[Richard Goyat]

Thank you, SES, for your kind words regarding the quality and interest for our work. Have no fear, we appreciate any comments regarding our work- as you have produced books yourself we know that you understand how much of a balancing act works like this entail. Although we haven’t unfortunately had the chance to read them, it is apparent from the solid documentation you provide on your site Gyges, that they would undoubtedly be worthy of further investigation.

As far as your comments are concerned it is reassuring to note that none of them concern the principal theme of the work – a day-by-day account of the activities of JG 300. In fact, what you refer to as criticisms and inaccuracies seem to us to comprise nothing more than a simple request for further information and explanation, which we are happy to provide here.

"A map of the area of operation with the locations mentioned in the text would have been no harm. "

Agreed – we had planned to provide one. Unfortunately in the end we ran up against the dreaded deadlines that the production of any book entails – especially a huge work like this one. However the reader isn’t totally on his own, since on pages 386-387 we have reproduced a large section of one of our pilot’s navigation maps. The reproduction – given the quality of the original document – is perhaps not as fine and as clear as one could have wished for – but the map nonetheless covers a wide area of JG 300’s operational zones. As this is the actual document utilized by the pilots it is more than interesting from the point of view of the history of JG 300.

"Photo credits. Scores of individuals must have contributed as mentioned in your acknowledgements, but who contributed what?"

The absence of an individual credit underneath each photo is a deliberate choice made by the authors in concertation with our pilot friends and families who have furnished the material over the years. As you can appreciate from the acknowledgements, these were mainly former members of JG 300 or their families. Given that they are now mostly elderly citizens we have been careful to preserve their privacy and not expose them to potential harassment from collectors and autograph hunters. It goes without saying that when confronted with direct evidence of the mis-use by unscrupulous authors & web-masters of the small number of photos that we have loaned out to others or when photos or pages torn from albums appear for sale on e-Bay, then we are happy that we took such a decision here.

"Notes with reference to the source. Now it is transparent if you have the information from a published source or a BAMA file."

Once again this was a deliberate choice on our part. Our main concern was to create a work that was “readable” – even so this required hundreds of footnotes. Listing the documents used here was not an option. In addition, identifying each source individually would have increased the size of the book beyond what was economic – as it is the work comprises two 400-page volumes.

"Your short description of the German night fighting system [...] do not describe the Himmelbett-Verfahren at all, but the widespread popular, incorrect one."

Although not entirely certain what you mean here, please do not mistake our work for something it is not. Our principal theme is JG 300 and the unit’s aerial operations – it is not a treatise on the command system and organisational structure of the German night fighting arm taken as a whole. The book assumes a certain amount of prior knowledge. We had to take some shortcuts when evaluating the functioning of those parts of the organisation that touched on our subject matter. They may appear incomplete to yourself, but to dwell on them at any length went far beyond the scope of our work and can in any event be researched from more specialised works (such as your own).

"It was also the paralyzing effect Windows had on the ability to perform Himmelbett-Verfahren which contributed to making Wilde Say a viable option"

Of course – we haven’t said different at all...

"And without the correct description of Himmelbett and Y-Jagdverfahren (Tag) it becomes impossible to explain Zahme Sau."

That’s as maybe, but our work deals only with JG 300 – a wilde Sau Geschwader. We have therefore only mentioned zahme Sau in passing. A more detailed description of this method of night fighting is best left to others – it was certainly not a principal concern of ours in writing the history of JG 300.

"You state that Müller’s Fw 190 was equipped with the Naxos radar. To the best of my knowledge the Naxos was never installed in the Fw 190 but in twin engined nightfighters and 2 Staffeln of Bf 109 only."

Friedrich-Karl Müller’s description of the Naxos fitting in his 190 came from the pilot himself.

"And the Naxos was not a radar, but a passive receiver designed to home on the emissions from the H2S."

This is exactly how we have described the working of Naxos – see page 120. You appear to consider that any homing device, even where passive, should not be referred to by the umbrella term of radar – which stands for Radio Direction and Ranging. While Naxos certainly did not have a « ranging » function, it was certainly possible to determine « Direction ». Perhaps the term radar was not as inappropriate here as you care to believe...

"A Jagdkorps commanded a finite number of Jagddivisionen not an unspecified number of units."

This surely amounts to saying the same thing – the reader will have understood that via the Jagddivisionen, it was the units (of varying number) that a Jagdkorps commanded...

"A Luftnachrichten Kompanie was not an “Air Intelligence Company” but a Control and Reporting unit manning a radar site or a number of FLUWAs."

Nachrichten has the sense – among others – of information. Intelligence is the process of collecting information. Is the role of « control and reporting » as defined by yourself really that different from the process of assessing and collating information implicit in our translation?

"A Y-Flug is a flight conducted under control of a Jägerleit Stellung utilizing the Y-Linien for Y-Verfahren."

Our description doesn’t differ from yours. However as it appears in our glossary there was little point in employing the same German language terms in a description of German language terms! We have furnished some details of how the system functioned in practise, but admit that when referring to technical details we have preferred to approach the subject from the viewpoint of the end-user and not quote the system manual verbatim.

Hopefully these lines of explanation will have answered some of your questions. We are sorry to say that our work – in one or two details – may not correspond to what you would have liked to read. Frankly though, these details belong in another book, a work of reference devoted to the subject…

Best Regards

Jean-Yves Lorant – Richard Goyat