War Planes of the Second World War - Fighters to Bombers and Reconnaissance Aircraft

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Larry,

I was born considerably before 1980 and have all 10 volumes (1960-1968). At the time, I'd say it was a benchmark series of books. William Green then went on to write Warplanes of the Third Reich (1970), which, in its time, was also a benchmark book. Other compendiums that came out around this time were J. R. Smith's and Antony Kay's German Aircraft of the Second World War (1972), Aireview's German Military Aircraft in the Second World War (1959), and Heinz J. Nowarra's and Karlheinz Kens' Die deutschen Flugzeuge 1933-1945 (1961, with a Nachtrag by Nowarra alone in 1964). As far as I know, these were the major compendiums of the times. Green, Smith, and Nowarra were prolific writers of their time. Smith teamed up with Eddie J. Creek dating back to at least Archiv (Gruppe 66) (1966) for a long and distinguished career in Luftwaffe aviation history writing.

Green also wrote the Famous Fighters and Famous Bombers 2-volume sets (1957-1962), but these were restricted to the most well-known aircraft. In his day, Green was considered one of the foremost authorities on the subject of German WW II aircraft.

The tendency since has been in the area of specialization, concentrating on single aircraft types, manufacturers, units, camouflages, cockpits, specialized aircraft fields, such as the jet and rocket aircraft, etc. Yes, periodically someone will whip out a supposed compendium, but generally these are slapdash and meant for the complete novice.

Why the specialization? Because more and more information has become available over the years to do more complete studies.

Regards,
Richard

[Larry]

I just fancied collecting them all, and I now know I have them all but initially I was curious as to whether they stopped at Vol. 10 and why no aircraft from 'Great Britain' followed on from the above that covered 'Germany'.

I still find these books useful, especially to give a few basic details on rarer types and in my youth they replaced my 'Boys Book of the Air' which I think said 'the RAF's newest fighter the Hawker Hurricane has a top speed of over 400 mph!'