Arming the Luftwaffe

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Dénes,

The book is out, so it shouldn't be all that long before you have it. My copy will be coming from Israel, so it is going to take a while before I see it.

While it would be nice to have specific production figures and Werk-Nr. lists by aircraft type, my guess is that that isn't what the focus of the book is about. Rather, I expect the book to take us through the history of the evolution of how aircraft got from the initial proposals to actual production, which varied during the war. Uziel had focused very heavily in his research on the He 162, as he considered this essentially the final refinement of this process. The fact that, like the U.S. P-80, it was turned out in an amazingly short time speaks toward the refinement of the process. Add to this that its development and set up for production came at the very end of the war when resources were severely taxed/limited by the crushing Allied efforts and its quick evolution is really remarkable. Now, this is not to say that the design/concept, itself, wasn't flawed, which it certainly was, but just speaks to the manufacturing process, itself.

Regards,
Richard