Flak/AA - Why do we not research it ?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Martin Gleeson

Thanks to all for the responses so far.

Denes. Thanks for the recommendation of Edward Westermann's book on German Flak. I had been meaning to ask for an opinion of it, having spotted it on Amazon some months ago.
Martin Gleeson.

Well, I bought it with high hopes (see the review at http://stonebooks.com/archives/011118.shtml) and was very disappointed. The author starts with the idea that the role and value of "the German ground-based air defences" (a phrase it feels like he uses about six times per page) have been denigrated or ignored. That's strange because just about every airman's memoir I've ever read suggests that Allied flyers were terrified of it and that it took down a lot of aircraft.

There is about one paragraph on the 1940 Blitzkrieg in the West and little or nothing on Army or Navy Flak. The book concentrates on home defence. From memory, the author didn't seem to have a good grounding in the history of the air war and that led him to write some very odd things at times. The writing style felt very cumbersome and I found the book a struggle to get through.