[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi,

Do you mean "Air-launched doodlebugs - The forgotten campaign" by Peter J. C. Smith (ISBN 1-84415-401-7)? I have a copy and read it some time ago. Quoting from memory and by briefly leafing through the book, your impression is generally correct: The book shows in chronological order what happened regarding the air launched V-1 operations: How many V-1s were launched and by which units, where they crashed, damage done etc. This information is indeed mostly from the British side, but on the other hand that is quite thorough: You'll get eyewitness accounts (victims, RAF pilots), bomb plots, crash sites (Then and Now!), all the countermeasures taken with technical details, LW aircraft losses etc. You'll definitely get the idea at the end of the book that you know in general what has happened.

The only thing that might disappoint you after reading the book is that you will still not have a feeling of how it felt to be on the German (Luftwaffe) side of things. There are hardly any German eyewitness accounts (so far I only found BF Hans Hoehler, of KG53)..I don't know if this is because nobody of the participants on their side survived the war or that the author just didn't manage to make contact with them..Not much German photos either, but the ones that are in the book (from Hans Lachler) show the whole sequence from preparing the V-1 on the ground through how it is being installed on the He 111.

My personal opinion: With these caveats I would pick up a copy, certainly if you can find one below the asking price of 20 Pounds. (I have seen examples for 14 Pounds.)

Hope this helps,

Marcel