New Fw 190 book and new publishing company

[Morten Jessen]

Dear fellow enthusiasts,

I am very pleased to announce the launch of a new publishing company called Air War Publications. The aim of the company is to produce high-quality books about the operations, units and personnel of the Luftwaffe and Allied air forces during the Second World War.

The first book available from Air War Publications is ‘Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in the Battle for Sicily’, written by Morten Jessen and Andrew Arthy. This title covers the service of Fw 190 units in the Mediterranean theatre in the four-month period from the Axis surrender in North Africa to the invasion of the Italian mainland, with the focus on the role of the Fw 190 in the Sicilian campaign of July and August 1943. It features many first-hand accounts from personnel of both sides, along with numerous photographs, maps, and colour aircraft profiles. The book describes many eventful and successful Fw 190 anti-shipping operations and attacks on Allied landing forces. It also describes the serious problems hampering Fw 190 operations, such as the devastating Allied bombing campaign against Sicilian airfields, a severe lack of operational aircraft, and the pressure placed on senior Fw 190 unit leaders by their superiors, including the threats of court martial made against two of them. This title is a sequel to the book ‘Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in North Africa’, written by the same authors.

The book specifications are:
Size: 25 x 31,5 cm
Format: hardcover, 224 pages in colour
137 black-and-white & 3 colour photographs
11 colour aircraft profiles by Claes Sundin
16 colour maps, 4 emblems & 12 illustrations
10 appendices, including loss & victory lists, camouflage & markings information, tactics, escort fighter material, statistical tables, & aircraft profiles with information for modellers
The price is 54 euros + shipping & handling

Please visit www.airwarpublications.com for further information, a book sample, free downloads of additional book-related material, flight sim skins from profiles in the book, and more.

Future announcements will be made in the Books and Magazine section of this board.

Kind regards,
Morten Jessen

On behalf of Air War Publications

NB! Please note that the site does not function correctly in Internet Explorer 6 and 7. All other browsers function correctly.

[Mikkel Plannthin]

Morten (and Andrew)
Congratulations on both the book and the publishing company. I shall read both the new and the coming title with great interest.

Regards

Mikkel Plannthin

[CENTURION]

Dear Morten and Andrew,

I received my copy few days ago. Impressive work, like your first one.

Congratulations.

Best Regards

Marco

[mars]

Morten and Andrew, excellent news, is your book also available at amazon?

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Morten Jessen

Dear fellow enthusiasts,

I am very pleased to announce the launch of a new publishing company called Air War Publications. The aim of the company is to produce high-quality books about the operations, units and personnel of the Luftwaffe and Allied air forces during the Second World War.

The first book available from Air War Publications is ‘Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in the Battle for Sicily’, written by Morten Jessen and Andrew Arthy. This title covers the service of Fw 190 units in the Mediterranean theatre in the four-month period from the Axis surrender in North Africa to the invasion of the Italian mainland, with the focus on the role of the Fw 190 in the Sicilian campaign of July and August 1943. It features many first-hand accounts from personnel of both sides, along with numerous photographs, maps, and colour aircraft profiles. The book describes many eventful and successful Fw 190 anti-shipping operations and attacks on Allied landing forces. It also describes the serious problems hampering Fw 190 operations, such as the devastating Allied bombing campaign against Sicilian airfields, a severe lack of operational aircraft, and the pressure placed on senior Fw 190 unit leaders by their superiors, including the threats of court martial made against two of them. This title is a sequel to the book ‘Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in North Africa’, written by the same authors.

The book specifications are:
Size: 25 x 31,5 cm
Format: hardcover, 224 pages in colour
137 black-and-white & 3 colour photographs
11 colour aircraft profiles by Claes Sundin
16 colour maps, 4 emblems & 12 illustrations
10 appendices, including loss & victory lists, camouflage & markings information, tactics, escort fighter material, statistical tables, & aircraft profiles with information for modellers

Please visit www.airwarpublications.com for further information, a book sample, free downloads of additional book-related material, flight sim skins from profiles in the book, and more.

Future announcements will be made in the Books and Magazine section of this board.

Kind regards,
Morten Jessen

On behalf of Air War Publications

NB! Please note that the site does not function correctly in Internet Explorer 6 and 7. All other browsers function correctly.

Whoa! Hot diggity Damn! Another book from Morton & Andrew! I am so there--well maybe for my Christmas present!

NM

[ANDREAS]

The book looks good but the price is hefty though, 68 euros for 227 pages,
I really hope it worth every sent just as FW-190 over Africa did.
Mr Jessen the Courland book caught my imagination, any estimates as regards publication time?

[Morten Jessen]

Hi,
Thanks for your comments and questions. Much appreciated.

To clarify various questions and comments:
- There are no publication dates as future projects are still "in the works". Instead of postponing the publication date again and again, the publication date will not be annonced until shortly before it is ready to ship. The reason for telling what we are working on, is that some people may want to help/assist/contribute with information, photos or first-hand accounts.

- The book is not available from Amazon.

- The price is 54 euros + shipping & handling - not 68 euros. Shipping varies from country to country.

- Whether the book is worth it's price is hard to answer from my very biased position, so I suggest you download the free sample from http://airwarpublications.com/articl...s/book-samples and in general keep updated on reviews and comments I hope to appear on this board in the near future.

I hope this clarifies your questions so far.

All the best
Morten

[Rasmussen]

Originally Posted by Morten Jessen

- Whether the book is worth it's price is hard to answer from my very biased position, so I suggest you download the free sample from http://airwarpublications.com/articl...s/book-samples and in general keep updated on reviews and comments I hope to appear on this board in the near future.

The free sample was very interesting for me because I checked the RL 8/20 file too and found some other facts than mentioned in the Appendix I.

01.06.1943, W.Nr.0900:
the call sign mentioned there was "TJ + GL"

07.06.1943, W.Nr.0881:
instead "?" there was mentioned "TD + DS"
regarding the file RL 8/20 the place was San Pietro (09.50 am) and not Castelvetrano because it was an flight from Castelvetrano to San Pietro, reason: not extended main gear

13.06.1943, W.Nr. 0135:
footnote 4 said that in RL 8/20 was mentioned W.Nr.0136 but I had notice for me the W.Nr. 0135 like in the other documents too

14.06.1943, W.Nr. 0899:
in the appendix is mentioned the pilot Gerhard Krüger but I have found the pilot Oblt. Ernst Schneider

I'm correct here or I had misreaded some documents?

Best wishes
Rasmussen

[Andrew Arthy]

Hello Rasmussen,

Many thanks for your comments on the sample page from Appendix I of our ‘Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in the Battle for Sicily’ book.

RL 8/20 is a very interesting file, but we found a number of typos and errors in it. As a result, we felt that it was best used in conjunction with other primary sources, and if more reliable primary sources had different information, we would generally use that information rather than what was found in RL 8/20.

Please find our comments on your posting below:

--------------------------------
> 01.06.1943, W.Nr.0900:
> the call sign mentioned there was ‘TJ + GL’

We have two good primary sources that confirm the markings of this aircraft. An Allied captured aircraft report (in NA AIR 40/2159) has the following entry: “Fw 190 A-5/U8 W.Nr 900 <A + I, original markings ?? GL”. On page 203 of our book a photograph clearly shows this aircraft marked with ‘<A + I’. On the starboard side, the ‘GL’ and half of the ‘J’ had been overpainted by the ‘<A’ and III. Gruppe bar.

--------------------------------
> 07.06.1943, W.Nr.0881:
> instead "?" there was mentioned "TD + DS"
> regarding the file RL 8/20 the place was San Pietro (09.50 am) and not
> Castelvetrano because it was an flight from Castelvetrano to San Pietro, reason: not
> extended main gear

Regarding the aircraft code, I think that there might be a typo in your posting, because RL 8/20 actually says ‘TD + SS’ (which is confirmed by other sources as the correct Stammkennzeichen). ‘TD + SS’ may be the correct marking for W.Nr 0150 881, but unfortunately we could find no other source to confirm this, so instead we included a question mark in the loss list entry.

RL 8/20 says that it was indeed a transfer flight from Castelvetrano to San Pietro. Morten and I made an error in saying that the transfer flight was from San Pietro to Castelvetrano.

However, we are quite certain that the loss location was Castelvetrano, not San Pietro. In BA-MA RL 8/20, the place (ort) for the loss is given as Castelvetrano. Two other sources confirm the location. Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt. says the incident occurred at Castelvetrano. A strength return in NA HW 5/262, CX/MSS/2698/T19, says that at 14:00 on 7 June 1943 there were two III./SKG 10 aircraft crashed at Castelvetrano, but none crashed at San Pietro. We are not sure why the pilot crashed at the same airfield from which he took off.

Also, Landeklappe means landing flaps, so he crashed because the landing flaps did not work.

---------------------------------
> 13.06.1943, W.Nr. 0135:
> footnote 4 said that in RL 8/20 was mentioned W.Nr.0136 but I had notice for me the
> W.Nr. 0135 like in the other documents too”

There was a typo in our notes from RL 8/20. The original page from the RL 8/20 document does indeed say W.Nr 135, so you are correct. Thus all sources agree that the Werk Nummer for this loss was 135. However, we believe that RL 8/20 has a typo when it says that W.Nr 135 was marked ‘Black N + ’, and we follow what is said by the Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt. loss entry, ‘Black M + ’.

---------------------------------
> 14.06.1943, W.Nr. 0899:
> in the appendix is mentioned the pilot Gerhard Krüger but I have found the pilot
> Oblt. Ernst Schneider

Morten and I have page 40 of RL 8/20, which includes the following: “13.6. 1600 UHR: FW 190 A 5 / U 8, W M R 899, TAKT. ZEICHEN : WEISZ A.-
AUFTRAG: ANGRIFF AUF SCHIFFE VOR PANTELLERIA.-”

Unfortunately, for some reason we do not have page 41, on which other details (such as the pilot’s name) appear. Perhaps you would be kind enough to share this page with us?

We used other sources to fill in the gaps. The Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt. loss list stated that a III./SKG 10 aircraft with the W.Nr 0899 suffered 30 per cent damage in a crash-landing at San Pietro after an operation on 13 June 1943. The III./SKG 10 war diary (RL 10/361) reports only one such incident in mid-June, with the entry for a mission between 10:05 and 11:15 on 14 June 1943 reading: “Lt. Krüger nach Erledigung des Auftrages Bruchlandung in S. Pietro, unverletzt.” We felt that the Krüger incident was the same as the one in the entries for W.Nr 899 in the Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt. records and RL 8/20.

Oblt. Schneider flew missions with III./SKG 10 in April 1943, on 6 and 26 June, and then again in late-August 1943. However, there is no record that he flew any missions on 13 or 14 June 1943, when the incident involving W.Nr 899 happened.


I hope that the above answers your queries. If you like, I can email you copies of the sources that I have mentioned as evidence for these incidents.

All the best,
Andrew & Morten

[mars]

Morten, is this book available now? and how long would take you to ship this book after I place my order?