[Nick Beale]

I've only seen a limited sample of Prien's work (e.g. the JG 77 and JG 53 histories) and you cannot fault his research from the German side. My feeling was that he was in an understandable hurry to get the veterans' reminiscences while there was sill time and to get their story into print. That meant filling out the picture with the Allied perspective was less important to what he was then trying to achieve. The amount of his output shames the rest of us who need to stop for meals, sleep etc. but I prefer books that have looked at every angle.

Forsyth's JV 44 I was peripherally involved in, so I'm not impartial but getting a book that size out of a c. 30-plane unit that only lasted four weeks must rate as an achievement.

It's been a long time since I last read it but Manfred Boehme's Jagdgeschwader 7 impressed me at the time, after I'd got through his rather lengthy account of the Me 262's development.

Urbanke's Green Hearts had a lot going for it (and I bought and kept it) but I felt the author was a bit overwhelmed by the scale of the task and hadn't organised the material as well as he might have: his magazine articles had been much sharper. Also there were points where more analysis would have been welcome: how could an entire retrained, rested and well-equipped Gruppe come off so badly against eight Tempests, for instance?

On the other hand, I recently re-read JG 26 War Diary, vol. 2 and for me that remains the one to beat. The quality and quantity of research is all there, the people are real, the detail doesn't swamp the story and it's especially well written.

However the two volumes of Lorant's Bataille dans le Ciel d'Allemagne have been on my shelf since just after Christmas and I hear them calling me ...