RED DEVILS OVER THE YALU [off topic]

[Frank Olynyk]

The Helion website now states that Red Devils Over the Yalu is now available. http://www.helion.co.uk/red-devils-o...r-1950-53.html

600 pages. I would hope that it will show up on amazon.com in a month. I hope it is a translation of Sovetskie Asy Koreiskoi Voiny by Igor Seydov, and not an expanded translation of his earlier Red Devils Over the 38th Parallel (which was translated by Hal Fischer 5 years or more ago).

However, as is usual with Helion, when it is in my hands I will believe it has been published.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[edwest]

It's available on amazon,

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Devils-ove...ds=air+battles


and with the Look Inside feature.


Original title: "Krasnye d'iavoliy" v nebe Korei - Sovetskaia aviatsiia v voine 1950-1953: Khronika vozdushnih srazhenii (Moscow: Yauza, Eksmo, 2007)



Usual disclaimer,
Ed

[Nokose]

Frank,
On reading the preview pages it has the title "Red Devils over the 38th Parallel" at the top but seems to have a new translator. The copyright has 2007 for Russian version.

[Frank Olynyk]

Nokose,
I have a copy of the book now. This is a translation of Igor Seidov's 2007 book, whose title can be translated as Red Devils in the Skies of Korea. The translator is Stuart Britton. Seidov's 1998 book was translated by Hal Fischer as Red Devils Over the 38th Parallel; this is a small book, 325 pages in the original Russian, 374 pages in Hal's translation. This new book is 598 pages; I do not have a copy of the 2007 volume, so I do not know how many pages it has. The 2010 volume, Soviet Aces in the Korean War, is hard bound and 451 pages, and has not been translated into English. I assume that Britton started translating the 2007 volume, and when the 2010 volume appeared he was unwilling to discard that effort and start over -- very understandable. The 2010 volume has numerous black and white photos, color sideviews, some as fold out pages with four views (top, bottom, left and right sides), color photos (mostly American), and sidebars on each of the Soviet aces with biographic details, awards, promotion dates, victory lists (both WW2 and Korea). It would be nice if the sidebars could be translated.

I would describe Red Devils Over the Yalu as the best thing available in English on the Soviet side. I would call it "almost reasonable". A little too quick to claim aircraft which crashed back at base, or out of sight in the Yellow Sea, when the Russians could not possibly have known that they crashed; American practice would have been to claim these as damaged or probable. I suspect much of the Soviet overclaiming is in fact giving full credit to all pilots involved in a shared claim. It is noteworthy that there are no shared claims listed for Soviet pilots in Korea, whereas a check of Bykov's book All Stalin's Aces shows that the number of aces with shared claims in the 1936-1945 period is quite high, but non-existent in Korea. I suspect that if one could determine which are actually shared claims (which is probably impossible at this point) then Soviet overclaiming would be reduced to the normal 2-to-1 to 5-to-1 ratio found in other air forces. It would be very interesting to see a Russian version of Prien's series of Jagdfliegerverbände volumes so that a real comparison of the two sides in World War 2 could be made.

In any case, I think Red Devils Over the Yalu is worth purchasing.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[Nokose]

Thanks for the low down on the book. I have tried to find some of the Soviet claims that match the losses in Prien's JFV series but it's not easy. I had one JG 54 loss that I thought fit but Nikita showed me that there was ten claims in that area that day but only one loss. Are you planning on giving the Korea air war an overall write up with all the major players (China, Russia, US etc)?

[Frank Olynyk]

Nokose,

Not likely anytime soon. And without good Chinese and North Korean material it would be incomplete. In any case I figure there is a minimum of five more years for The Mediterranean Air War. Plus I have a few other projects I work on intermittently, like trying to get my Victory Lists back in print.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[Csaba B. Stenge]

I also bought a copy of Red Devils over the Yalu after the release, but my time is very limited now to read such long books.

After a quick skim through the book I agree with Frank, that the author really exaggerates when he tries to confirm the Soviet claims. He tries to attribute most of the UN losses to Soviet fighters, if the type is the same or similar, regardless to the real circumstances. It looks to me that to him, it is sometimes rather a pride question, than looking for the truth and it is not really the scientific and healthy approach. Maybe my opinion will be different after I'll read the entire book carefully.

[Nokose]

I purchased this book from one of the dealers on Amazon, its in paperback but it was a good deal. As stated the book is massive and its full of information starting with the beginning of the Korea War. I didn't know that North Korea had any aces until this book. The author gives the losses of both sides in which some of the losses given by the USAF match the other sides claims but the USAF lists AAA. Noticed some of the same thing in my Luftwaffe - VVS claims checks. The book comes on Kindle but for something like this I prefer the paper. Just entered the part were the Soviet pilots are entering the fighting but its been very good so far.