"

Frankly, the US education system is at its lowest ebb. And, because of PC and timid administrators, it will not get better anytime soon. Teachers are simply not allowed to teach.

We have seen on this forum, that the "millennials", and others think that if it is not on the Internet, then it does (did) not exist. Basic research is almost dead. They are unwilling to go beyond the Internet and do some work.

Glad I will likely not be around in 30 years to see what happens!

Re: "Fighting Hitler's Jets: The Extraordinary Story of the American Airmen Who Beat the Luftwaffe and Defeated Nazi Germany", by Robert F. Dorr
 

John it's sad to see most of the people here in the U.S. can't even show you on the map where Vietnam is located and most of the youth only know that its only on some war movies. My grandsons ask me about WW2 sometimes and I tell them about my Uncle's war stories but they don't teach it in school and when they do its so dry they are not interested. The internet has provided me a lot of information but even that has to be researched to determine if its real or made up. Its lucky boards like this help in determining what books are worth buying because they were well researched.

Re: "Fighting Hitler's Jets: The Extraordinary Story of the American Airmen Who Beat the Luftwaffe and Defeated Nazi Germany", by Robert F. Dorr
 

Dear All,

I received the book in question and, having read into a few chapters, have concluded that it rightly deserves the skepticism thrown at it here.

Let's start with the references. Dorr conducted first-person accounts completed in 2011 and 2012. Obviously, by this time, he was running out of people to interview. He conducted interviews of 18 Allied combat veterans, but only 2 from the German side: Hans Busch and Willi Kriessman. Missing were all the well-known German pilots. The years have taken their toll.

He interviewed a longer list of family members of veterans and scholars of the war but most appear to represent the Allied side in terms of the names, themselves.

Dorr's bibliography is 3 pages long and consists of books and articles. Nothing in the acknowledgements and bibliography references archival material.

Chapter One, "The Air Show, November 26, 1943", has a lot of flowery language that I wouldn't associate with a respect for the subject matter. Here and there are short quotes, sometimes referenced, sometimes not, but even then, one wonders who was the stenographer taking down careful notes not only of the words stated, but also of the feelings and body language. Here's a 2-paragraph excerpt:

"Hitler heard this, was encouraged by it, but saw Göring, grotesquely overweight and addicted to morphine, as an asset of declining value. The Führer ardently hoped that what he would witness today would alleviate any doubts about Göring and Göring's Luftwaffe, and ensure that Germany's airmen would continue to command the skies.

"In fact, Göring was very much a hands-on leader of the air force he loved, and despite his flaws--he was grossly overweight, had a reputation for enjoying fine food and wine, loved partying, and was publicly pledged to blindly follow Hitler--he was more complex than his latter-day image suggests. ..."

Just so you didn't miss it, Göring was fat. The book is full of little nuggets, but just how credible they are is thrown into great question, especially with an article that appeared in the June 1944 issue of True being used as a bibliography source.

While at least 2 chapters give samplings of combat, curiously, Foreman and Harvey's work is not listed in the bibliography. My guess is that the style Dorr wanted to present would include lots of quotes and Foreman and Harvey probably isn't a very good source of these. Now, just how quoteworthy these sources truly are is open to conjecture.

I really don't like flowery language in a history book.

Regards,
Richard