He111 lost 21/22 April 1942

[Stig Jarlevik]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

Stig if I had included all losses of 217s, it would have run into 3 volumes. This is why my book on the Do 17 10 July to 31 October 1940 was written-just 3 months of losses. As to He 111s, a number of IV Gruppe were active but I could see nothing and in any case Foster reported his kill burning on the water

Chris
Your Do 17 book is 336 pages and mainly a pictorial. The type had basically an operational life between 1939 - 41
and losses are pretty well known during this period. As far as I can see there is no loss list included at all
in that book!

Your Do 217 is 184 pages. Differentiating from your Do 17 book, which included a production list, your Do
217 book does not, leaving me with an old list made by Manfred Griehl "back in the days". No such data
available to you?

Both your books are very haphazard when it comes to inclusion of WNr data.
Sometimes it is there, but mostly it is not.
To include the WNr details in every loss you mention in the main text would not have created two further
volumes, and especially the Do 217 would have been that much better at least to me.

Cheers
Stig

[Chris Goss]

Stig:

You are comparing an aircraft which was there before and throughout the war (Do 17) albeit not in combat and which was photographed many times with an aircraft with a shelf life of just over 3 years (Do 217) of which photographs, if their crews survived, are harder to come by.

A book with all losses and ac details would be massive and much work but I draw you attention to this book which does have losses, aircraft and crew details albeit for a limited period:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dornier-Do-...s%2C217&sr=8-3

I also reiterate my books are not technical rather than combat books and I leave such technical writing and details to those who have much more knowledge, patience and time and who can produce something less, dare I say, 'haphazard'?

[Adriano Baumgartner]

STIG, I have the impression, during the years (reading and acquiring books), that some authors have become rather business and profit minded instead of than Historically minded.

Some have written a tittle with an Editor and re-pagined or added a few more lines and images, and sold almost the same book for other Editors, with a duality of images and text that have been read and written before.

I can not say particularly onto that case, since I have not acquired both books you do mention, and am not disgressing about a particular author (not quoting names); but this is the feeling I do have about some of those "famous" authors. I am not sure if this is just me that saw that ocurring more frequently, during the years.

Maybe it is not the author's fault at all....maybe the Editorial World do have a hand on that...they also are totally profit minded persons. It is all business nowadays...If you do not sell, you are not good. And, as it was said, maybe a 3 volumes book would be too much expensive and would put away some readers...However, we would have the full list of werknummers and fates, isn't it? A complete work about the theme....It is a complex answer I guess...

I have asked some of those famous authors, some 1-2 years ago, to work in a partnership on a book about the Feindflug sorties, and believe me...I was astonished to be frankly ansered back that it was not economically viable or profitable! And that this or that author (that I had also invited) was profit minded!....So, you do see, it is not easy to work alone, so you can imagine how it must be in co-operation (and believe me, I was trying to write in cooperation the most complete book on the theme). Maybe I was too much naive...maybe this is how I see Aviation History, as a Passion not as a business...anyway....Everyone do have a personal idea, how he sees or want a book...or how he dreams about a book. It values for the writers, the Editors and the readers....so it must, at the end, be a balance between those 3 visions, I guess.

This is why maybe some good books are really expensive and huge in size, maybe...because they go deep. Whilst others are for quick consumation and shorter and cheaper...

A nice thread nevertheles....

[Chris Goss]

Economically viable for an author is totally different to economically viable for the publisher and the latter will always have primacy unless you self-publish. I am glad that I have a military pension to help me live on as if I was writing for a living, unless you are J K Rowling or the like, I would struggle big time! Anyhow we have gone off piste with this post.....

[Stig Jarlevik]

Thanks Chris

I already knew about this book of yours, but I have enough stuff about the BoB.

Also it is not the Do 17 I am interested in here, its the Do 217.

I cannot see how identifying an aircraft has anything to do with its technical details.

I know that you and many others are more interested in the human side than production figures and the
identity of the actual aircraft. I am the opposite, I am interested in exactly those details you choose to avoid,
in this case the German WNr.

I have only a superficial interest in technical matters, since I am as far away as anyone can be from being a
handy man....just ask my wife.....

Cheers
Stig

PS: Adriano, just saw you e-mail. I doubt Chris or anyone else writing about aviation history do so to "get rich"
Nobody gets rich with our interest. Even if the few books I have written (co-authored) have sold out by now,
they all cost me much more since I got paid nothing....

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Stig, I am sure that Chris is totally right about the Editors deciding what goes and what does not goes onto a book...and sometimes limiting the pages and/or images. He surely knows more about that than us. For instance, Bundesarchiv and IWM fees are totally prohibitives for using images on a publication. Maybe this is why some regular images do appear on one and several other similar books, sometimes written by other authors too.

Rare birds like the Do 217 M, K or He 219 for instance do enter onto the "range" of difficulty in obtaining new and unpublished sources of images or photographs, unless you manage to find some relatives of aircrew and obtain new material. The images do from time to time appears at Ebay are prohibitive also...hundreds of Euros per image. I have seen some Do 217 J or N (Nachtjagd) images being sold at 800+ Euros. So there is this aspect too....and some of the LW Losses at BAMA were not digitalized and may have not survived the war, so we do have a historical blank here (you guys do know better than most of us about that too).

I have seen some published sources of B-24 and B-17 inventory lists, with all serial numbers and fates....Maybe this is a niche for some future publications about the Do 217 or Ju 88, or other birds...by werknummer and fates. Who knows? Or a futur self-published more complete work, listing all known werknummers? Quite a hard work.

But the original thread was we trying to help Keith to match a 604 Squadron Mosquito's pilot claims....Maybe we can help him finding those claims. We surely got a strong side wind here and deviated. But the theme of Publications is quite an interesting one to debate.

A.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

I am interested in exactly those details you choose to avoid, in this case the German WNr.

I've said before on this forum that the only sure way to get the book one really want to see is to write it. If you have reasons for not doing that, consider that those reasons may be the same for other potential authors.

To expand on what Chris said about income from writing, researching the Luftwaffe is a hobby that costs money (like nearly all hobbies do) and anything you get from being published just helps to offset those costs a bit.

If members want to continue discussing this topic rather than the lost He 111, I'll split it off into a dedicated thread.