Eagle Days: Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain

[John Vasco]

Originally Posted by Siko54

John, as a big fan of your work (your Zerstorer book has pride of place on my shelf) I hope you don’t mind some feedback. I watched the livestream and was active in the chat aswell, but I felt you came across as combative, opinionated and argumentative. It was a great shame as you could have added a huge amount to the stream if you had engaged in a more constructive manner. You may not have seen, but woody posted some comments on YouTube after the livestream about your input and how disruptive it was, which was very unusual of him.

Siko: I posted facts.
1)She said the Stuka couldn't be used (after its maulings on 16th & 18th August) because it didn't have the range to reach London. Now, between 18th August and 7th September (the first major daylight raid on London) the Luftwaffe went after 11 Group airfields big-style! Stuka units could have been deployed in the Pas-de-Calais area and been involved in these raids against 11 Group airfields. The Stuka units had traversed a greater distance to attack 12 Group targets on 16th & 18th August. That's all I pointed out.
2) She said that fighter bomber attacks occurred later in the Battle when Bf 109 units had to switch a Staffel over to the fighter-bomber configuration. Sorry, do me a favour! The Bf 109 E fighter-bombers of 3. Staffel, Erprobungsgruppe 210 were in action from 13th July onwards.

Who is 'Woody'? Why didn't he come direct to me and put his points? If he knows who I am he can get me easily on Facebook. I will happily chat to him.

Sorry, but there are too many bleedin' wet-nellies nowadays who get offended at the slightest thing. I have done (as have others) hard-nosed primary document and personnel research (i.e. getting into archives, and interviewing and corresponding with those on both sides who took part) for decades to reach the point where I have had works published. Works based on facts (not suppositions) pertaining to the Battle. I can back up everything I say. The legal tenet of 'He who asserts must prove' has guided me over the decades in my writing, and my social media comments. I'm am NEVER going to compromise myself, nor the factual information I have, for these cry-arses!

Finally, the live stream, as you will know, moved so fast that I could not elaborate on a part-comment of mine(you are only allowed so many words and it cut off part of my posts, so you will not have seen it) on a couple or more occasions, as the stream had advanced and comments had moved on tremendously. So re your comment about adding a huge amount, sorry, that was impossible. I just sat and watched in the end...

[John Vasco]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

..any publicity is good publicity ..or something like that. I am tempted to check it out now...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpoX94yhrPE

[John Vasco]

Book received...
Pages 6-7: '...how did the preceptions of the campaign - and the prospect of an invasion - differ from these oft-forgotten Luftwaffe branches: the air signals units; the anti-aircaft units, the paratroopers that the flying arms left behind collecting dust? Then when flying multiple daily sorties for months on end, what spurred on the Luftwaffe's airmen of all ranks and designations to keep venturing over the 'pirate island': Führer or Fatherland, revenge or desperation? As the final victory over Britain became ever more elusive, how did they view the inconclusive campaign?
For as long as these questions are unanswered, our understanding of how the Battle of Britain unfolded will remain lopsided...'
So there you have it folks. The thoughts/views of personnel in Air signals, anti-aircraft, paratroopers, and all the flying crews. If we don't know what they were thinking, our understanding of how the BoB unfolded remains lopsided! WHAT! What a load of bollocks.

Let's look at page 251: '...Technically, the first significant attack by Jagdbomber (or 'Jabos' in the Battle of Britain had already come as early as 12 August 1940, when fighter-bombers of the test wing Erprobungsgruppe 210 were instructed to take out five Chain Home radar sites along the Kent and Sussex coastlines...' From my extensive research over the decades, it was four (Dunkirk, Pevensey, Rye & Dover), divided up between Gruppenstab, 1. Staffel, 2. Staffel & 3. Staffel.
Page 252: '...Thus, by the commencement of what can be deemed the 'Jaboangriff' from mid-September until late-October 1940...' Once again, WHAT! Erprobungsgruppe 210 were in action from 13 July right through the Battle of Britain. Otto Hintze, Staffelkapitän of 3./Erpr. Gr. 210, recorded 52 missions during the BoB in his Flugbuch prior to being shot down into captivity on 29 October 1940.

I will continue reading with interest.

[FalkeEins]

thanks John, eagerly awaiting your next update from 'acclaimed' author Ms Dr Taylor, if only to avoid shelling out the £20. Yes, she's 'acclaimed' in her publisher's blurb. You have to wonder by whom, other than them...seems to me that they are perhaps deliberately positioning her or 'grooming' her to be a female Beevor or Hastings..I guess that's better though than being a female Christopher Lawrence....oh and can some-one point out to her that Hornchurch is NOT on the south coast next to Folkestone..(see the map)

[John Vasco]

Page 7: '...Eighty five years after the Battle of Britain, a comprehensive history on everyday life and death for the entire Luftwaffe during its ten-month Luftschlacht um England is yet to be penned. Thus, Eagle Days: Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain rectifies this by providing a typical operational history of the German air force during the iconic campaign, but adopting a holistic approach that encompasses the rank and file of the infamous organisation...'

'a comprehensive history on everyday life and death for the entire Luftwaffe' has not been written, so she has rectified this by writing a comprehensive history on everyday life and death for the entire Luftwaffe! Really? Now that is a BIG claim, that cannot possibly be met.

She's writing 'a typical operational history of the German air force during the iconic campaign.' This, by her own claim, should be comprehensive. We shall see.

More to follow...

[Adriano Baumgartner]

I was refraining myself (with the flaps down and speed brakes ON...really) to not get involved, but I do agree with John Vasco (from which I do have one magnific book)...I really wonder whom (WW2 veterans) this Miss interviewed or which (or how many) Flugbüche or RAF Logbooks did she consulted or cross-checked....to write "a comprehensive history on everyday life and death for the entire Luftwaffe"? Boy, she would NEED all the KTB of the Luftwaffe units and cross check all RAF ORB's + read the War Diaries of the Luftflottes and War Diaries of Luftflotte Commanders, etc.....which I doubt she consulted....Anyway....thanks John for keeping us updated about the text. It was an eye opener...

Humbly yours,

A.

[Chris Goss]

I wrote two books on the Luftwaffe in the BoB using first hand accounts from those involved who I had, like John and others, written to or interviewed in Germany………

[Nick Beale]

I’m not going to judge a book I haven’t yet read, nor would I blame an author for their publisher’s hype, but I have looked through the source notes in a bookshop on two occasions now. She has used a lot of memoirs and secondary source articles about airmen but also letters and diaries from archives in Germany; SRA Reports (recordings of prisoners’ conversations) and other National Archives material; and at least one (that I noticed) Luftflotte 3 file from the Bundesarchiv. Also cited is at least one item from German Docs in Russia and a great many reels from AFHRA. That looks to me like a respectable effort. What she makes of that material is of course the next question.

P.S. If you’re going to make interviewing veterans your entry criterion then Second World War research is over, or very soon will be. Some of us were born soon enough to do that but it’s nobody’s fault if they weren’t.

[Siko54]

Very interesting discussion - the only comment I have to add to Nick’s excellent points above is from listening to the fabulous “The rest is history” podcast. They were discussing the battle of Agincourt and mentioned how one of the best books on the battle to have been published came about from renewed research into new sources in the last 20 years (coincidentally from another female author), which is clearly some 600+ years after the events occurred! So there is hope that new angles can be found even if the participants are indeed long dead and I think it would be a great shame to close our minds to new ways of looking at old subjects.

This thread prompted me to reread John’s excellent “Zerstorer” which I am enjoying immensely, it has indeed aged well and I hope to enjoy Victorias book too in the near future-my hope is that it is complementary to his and others vast array of excellent work on the subject. I do get the scepticism and some of the criticism but new high profile books on the subject matter can only be a good thing for everyone involved in this “hobby”.

[John Vasco]

Thanks, Siko, for your comment.

Look out later in the year when the second edition of 'Zerstörer' by myself and Peter Cornwell is published. The first edition was published in 1995 (the pre-internet days - do we remember them!), and this latest edition is an update and re-write, with 121,000 words and around 750 photos.


What I have posted here so far is not, I believe, all scepticism, but pointing out errors, for example about the first attack on the RDF (not radar) stations, and when Jabos were first used. I will admit that scepticism also rears its head in my post, given the claim that her book is a comprehensive history on everyday life and death for the entire Luftwaffe during its ten-month Luftschlacht um England. I don't believe that can ever be done. I think all that Chris Goss, Andy Saunders, Peter Cornwell, and others like myself can claim is that the research that is ultimately published in book form is simply the fruits of collected information, and cannot claim to be comprehensive, for the simple reason we never were able to contact all survivors of our chosen subject. And additionally, can never mine the stories of those who were killed in action. My Erprobungsgruppe 210 book, for example, is simply that - all that I have gathered, but certainly not a comprehensive, definite, account, and I would never claim that it is. That is the hard-nosed reality of research and writing.