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

[Nick Beale]

IMO you are at liberty to infer and interpret provided you make it crystal clear that that’s what you’re doing. What you don’t do is present inference as fact.

[John Vasco]

I wish to comment further on the matter of speculation, with reference to another period of history in which I am interested, which is tangential to the topic, but I believe is most illustrative. I’ve been a member of the Richard III Society since the mid-1980s, and receive the quarterly magazine, which includes letter from members.
Regarding the famous disappearance of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, one member wrote in and stated: ‘Yet he did, surely, order the deaths of his nephews as the only way to secure the throne.’ No evidence whatsoever was offered to support this contention. He also stated: ‘All Richard could do was to cause his nephews to disappear.’ Again, no evidence was offered to support this contention. He also stated: ‘there can be little doubt that he bore the guilt of it for the rest of his days.’ He’s making a judgement on Richard bearing guilt, when there is no way he can ever know what was in Richard’s mind! And to cap it off, he states: ‘How else to explain that last desperate charge at Bosworth except as an appeal to the judgement of God?' Yes, at this point I was laughing out loud!

Of course I replied, demolishing his speculation, and it was published in the June edition of the Society’s magazine. So, he will be seeing my reply for the first time in the last few days. He has had another letter published in the June magazine, and it turns out the guy went to Oxford University. Oh dear! In his long, rambling, letter, he says: ‘To judge an individual’s actions in history, we need to immerse ourselves in the day-to-day assumptions that frame his or her views of the world.’ What! One makes judgements on assumptions? There is more I could say about this guy’s June letter, but I will leave it there.

What I wished to highlight with the foregoing is that in the area of non-fiction, factual, research, there is no room for assumptions or speculation.

Loyaulte me lie

[Jukka Juutinen]

Major requirements for a reliable historian:
-he must allow the reader to see the foundation of his research=reference note
-his main duty is provide understanding and causalities on past events without bias or any attempt to further any current-day agenda; he is not a judge
-his research must go from bottom to top, in other words, he must never take the end result as the starting point and work backwards
-he must never resort to anachronism
-he must never evaluate the actions based on later day information (information that was not available to actors of that event)
-the possible conclusions must be in line with the evidence provided in the research and be logical (if evidence says X, one cannot conclude Y)
-sources must be critically treated; for example, is a diary entry made the same day as the event occurred treated perhaps as more reliable than a reminiscence 50 years after the event
-he must stick to relevant issues

Based on the examples referred to by Vasco, it seems Taylor failed on more than one hurdle.

Based on Vasc

[Steve Coates]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

IMO you are at liberty to infer and interpret provided you make it crystal clear that that’s what you’re doing. What you don’t do is present inference as fact.

Just my two cents. I think that is an entirely reasonable standpoint as all too often, pieces of the jigsaw are missing and providing the basis for that inference is made crystal clear. I will acknowledge that over time others can take what has been written and mangle it.

[edwest2]

A person writing about history for others needs to provide documents for whatever he presents to the reader. That's all. No guesses. No this must have been statements. It's not more than that.

This author has failed as far as this book is concerned. The reader should not be the one stepping over any digressions from the subject. Had it been placed in my hands, certain parts would have disappeared, never to be seen by an audience expecting one whole piece about the subject.

[Adriano Baumgartner]

I do agree with John Vasco and Edwest on this topic.

1-If you are selling fishes, do not send me pork! Am paying for fish and fish is what I want to see on the fridge. So, according to the resumés of John Vasco, there is nothing new (Historically speaking) on the book, it is pork, sold as fish, and with another kind of "modern food" presentation on the dish...signed by a PhD "expert".
2- If you choose a topic to write about, keep that on the telescopic sight....be a sniper and hit your target headshot and cleanly...do not start shooting like a Phalanx 20mm gun firing snipets everywhere and hitting nothing at all....What an interview from a LW bomber pilot remembering a raid from May 1941 to England (Blitz period) or 1944 off-topic do have to do with the Battle of Britain? In my opinion, she lost herself on her "Navigation"....and was totally off-track....sadly. It seems there is no connection between some chapters, sadly too...
3-That the RAF won the BoB, no one is questioning that...In my opinion, the cover is tendencious and disrespectful towards the German airmen, who , like the RAF airmen, were obeying orders from "the Powers that be" and doing their duty...and they fought well, so they deserve some kind of respect, even from the winners of the war.
4-Regarding the War Crimes...they existed and were registered on both sides...Americans shooting Me-262 pilots late in the war, Americans making no prisoners of war on D-Day; RAF airmen shooting down Red-Cross Heinkels He-59 and hitting French civilians in Harbours and nearby other military installations, etc...we can quote quite a number of cases...Russian revenge, etc....and, of course, German war crimes (in all branches). So, again, an off-course or topic deviation from the tittle of the book (what she is selling for the reader).

Thanks again for John Vasco, for giving us a glimpse of what is written (inside the cover) and how this book is written.

For me, this is surely a NO GO book, not even for the cover....will not even look at it on the "maché aux puces".

A.

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Just a small typo of my part: "marché aux puces"