Chris Goss's Do.17 picture book

[Graham Boak]

Lovely collection of photos, but the text doesn't seem to be up to the standard of CG's specialist researches.

I thought that the propaganda story of the Do 17's origins had been discarded, but here it is again. In the midst of the highly militaristic 3rd Reich, Dornier produced a low-drag fast twin with a totally unsuitable passenger compartment. It was rejected by Lufthansa, until a passing airline pilot saw it and thought "Ah. That might make a good bomber. I must tell the Air Ministry about it!" Yeah, pull the other one!

More seriously - surely this fairy tale has been corrected?

There are a couple of other minor items requiring additions/corrections. Bulgaria was another operator of the Do 17M. Romania also had Do 17Ps. T5 is not just the code for a weather unit but the ObdL's experimental reconnaissance unit - Kommand Rowehl, operator of many secret overflights. Sadly the excellent collection of photos does not include the now familiar ones of an S-0 shot down by French fighters in the Phoney War.

The book is well worth buying for the photographic content: well produced large images of an often-neglected type. The captions are usually informative.