Hungarian Fighters on July 26 1944

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

Thanks Csaba

I notice you are unwilling to list Molnars complete scoreboard...

Glad you consider yourself to be professional and that you have and obviously continue to publish various items. Sorry to notice that none of them are in a, for me, readable language...

I am certainly not qualified to discuss the Osprey book series and their validity, but I find it strange you dismiss them out of hand as more or less rubbish. Badly edited? Why do you expect a British editor to be an expert on any Eastern European aviation? Bad English? Possibly, I have not read them in such context and would have to re-read them again to state an opinion! Scratching the surface? Of course! The layout of the series prohibit all kind of deeper text material and to my way of thinking is quite a good test of an author's qualifications to reach the essentials and, if you excuse me, cut the crap!

I also notice Denes Bernad did the book on Rumanian aces. I usually find Denes quite reliable, so what is wrong with his ace book?

I am also interested in what other material I should chose, in your opinion, to get better details than the Osprey books on Eastern European aces. I know that Denes seems to be a language wizard, and perhaps so are you, but unfortunately I DON'T belong to that group. I control English pretty accurately and I can read German and partly French so I can stumble myself through a text which is not too flowered with general words. But I cannot and will not be able to read ANY language beyond that. I think it also goes for most of the enthusiasts on this site as well, of course depending from which country you originate...

Cheers
Stig

Stig,

I'm attaching the firs page of my Molnár bio from that book, including his known claims.

Regarding the Osprey books: check the book section for the mentioned topic, it is not their post. However, confusing Budapest with Bucharest (which I mentioned above) is not a grammar error (and was in a native English speaker author's work, Robert F. Dorr's B-24 Liberator units of the Fiteenth Air Force - I have some other examples as well, of course) I have never stated anything wrong about the Romanian aces book (or about the knowledge of György Punka: I know him well, I respect deeply his knowledge and I'm sure, that most of the errors in his Osprey book was produced by the publisher, not by him).
But again: it is not an Osprey book topic (I just written my opinion about their average quality, not revealed any holy truths or whatever else).

I do not recommend you any books, of course, since I know deeply just some parts of the history (aviation and general). However, it is a basic truth: if you are interested in deeply a foreign air force, you must know the language (at least, in basic level)

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Hello Csaba,
Please let us know when your books will be available in ENGLISH language, ok? I feel that´s there are a lot of people deeply interested in learning a bit more about the Eastern Front and unfortunately do not have access to Polish, Czech or other Eastern publications.
It is sad when a mervellous thread like this one get OUT of hand and hard words are exchanged...People like you should be encouraged to continue writing and digging out more facts and first hand accounts from the veterans themselves...
Yours sincere and friendly,
Adriano

[Dénes Bernád]

I was asked to voice my opinion on Osprey's series of aviation books.

I authored only one book for them, about the Rumanian fighter aces.
I was generally pleased with the work they've done, except for the colour profiles and the editing work on several paragraphs related to general history, which they have practically rewritten. However, through a careful, minutious proof reading of the finished text - which several other authors have apparently ommitted - I was able to "re-correct" those paragraphs, so they would be close(r) to historical truth.

As for the quality of their series, I cannot give a general opinion, as I have only about a dozen of their titles on my book shelf. What I can say though is that the quality greatly varies depending on the author and the chosen topic. Also, the uniform format (96 pages on A5+ size) clearly has its limitations on the amount of material that can physically be 'stuffed in' the book.

I believe one should not paint the whole series with a wide monocolour brush, but rather should judge individual titles according to their individual qualities and defects (bearing in mind that no historical book can be perfect). Myself I wouldn't mind a second, updated/corrected version of my book on Rumanian aces...

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Thanks, Adriano, but to me, it is important to publish these materials in Hungarian language at first (well, it was amazing to see on the old pilots, how proud the become after my aces book released, including the ones, who refused to talk about the war for decades, like Endre Németh).


Thanks, Dénes (it was me, who asked him to comment this topic).

It is true, of course, that there is a significant difference among the authors (i.e. basic quality of the materials), but according to my knowledge and experiences, the Osprey makes significant number of avoidable errors in these books (which is not nice to me).

But we should really forward this part of the discussion to this topic:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=10020

[Stig Jarlevik]

Csaba/Adriano/Denes

I am certainly not exchanging hard words. I am basically trying to get to the bottom of a problem. It is all too easy to refer to books or sources written in your own (odd) language that no-one except those few outside your own community understands. I am checking a statement by a well known Hungarian aviation writer now contested by Csaba. What is wrong with that?

Also when Csaba obviously talked about the WHOLE Osprey production, I was talking about the aces series of books, and especially those written about the Eastern European countries in WW 2, incidentally all of whom I find very interesting. I do agree with Csaba when he comments on the Osprey unit histories. I have seen a few and only bought those with odd topics, such as the one about USAAF transport units in the Far East. Most seems to be a re-hash of already published info. Probably pretty valid for those having nothing else on the subject.

Back to Molnar. It would be interesting to know why Punka continued to publish his error about Molnar's Lib/P-38 victory. First in a Hungarian book about the 109 and then in the Osprey aces book! Couldn't no one have told him? Was the discovery of the correct details so recent that it was unknown at the time the aces book was written?? Or, alas, is Punka a man difficult to correct???

Incidentally Csaba, I could not locate any attachment to your mail...

Cheers
Stig

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

Also when Csaba obviously talked about the WHOLE Osprey production,

Back to Molnar. It would be interesting to know why Punka continued to publish his error about Molnar's Lib/P-38 victory. First in a Hungarian book about the 109 and then in the Osprey aces book! Couldn't no one have told him? Was the discovery of the correct details so recent that it was unknown at the time the aces book was written?? Or, alas, is Punka a man difficult to correct???

Incidentally Csaba, I could not locate any attachment to your mail...

Cheers
Stig

Stig,

As I mentioned above, I talked about the Osprey generally, since I found errors in their aces, unit histories (and IIRC man-at-arms) books as well. But again, it is far off topic here now.

Regarding Molnár's claim: I don't know, why was it repeated in this book again erroneously (it is not so freshly found info). By the way, the Messer had an English edition as well (but was printed only in few number and was sold out long time ago, unfortunately) Altough, as I mentioned before, the Osprey book's main text based generally on the Messer, the appendices are different (the Messer contains some useful extra information about the Hungarian Messers - altough it contains errors, it is still an essential work)

I removed the attachment after a time, since need my upload quota (for other attached pictures) Drop me a pm and I'll send it to you via e-mail.