[Russell]

Denes

Interesting question we have long considered. The boundaries of what is a Mediterranean Air War and a eastern or western Europe Air war will always be a matter of judgement. We are trying to cover the relevant activity by the Mediterranean based allied air forces did over Yugoslavia and other eastern European areas. However Vol 5 is tactical air force based, that is 15th Air Force and 205 Group will be for Vol 6 and will cover all the raids over Eastern Europe by these forces, as well as the special ops and the recce missions.

We are not covering the daily operations by the Russian and their allied air forces outside of some particularly relevant encounters to the Yugoslavia area, such as between the Bulgarian Air Force and the Luftwaffe e.g. the two Ju 87s lost to SG 10 in late 1944, and others claimed by the Flak defenses of the escape routes out of the Balkans. The unfortunate encounters between the Eastern and Southern Allied air forces are covered. 213 Squadron springs to mind as a prominent unit in that respect!

We are not covering II/JG 52 II/JG 51 I/JG 53 Schlactgeschwader, the Hungarian Fighter Group etc daily operations in late 1944 and 1945, except where they run into the Western allies, which is 95 per cent in Vol 6. Some encounters between the Balkan Air Force and II/JG 51 are included, as is what we know about their detachment on Crete.

The problem is there is no easy separation of the Eastern Front from the Southern Front at the point of convergence over Eastern Europe. From August 1944 onward the German withdrawal from the eastern Mediterranean basin, Greece Albania etc, is dependent on the Germans keeping the escape route open by delaying the Russians reaching the Adriatic coast and cutting off the Balkans. Allied Air forces were in Greece by late 1944 and had bases on the Yugoslav main land as well, and were obviously aware of not conflicting with the advance from the east.

The question then arose, do we cover Russian support for the war in Yugoslavia, the Tri Duby uprising etc, and at the moment we are not intending to at all in Vol 5. But, in Vol 6 we will probably cover the Russian night bomber operations as they were often bombing the same areas as 205 Group and encountering the same night fighters etc.

We had the same issue with covering the invasion of Southern France as it is obviously a Med based campaign, but at what point do we leave off the coverage as it merged into the Western front campaign? We also try to allow for unusual matters such as the occasion when a 151 Sqn intruder crew flew a mission from England over Southern France, landed in Italy and on the return trip ran into the Luftwaffe!

Helpful advice and suggestions always welcome!

The team is working hard on Volume five and we are aiming to have the manuscript finished, and the indexes prepared by the end of March. A creative tension between the authors wanting to do as good a job as possible, and how long that will take (always wanting more time to include more information, or worse are we slowing down because we are getting too old!!) and then between the authors and our publisher is always present. From our publishers point of view he wants the manuscript tomorrow, if not sooner, in accordance with the publishing schedule he has in mind. Luckily Chris and John Davies worry about that and not me! So I had better get back to it. I hope this explains what we are trying to do.

Regards

Russell