Questions on 8th AF Swinemünde raid on 12 March 1945

[Juha]

M. Lang, because the nyances of Finnish language probably don't have wider appeal in this forum, I sent my answer to You as a private message.

Chris and Carsten
I forgot this. If You'll someday need some help concerning on the history of Finnish AF, please ask. I would try to help as well as i can.

Juha

[m.lang]

I have now read your review which is published elsewhere in Finnish (http://agricola.utu.fi/nyt/arvos/arv...?arvostelu=915). Unfortunately, I have to point out for you that your review is badly composed (you don't write proper Finnish sentences, you don't punctuate correctly and you repeatedly misspell) and I cannot accept your criticism: as you don't write proper Finnish, can you assess the work of a professional translator?

I discuss your review more closely in a Finnish rejoinder but I consider it necessary to defend my work briefly here as well.

You blame my translation of several errors in technical parts, but you don't care to point them out except for a couple of misreadings – so I cannot add them to the errata list: http://www.elisanet.fi/markus.lang/friedrich.html. I assume that you did not read the original text in order to see which problems stem from Dr. Friedrich and which from the translator.

In your review, it surprises me that you do not recognize the difference between USAF and USAAF.

[Juha]

Hello Marcus
yes, my Finnish seems to have suffered from my extensive readings of English language books, especially my ability to use enough commas.

On your translation, in fact I got a couple e-mails after my review was published in which I was said to have been too soft on your translation. The writers had bought the book but had stopped the reading after 25-30pages because the text was so difficult to understand properly. And I must admit that if I had not promised to review the book, I might have done the same, I cannot say for sure. I fought through the first 100 or so pages and I was rewarded with the rest of the book, in which the translation is OK. The book seems to have anti-Anglo-American tendency but has it's merits.

Please, ask someone with knowledge on aeronautical and military terms to read the first 100 or so pages of the book and ask his/her oppinion and add his/her corrections to Your errata list.

Juha

[drgondog]

Juha - I do not think there was a 'strafing ban' placed on 8th AF FC until April 11 (for two days). No strafing meant that nobody was enthusiastic about trying to get to the deck when German light AA would have perfect altitude fuzing info!

The cloud cover was described as 10/10. The 355th escorted 2nd BD B-24s and notes that the target was bombed at 1205 - implying the lead bomb group/wing dropped at that time.

Regards,

Bill