[bearoutwest]

Ed,

The author – Hugh Harkins – covers a lot of the more eclectic areas of air combat in this series of “booklets”. If you can consider them as very-extended magazine articles (and buy them suitably priced on special), then you get good value. The style is a combination of text, scanned extracts of combat reports/official documents and photos, and where applicable, appendices of relevant ancillary data and bibliography/references. Some of the other titles that I’ve bought (and enjoyed) are:
- Defiant Mk.I Combat Log (good coverage of mainly 264 Sqn operations May-Sep 1940, the inclusion of the extensive aircrew combat report scans being the difference in coverage between this and the Crowood Turret Fighters or the Defiant File books)
- Tomahawk I/II Combat Log – European Theatre 1941-42 (Interesting because of the lack of coverage elsewhere. The combat operations were only undertaken by 5-6 Squadrons for less than a year….in between Lysander and Mustang I operations by most of those squadrons).

On the shelf and yet to read:
- Typhoon IA/B Combat Log – Operation Jubilee (I’m curious to see if there is much specific mention of the mg-armed Typhoons. There’s at least one photo, so I’m optimistic.)
- F-84 Thunderjet (1st impression is that it is more photo-heavy than the other volumes that I have).

As for the Blenheim MkI Combat Log – I doubt it will have much that is not related in Graham Warner’s book, the 600 Squadron history “Gentlemen in Blue”, or the “History of Air Intercept Radar & the British Nightfighter 1935-1959” for the Mk1f; or Andy Bird’s book “Coastal Dawn” for the MkIVf. However, I like Harkin’s use of quoted passages from aircrew combat reports, and the general “potted history in a short volume” approach of the booklets, so yes, I’m likely to pick up a copy.

If you’re like me, and occasionally buy a magazine initially for just one article, then you pick up one of these booklets, it’s like a magazine without the other article distractions. He also has produced a number of - what appear to be - more extensive books on other modern/contemprary aircraft, but I have not bought any to be able to comment. I do have his book on the Meteor Combat Log (MkI and MkIII operations at the end of WW2) - a much different style and more comprehensive book, though in some ways, it follows a similar approach as the booklets.


Regards,
…geoff