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

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by edwest2

Thank you John. As a point of interest, when you're done, I'd like to know if you found anything in this book "revelatory."

Best,
Ed

... or 'ground-breaking' or ( and I like this one) 'unprecedentedly detailed'. Crikey, I can barely even spell it...

..and where is the interest in quoting some anonymous Gefreiter when there are much more 'important' protagonists still untranslated, eg Meimberg, Cescotti etc

[Chris Goss]

On X another well known historian and author has been full of praise for the book. How are both camps for and against diametrically opposite on their views?

[John Vasco]

Chapter 9 read

Reaching the early part of mid-August. Letter of a junior doctor with KG 2. Uffz. of a Luftwaffe armoured train unit is quoted! Soldier based at Tessenow wrote about a night bombing raid. Quote from Jodl from a report about the landing operation must not fail. Differences of opinion among the top brass of the Third Reich. Poor Luftwaffe intelligence on the RAF. ‘Additional weaknesses within Luftwaffe intelligence included its delayed grasp of British radar’. What delay was this? On the first day against land targets, 12th August, Erprobungsgruppe 210 went after four RDF stations.

Page 151: Kurt Gerhard Raynor voluntarily reported to the training depot in Bitterfeld near Leipzig and applied for the Luftwaffe. What has that got to do with the Battle of Britain? Then, on the back of Werner Mölders flying a Hurricane and Spitfire at Rechlin pre-Battle of Britain, together with references to Galland, she discusses the relative merits of the two fighters from a German point of view.

Quotes Helmut Mahkle, a Ju 87 pilot, on combat on 9th August. Quote from Fink re KG 2 raid of 13th August. More quotes from the Baruther Anzieger. The chapter closes with her commenting that Fink managed to ‘survive the calamitous attack without fighter escort’. Had she referenced my book, ‘Bombsights over England’ re 13th August, she would have found out that Erprobungsgruppe 210 were tasked with attacking Hornchurch together with KG 2 in the early morning. As is well-known, Bf 110 units received the recall order. Hence ZG 26 and the Bf 110s of Erpr. Gr. 210 did not take part in the attack. However, Staffelkapitän Otto Hintze of the Bf 109 E-equipped 3./Erpr. Gr. 210 recorded a mission lasting 1 hour 35 minutes that matched exactly with Fink’s KG 2 attack on Eastchurch, and Sgt Skinner of the intercepting 74 Squadron mentioned that there WAS a Bf 109 escort. May I say that a lack of research of sufficient depth has contributed to a likely error. I do not say here that she SHOULD have read and referenced my book, but I believe it is a major reference work in any detailed and comprehensive study of the Battle.

PS. You won't believe the shit I've just read in a footnote upon starting to read Chapter 10...

[John Vasco]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

On X another well known historian and author has been full of praise for the book. How are both camps for and against diametrically opposite on their views?

Can you mention who that is, Chris?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by John Vasco

Chapter 9 read

‘Additional weaknesses within Luftwaffe intelligence included its delayed grasp of British radar’. What delay was this? On the first day against land targets, 12th August, Erprobungsgruppe 210 went after four RDF stations … I do not say here that she SHOULD have read and referenced my book, but I believe it is a major reference work in any detailed and comprehensive study of the Battle.

Amen to that, not to mention that a passage based on the following has been on my website since July 2012:

CX/JQ/220, paragraph 6

On 12/8 source saw a document giving instructions about tactics to be employed on flights to England. The assembling of bomber, fighter and heavy fighter units for attacks should so far as possible not take place over the coast, because the special enemy wireless stations (De Te Apparatus (sic)) will already be in action and reporting the assembly of the units, which gives the enemy fighters an undesirable advantage.

[edwest2]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

On X another well known historian and author has been full of praise for the book. How are both camps for and against diametrically opposite on their views?

Chris,

The facts are all that is required. Not opinions. Not posts on X. If this book is badly "off topic" or just plain wrong, that needs to be reported. I suggest quoting some key points in this book and comparing them with the facts that clearly show the author is wrong, and posting that on Amazon.

I think the public deserves no less as well as the historical research community.

Sometimes, it happens that authors develop relationships that cannot see past this. Also, I have seen other examples of books appearing and the author appears unaware of the fact that there is a research community outside of their own circle.

[John Vasco]

Chapter 10 read

Nothing about the second attack on Manston on 14 August.

One paragraph about the action on 15 August, talking about the losses on both sides.

In the footnote on page 164 reference is made to the combat against Luftflotte 5 in the early afternoon of 15 August, and states ‘at no cost to the defenders’. She has obviously not done sufficient research into the Luftflotte 5 incursion, because the following was recorded by Fighter Command:
605 Squadron. Hurricane P2717. P/O K Schadtler-Law – wounded. Hit by return fire. Force-landed near Hart railway station and admitted to Hartlepool hospital with suspected crushed vertebrae, laceration of scalp and concussion. P/O Schadtler-Law did not fly again operationally.

605 Squadron. Hurricane P3827. F/O C Passy – safe. Hit by return fire off Newcastle. Force-landed and wrecked one mile from Usworth.

605 Squadron. Hurricane P3308. F/Lt A McKellar – safe. Damaged by return fire off Newcastle.

79 Squadron Hurricane. P/O Millington – safe. Damaged in combat.

She also states in the footnote ‘the Germans losing between fifteen and twenty Luftwaffe aircraft over north-east England’. It may be nit-picking on my part, but the actual total was 21 aircraft lost, between KG 26, KG 30, and I./ZG 76. This information has been available in ‘Battle of Britain Combat Archive’, volume 4, by Simon Parry, since 2017.

Nice account of the Stuka attack on 18 August from Kurt Scheffel, one who got back wounded from the mauling the Stukas received on that day.

Quoted Bechtle, Rieckhoff, and Deichmann, although she states that Deichmann ‘brought up the same myth’ re the Bf 110 fighter needing 109 escort in the BoB. She mentions the Bf 110 losses up to the end of August, but no mention of the Bf 109, which, on a pro-rata basis with regard to the number deployed, got equally malleted over the Channel and England. Some pages on radar (sic), and statistical information about losses, and inflated claims.

Page 176 footnote: ‘Geschwaderkommodore was often translated as ‘Wing Commander’, but this is not quite accurate – it was more of a position than a rank that technically translates to a ‘Wing Commodore’. Now I don’t know where she got this information from, but my understanding of a ‘Wing’ in the BoB was that of 3 squadrons, with a fourth sometimes tagged on as well. A Geschwaderkommodore had oversight of three Gruppen [9 Staffeln] (ZG 26, ZG 76), or two Gruppen [6 Staffeln] (ZG 2).

Galland’s ‘Squadron of Spitfires’ is mentioned. Yawn.

Mentions an order of 22 August from the Air District Command Western France re the need of Commanders to ‘commit themselves to impeccable driving discipline within their area of command’. So that accidents and deaths on the road did not occur. What? This is in a book on the Battle of Britain?

Finally a mention of the introduction of the Ju 88 and the initial problems encountered with it, quoting Peter Stahl.

[Chris Goss]

Alfred Price was in touch with Scheffel and his story is in The Hardest Day so again not new as such

[robert]

I do have manuscript of Scheffel`s memories. There are approx. 20 pages about this mission.

[FalkeEins]

I've bought the book. Its certainly well written and there's some considerable research behind it. I'm (sort of) enjoying it. But as some have pointed out, she's a 'professional' historian - this is not some random re-telling of the Luftschlacht um England. Hopefully this won't 'spoil' the ongoing review, but having been asked to think about the author's 'goal' in writing the book the way she did, I'm starting to understand why she has not used too many post-war accounts from those directly involved and preferred period diaries and letters.

No 'white-washing'.

Chapter 18 entitled 'Better liars than flyers' (not in quotation marks...although it should be) might indeed be described as 'revelatory' or 'ground-breaking'.

There, I've said it.

You can probably guess what's coming - in fact page 325 is barely believable and genuinely shocking....