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

[John Vasco]

An interesting critique on the Amazon.co.uk site for 'Eagle Days' from Neil Page.

'I was initially rather sceptical of the publisher's claims for this work. But as author Victoria Taylor is a 'professional' historian, this is not some random re-telling of the Battle, what the Germans refer to as the 'Luftschlacht um England'. Taylor has not used too many post-war accounts from those directly involved, preferring period diaries and letters.

The book creates an 'atmosphere' -briefly put, it would appear that nowadays we all think of the men of the Luftwaffe as being mostly 'honourable opponents' and 'worthy foes' - who suffered and died as did our own brave RAF heroes. This is largely the influence of people like Galland and movies like 'The Battle of Britain'.

The reality is that in some instances the men of the Luftwaffe were hard-bitten Nazis, some of whom relished anti-semitic violence; '..the chivalrous fighter pilots did not cancel out the small pool of ruthless killers who already lurked in all branches of the Luftwaffe by the summer of 1940..'

Other Luftwaffe men were already disgusted at the treatment meted out to Jews and civilians and not just in Poland - Lehweß-Litzmann - former Kommodore of KG 3 who went over to the Russians - flew his first sorties over England during late 1940. The author goes so far as to state that '[..] the German 'knights of the air' should not be detached from the crimes that the regime committed..'
Victoria Taylor's goal? Well, this is not a 'who shot down who' type of book. You'll need to have some knowledge of the 'battle' itself to appreciate the point the author is trying to make - to 'remind' us that the Luftwaffe crews were not brave 'ordinary men' - the myth of 'just like us' - but ideologically driven and intent on furthering a tyrannical dictator's ambitions of conquest...

Unfortunately for the reader looking for a 're-telling' of the battle from the German side - which is after all what the title is selling - the author's attempts to drive home this point leads her to wander way off topic in places; from medical experiments on political prisoners to the beginnings of mass murder etc etc. The lengthy chapters covering Poland, Norway, France and the campaign in the West don't so much set the stage for the Battle of Britain as ram home what 'nasty' people the German Wehrmacht actually were. Chapter 18 entitled 'Better liars than flyers' (incidentally, not in quotation marks...) details a Luftwaffe pilot (unnamed) participating in a random mass-killing of Jews in Poland. The author pads out her text with the 'views' of the German media - heavily controlled by the Propaganda Ministry so I'm struggling to understand the value of these - and personal accounts from the home front that have little or no connection to the Battle of Britain. Additionally, Taylor - and her publisher - seem wholly unaware of some areas of research and of some of the experienced authors out there in the Luftwaffe enthusiast fraternity. Has she even read Bungay or Vasco or Goss? The notion that somehow her book is 'ground-breaking' and 'revelatory' is just silly hyperbole and insulting to those that have gone before her. Has she even heard of Wingleader and their BoB Combat Archive series? At best, 70% of this book pertains to the title, the rest is discourse to prove the point being rather clumsily made. There are no new revelations. And, as another commentator has suggested, regardless of Taylor's credentials, her book should have been more accurately titled - eg 'A random essay about the early years of WWII, including brief mentions of the Battle of Britain'. Of course her publisher would never have gone for it...'


Interesting...