[Jean-Yves Lorant]

Hi Olivier

The sheer relief and pleasure that we should have felt on the publication of Vol II of our history of JG 300 - after 25 years research and writing - has been somewhat tarnished by the stupidity of a picture editor at the French publishers Larivière. Against our wishes, the photo on page 17 of Volume II has been gratuitously retouched - a large defect just above the Staffel number 12 on Ofw. Otto Hehlert's Bf 109 G-14/AS (9./JG 300) has been removed. The authors weren't consulted of course. Fortunately this detail did not escape our good friend Claes Sundin, who has produced a magnificent profile of this machine on page 18. The 'curse of Lariviève' also struck on pages 180-181- the contrast compared to the original photos is much reduced. The authors have taken the publishers to task for this and other calamities, notably the two colour pictures in Vol 1 that were printed in black and white (page 66). Purists now have a number of additional reasons to prefer the Eagle Editions productions of the two volumes of our JG 300 history.
The Larivière JG 300 volumes are otherwise superbly printed and while these 'faults' may appear unimportant when set against the 350 pages of each book, I nonetheless felt it should be pointed out that Richard Goyat and myself were not responsible. While I'm here, I'd like to warmly thank Claes Sundin for his superb profile artwork. He met all the editor's deadlines despite the workload....Merci et bravo, Claes ! Thanks to our friend Joël Taton - Larivière's talented graphic artist- who really got into the subject and produced a superbly laid-out book..
The French edition - unlike the American - does not feature an index.. However we have reproduced the most spectacular pages from the Flugbuch of Oberleutnant Kurt Gabler- featuring the last flights of the infamous Bf 109 G-6 'Red 8' - with its seventeen victory markings - for the benefit of our friend 'Bobo'. Perhaps now he's confronted with the evidence - Gabler did not fly a machine with a black Staffel number - as he persists in believing....
Congratulations for your work about JG 301 late-war markings, Olivier - et bonne lecture !

Hals und Beinbruch an alle -