Status Update Jagdflliegerverbände Vol 9/I

[Larry Hickey]

I recently received an e-mail from Dr. Jochen Prien on the status of JFV Vol 9/I, which I thought would be of high interest to many readers of this board. With his permission, I'm quoting below the relevant information. As noted in a previous report, Vol. 9, the winter of 1941-42, will be presented in three separate volumes: 9/I to 9/III.

"...Vol. 9/I (is now) in its final corrections; it will hopefully be out by the end of May/early June. It will for the first time include colour photos, this time not only those related to the Winter War 1941/42 but all that belong to the periods dealt with so far. Altogether this will be some 50 or so colour images, maybe more. Beside that, work on the Home Defence in 1943 has started; here we will change the format insofar as the general narrative will be widely expanded and include the operations of the units, as the growing number of fighter units were mostly involved in the fighting over the Reich so that it would lead to endless and tiring repetitions if we stuck to the format used up
until now, which of course will be continued for the other theatres of
operations. The new format not only gives a much more complex reading but
also - and foremost - a much more intricate task to put it all together.
From working up through the year I can really feel how the US air offensive
over the Reich gained momentum and, at the same time, how more and more German fighter units poured into the fighting with large-scale air battles
developing in the end."

[Falcon]

In three parts... a nice way to make more money.
Since the Part 5 the books are going smaller and smaller and the price higher and higher. A bad move.

[Ruy Horta]

Just to call a halt before things get ugly.

The books haven't been published yet, so ANY criticism of the kind presented here is premature, to say the least.

Bottom line, wait until you can judge and if you don't like what you see when we get there, decide if you purchase or not.

This generally negative attitude is getting on my nerves.

To date Prien and his partners have given little or no reason to warrant such a reaction.

[Falcon]

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

The books haven't been published yet, so ANY criticism of the kind presented here is premature, to say the least.

I talk about the books 6/I, 6/II, 7, 8/I and 8,/II that i own. And now it's sure that the band 3 comes in three parts. Yes, i dont know how mutch pages the tree parts has got. But i guess they are so small like the parts 6-8.
Compare it with band 1,2 and 5.

The books are good, thats sure. But the price/achievement get imho out of balance.

Now the band 9 will have color photos, that will be a "good" reason for the publishers/authors to get the price mutch higher. But let's see...

[John Manrho]

I can not agree with you. The biggest volume is Vol. 5 with 620 pages. If you look at that volume it is as big as you can go. The size is approx. the same as Vol. 3 and Vol. 4 of the JG 77 series. If you make the book bigger than that, you can't handle it easily and it will break up on the long run. Part I and II of Volume 8 are the smallest, part I 364 pages and part II 354 pages, that's 718 pages in total. The question would be if you want to reduce that number of pages for sake of getting it in a 620 pages volume. I want as much data as possible, so give me two volumes, or for Vol. 9 three or four volumes whatever is necessary. What do you think will happen when we come to the end of 1943 and into 1944? The scale of operations will lead to multiple volumes. If the data is there, I will pay. Of course it is up to you and other potential buyers to decide otherwise, but until now I found every volume of Jochen Prien worth the money. Regards, John.

[leonventer]

Originally Posted by John Manrho

... until now I found every volume of Jochen Prien worth the money.

I agree completely with John. Prien's series on the Jagdfliegerverbände (and all his other books, for that matter) are unique and indispensable resources. Buying the volumes as they're published (3-4 times a year) helps spread out the cost.

Leon Venter