Battles With The Nachtjagd: The Night Airwar Over Europe 1939-1945

[kaki3152]

Any comments on this new book by Theo Boiten? I'm inclined to get it would like to know the reaction of someone who has seen it.

Thanks,

Carlos

[Del Davis]

I own the book but have yet to read it. I can tell you that the photo coverage is highly biased toward the RAF and there only a few new Luftwaffe shots. I suspect that text may follow the phootos in concentration and may present the subject frrom the bombers perspective.

[kaki3152]

Del,

Thanks! Are you familiar with his other publications, Night Airwar and NAchtjagd? I was wondering if the new publication uses material from his earlier books.

Carlos

[Jukka Juutinen]

i´d be interested in a thorough review too!

[leonventer]

Originally Posted by Del Davis

I can tell you that the photo coverage is highly biased toward the RAF and there only a few new Luftwaffe shots. I suspect that text may follow the phootos in concentration and may present the subject frrom the bombers perspective.

Some more details:

According to the dust jacket, "Battles with the Nachtjagd" contains more than 400 photos. By my count, roughly 160 of them are of Luftwaffe pilots and aircraft.

Regarding the text: The book is primarily an anecdotal description of the night airwar, from May 1940 through 1945. In each chapter, Boiten and Bowman provide some background that serves as a thread tying all the personal narratives together. The ratio of personal accounts is about 70% RAF to 30% Luftwaffe. Of particular note are the chapter endnotes and photo captions, both of which are very detailed.

The appendices include:
- Orders of battle for Bomber Command, all Mosquito squadrons, 100 Group RAF, and the Nachtjagd.
- A list of Bomber Command's VC recipients.
- Capsule bios of the top 100 Nachtjagd aces.
- Luftwaffe/RAF/USAAF rank equivalents.
- RAF slang terms.

Also included is a glossary, bibliography, and an index of people and places.


The approach used in this book is very similar to the one used by Boiten in his two earlier works, namely "Nachtjagd" (1997) and, especially, "Night Airwar" (1999.) Some of the text and photographs have certainly been recycled, but "Battles with the Nachtjagd" is much heftier at 348 pages + 112 pages of photos, vs. 240 pages in each of the older books.

So is it worth getting "BWTN" if you already own the other two books? For comparison, I did a quick check of the index entries and photo content in each of them.

In general, "BWTN" has more page references for index entries that are common to all three books, and it has a number of entries that don't appear in the other two. It also has many more photos, without a great deal of overlap. It therefore appears to be a revised and expanded edition, with new accounts and additional detail.

However, "BWTN" is not a complete replacement for "Nachtjagd" because the latter:
- has a much higher percentage of Luftwaffe content, and it contains several index entries that do not appear in "BWTN".
- has far more extensive coverage of the Me 262 as a nightfighter.
- has useful appendices that aren't included in "BWTN", e.g. Nachtjagd battle strengths; Nachtjagd claim and loss totals by unit, year and theater.
- includes index entries for units, e.g. NJG1, JG300, (N)JG26, 101 Squadron, etc. ("BWTN" omits the unit index entries, which is a bummer.)
- has a much more comprehensive bibliography.

Summary:
If you don't have the older books, "BWTN" will be a useful addition to your night airwar library because it tells the human side of the night airwar.
If your interest is primarily in the Luftwaffe, then you might want to go for "Nachtjagd" instead of/in addition to "BWTN".
If you already have both of Boiten's older books, you might still want to get "BWTN" for its new content and photographs.

Hope this helps,
Leon Venter

[George Hopp]

I agree with much of what leonventer says about the above book. However, I think this book parallels "Battles with the Luftwaffe" by the same 2 authors on the day "bomber campaign against Germany 1942-45," except that it is about the night campaign rather than the day campaign. So, it should not be directly compared to "Nachtjagd." That said, I consider it an excellent book on the night campaign.

The narrative is primarily 1st-person accounts, with commentary to set the scene. And the accounts are interesting. A few photos are inverted, and the captions of some German a/c bear little relation to the a/c pictured. So, we see a picture of a captured Jumo-powered Ju 88 G-6 described as the BMW-powered G-1 that accidently landed in England in July 1944, and described as 4R+UR when the characters CB are plainly visible. As well, the caption notes the a/c equipment as including the FuG 227 Flensburg and the FuG 350 Naxos. The actual a/c had only the Flensburg, but the pictured a/c has only the Naxos. So, no big deal, but it reduces my confidence in the accuracy of other captions.

My overall assessment is that if you are interested in the night campaign against Germany -- whether from the Allied or Axis viewpoint -- the book is worth getting, regardless of what other Boiten/Bowman books you already have.

[leonventer]

Hi George,

Originally Posted by George Hopp

So, we see a picture of a captured Jumo-powered Ju 88 G-6 described as the BMW-powered G-1 that accidently landed in England in July 1944, and described as 4R+UR when the characters CB are plainly visible. As well, the caption notes the a/c equipment as including the FuG 227 Flensburg and the FuG 350 Naxos. The actual a/c had only the Flensburg, but the pictured a/c has only the Naxos.

Thanks for pointing that one out. For those that are interested, there is a picture and detailed description of the captured G-1 in an intelligence report that can be found at http://www.ww2.dk/misc/captured.pdf.
The report confirms that this aircraft was equipped with SN-2 and Flensburg only, not Naxos.
(There's also a nice, in-flight picture of the same machine on page 83 of Robert Jackson's "Air War at Night".)

Another error: Between pages 288 & 289, there is a picture of the BMW-powered Ju 88R-1 that landed at Dyce in Scotland in May 1943, which is captioned as a Jumo-engined Ju 88C-6 at Vechta airfield in December 1944.

My overall assessment is that if you are interested in the night campaign against Germany -- whether from the Allied or Axis viewpoint -- the book is worth getting, regardless of what other Boiten/Bowman books you already have.

Agreed.


Regards,
Leon Venter

p.s. I've always wanted to thank you in person for providing us with an English translation of the Fw 190A-8 handbook. It's one of my favorite references, so I recently got a second copy on eBay, just in case I wear out the first one...