Eric 'Winkle' Brown's Books

[Jim Oxley]

Brown has written four books that I'm aware of, namely:

Wings On My Sleeve - 1978
Wings Of The Navy: Flying Allied Carrier Aircraft Of WWII - 1987
Duels In The Sky: WWII Naval Aircraft In Combat - 1988
Wings Of The Luftwaffe - 1993

Are they all distinct different books covering different topics? Or a rehash over the years? Anyone have any recommendations?

Cheers.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Jim, I have not read the first one, but others I have. In fact, he has also written at least 3 more books. Anyway, Wings of the Navy&Luftwaffe are basically compilations of his old articles from Air International. Each article has a data box, a cutaway drawing, some illustrations and good text that concentrates on the flying characteristics and his personal experiences with these aircraft. Very well written, with often humourous remarks in the best British style. He is quite objective, though apparently he refused to respond to Heinrich Beauvais´s criticism of his remarks on the Bf 109. Similarly he condems the SB2C too easily as he flew only the early variants.
Still, I consider these essential books, if one does not have a huge bunch of Air Internationals from the 1970s and 1980s.

Duels in the Sky is a general book on the topic, with his personal assesment of various naval aircraft thrown in. He e.g. lists best naval fighters, best naval dive bombers and so on. A very interesting book.


Then he wrote the twin volume Wings of the Weird&Wonderful. These books have shorter, about 3-10 page articles on various aircraft he flew that were not covered in the previous 2 Wings volumes. These range from the better known a/c like the Mustang to rarer ones like the Fairey Spearfish. Some early jets (e.g. Sabre, Vampire) are covered too. In total, about 320 pages in medium format. Good books as well.

His lalest book, as far as I know, is Testing for Combat. This actually follows the above format, but features aircraft like Ar 240, Siebel 204, Liberator, Grumman Guardian, La-7, Panther etc. A good book as well. Here one may criticise his comments e.g. on the La-7 for he praises its handling qualities, but then claims it has no pilot armour and even claims that the two cannon armament is poor. This in light of his claims how the 4 machine guns in some Wildcats had excellent firepower...

[Jim Oxley]

Thanks for that run down Jukka. It's a big help. Cheers.

[Griffon]

I bought the republished "Wings on my Sleeve" during my visit of Duxford Airshow in 2006 and had my copy signed by the man himself!!!!
Lo and behold, he asked me where I come from and when I said Tyrol, he had a big grin in his face and told me that only a few weeks before he had been there with his wife, who also was with him in Duxford and he told me that I will read about Tyrol in the book too as it was there that he met Hanna Reitsch again after the war...

a pretty interesting book this is and one of the gems of my collection, for the signature of Capt. Brown alone

[Jukka Juutinen]

Phil, he must have remarried recently for his previous wife passed away a few years ago after serious illness

[Griffon]

Hello Jukka!

I did not know that, I also cannot say if the nice couple was married, Mr. Brown was a real British gentleman though, and the woman beside him (his wife?) a real British lady.
all in all, a great honour and a great pleasure to meet them....

[fran]

Hello,
I have seen the book 'Wings Of The Luftwaffe' with two different covers. Are both the same? if not, what does include the Ju88?
Thank you!

[Jukka Juutinen]

At least the hardcover copy I have has a Ju 88 article. I believe the softcover edition has a differnet cover, but the contents should be the same, though I can´t be 100% sure as I have not seen that. But there is no reason why the Ju 88 article should be dropped in the reprint.