Luftwaffe Fighters and Fighter Bombers Over the Far North

[Harri Honkanen]

Hi,

I just got a notice from Amazon.co.uk that my copy has been shipped yesterday.Looking forward to see it

The book is by Kjetil Akra and Andreas Brekken.
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Classic Publications (8 May 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1903223903
ISBN-13: 978-1903223901
At Amazon the price was £17,93

[mars]

This is a great news, I have one question though, is this a book of the operation history of the Luftwaffe Fighters and Fighter Bombers Over the Far North or about photo album and camouflage and markings?

[Peter D Evans]

This is the blurb from the Ian Allan website here:

The Luftwaffe’s campaign in Scandinavia and the Far North – the Eismeerfront – from 1940 to 1945 can still be regarded as largely ‘uncharted territory’ in terms of historical research. Significant photographic material is still emerging and is revealing a treasure-trove of fascinating, previously unseen and often unknown ‘fact-busting’ material. Focusing on the Luftwaffe fighter force in Denmark, northern Finland and Norway, the authors have spent many years collecting information and photographs for this exhaustive study. The main emphasis of the book is on camouflage and markings, but it will also detail the structure and organization of the units where these have a bearing on camouflage and/or markings as well as operations, losses and accidents, and senior and junior commanders. In this regard, the authors have provided a large number of colour profiles that accompany the photographs, as well as a separate analysis of each profile detailing the aircraft in question. There is little published covering the air war over Denmark, Norway, Finland and the northern sector of the Eastern Front in particular, so this title will be of importance to historians and modellers alike..

Cheers

Peter D Evans
LEMB Administrator

[mars]

Thanks, Peter, I already read this introduction, the phase worried me is "The main emphasis of the book is on camouflage and markings", not saying camouflage and markings have any problems, but I am more a operational history guy

[Peter D Evans]

Not a problem mars... I'm in a better position to comment now as my copy arrived today. Basically, the book is split into the following chapters:

Part One - Scope [pages 5 to 8] covers:

• Materials & Photographs
• Aircraft Designations & sub-types
• The Profiles
• Luftwaffe Unit Strengths and Unit Strength Reports
• Staffelstammbau 1./JG77 and JG5 1941-45

Part Two - Camouflage Markings & Unit Histories [pages 9 to 160] covers

• II./JG 77
• II.(J)/186
• 11.(N)/JG 2 and 12.(N)/JG 2
• Jagdschwarme II./ZG 76 & I./JG 77
• Kommando Losigkeit
• Jagdgruppe Drontheim
• Jagdgeschwader 5
• Early Zerstorer Units
• Zerstorerstaffel JG 77 and JG 5
• IV./ZG 26
• 14.(J)/JG 5
• References and Sources

I haven't had any chance to read any of it yet, but a quick flick through reveals plenty of photos and profiles, as per many other Classic titles...

Cheers

Peter D Evans
LEMB Administrator

[Kjetil Aakra]

As one of the authors of this book, perhaps I can give a brief overview of what it covers?

We basically dover two different apsects.

It cover the organisational structure of the fighter, fighter-bomber and Zerstörer units having served in the far North theatre of operations, that is it details the deisgnation, re-designations, structoral organisastions of these units and also included information on aircraft invetories.

Secondly, we have tried to make a detailed analysis of the markings and camouflage and colours of the aircraft of these units, illustrating as many as possible of the various schemes with colour profiles. There are also a lot of photos showing these schemes.

Several of the photos have been published before, but we have also managed to find a lot which have not eben seen in print before as far as we know. For those who are into camouflage and markings there are a some new interesting facts in the book, I think, and we hope our readers find it worthy of their investments.

Thanks,

Kjetil Aakra

[Kjetil Aakra]

Perhaps I should also mention that we are not covering the operational history of these units as these are very well covered by Mombeek's volumes (as far as I./JG 77 & JG 5) are concerned, or other publications for most of the other units. Besides, we quickly filled the pages available to us with what we initially chose as our subejct matter and in any case did not see any need to duplicate the operational history as this was already well-covered, as mentioned.

Kjetil

[Ruy Horta]

Congratulation, just got my copy and I like what I see!