1939-45 airpower and professional historians

[Vraa84]

Hello

I can only agree with you that an "professional" historian does not always know more about a certain subject than a "Amateur" historian (the choice of words is not made to offend anybody, but simply because the need to distinguish). But during studies in history at a university, a student does more than just reading books about history. Quite a bit of time is spent on subject like historical methods and science studies. Therefore, a historian who has studied in a university hopefully has a knowledge about the working progress that otherwise would have taken many years to learn.
This of course does not mean that he/she is always right. And I shall be the first to acknowledge that there is many good "amateur" historians. But hopefully a historian who graduates with a degree from a university, can something more than 5 years sparetime reading can produce.

Kind regard
Nicolaj

Originally Posted by Vraa84

Hello

I can only agree with you (...) But during studies in history at a university, a student does more than just reading books about history. Quite a bit of time is spent on subject like historical methods and science studies. Therefore, a historian who has studied in a university hopefully has a knowledge about the working progress that otherwise would have taken many years to learn.

- Yes, of course I agree. Thanks for your constructive reaction. My post was very long already and I was afraid of deterring potential readers (the police became much too small, I don't know why and I can't change it). I think most people here are - approximately - aware of what a historian educated at University has learned and knows (likewise for physicists and physicians, other scientists and all possible fields of knowledge). Besides, I wrote "mainly" (reading books etc.).

(...) But hopefully a historian who graduates with a degree from a university, can something more than 5 years sparetime reading can produce.

- Certainly! I never meant 5 years of spare-time reading only. This would be MUCH too little indeed. I mean deep, profound knowledge. According to myself you can acquire it only thanks to several decades of studying and research, and of OWN THINKING. Reading only some books published in your own country won't do in such a case with multiple waring parties : you HAVE TO read books, articles and archive documents at least in German, French and English. How many historians are able to do this? Precious few, if any. This may seem very exacting but what do you think all archaeologists and historians working on the ancient Palestina (Jesus etc.), Egypt (pharaos...), Greece and Rome must do? They have no choice for there are no ol' English translations ("decent books", as someone put it here). They even learn to read hieroglyphs and many have learned half a dozen, or a dozen, ancient languages. Besides, academic historians, too, have acquired only the basic knowledge of their trade and after they got their diploma they still have a hell of a lot to learn! The most clever among them are aware of this fact (which is true of any field including translating...).

In my opinion people working on the history of WW II in Europe but having no perfect command of German are quite simply unserious. They can get vital information on Germany, German forces, Hitler, nazism etc. only through English or French translations, or others. This is not good enough. Some French "historians" for example mention the German tanks "Mark II, Mark III" in their books (written in FRENCH) without being aware that "Mark" is a typically-English word, not needed in other languages : Panzer II, char II... Quite revealing!

Sadly it seems that most people - with or without any academic diploma - rely entirely on ONE author the publication(s) of whom they liked. Let us take one of the most controversial topics : the number of actual victories won by French fighters during the 1940 French Campaign (FC). Jean Gisclon, a French author who also had been a fighter pilot with GC II/5 1939-40 (and before), started the big controversy with the phrase "Les mille* victoires de la Chasse française", which he used first as the sub-title on the cover of his first book "Ils ouvrirent le bal" , published 1967, 41 years ago (They Opened the Dance - a reference to the much-admired BoB, which started shortly afterwards), then as the title of a new book which was mainly a 2nd edition of the 1st one. The controversy started by Jean Gisclon, but supported by some figures officially published already 1940 in France, has never ceased to this day, some people more or less confirming the magic figure (slightly over 1,000; 1,005 to be exact), others ridiculing it. Who is right? Wait and see. From 1970 through 2007 the excellent French aviation review "Icare" has published 19 big issues on the 1940 FC air battles (plus 3 on the BoB, 2 on Pearl "Harbour" (sic) etc.). The fundamental historical articles written by the late Raymond Danel in "Icare" and also in "Le Fana" are among the very best in the world, no matter in what language. "Icare", too, published victory totals nearing 1,000 (like 919 or so) but - don't forget this - including the Phoney War (which adds about 70 to 100 victories depending on authors etc.) and adding the "victoires sûres" (the certain ones) and the "victoires probables". Clearly most authors are unable to separate the Phoney War (Sept. 1939-May 9, 1940) and the FC (June 10-24, 1940). They were completely different and I feel the victories and own losses of both periods should not be added to look more impressive.

What I am trying to show here is that some people relied on one single book published by J. Gisclon, others relying on one other author only to demolish or "disprove" it, they think. From 2000 to 2008 a French person named Arnaud Gillet published no less than five (5) fairly big volumes on the 1940 FC, the 5th one (2008) being the first but not the last devoted to RAF fighter victories, the other four to French fighters'. In spite of many correct and useful data, remarks and pieces of information I consider this work very poor and very misleading. This is heavily compounded by the author's very poor own knowledge of basic facts (like fighter armament, firepower etc.) and his very poor French even though he claims to own a university degree in law ("Maîtrise", about the same as the famous German "Doktortitel"). As some of you know some French villages and cities have a name starting with "Le" (The), like Le Havre, Le Creusot, Le Mans, Le Mesnil... (there are many), Le Bourget, Le Lavandou etc. German people foolishly insist on saying "Lé" (Lay) and even on writing it this way. Well, Mr. A. Gillet doesn't even know that in French we don't say or write "à Le..." (at when it is a village or a city) but "Au", like "Au Mans" or "Au Bourget" (example : La course [the race] a lieu au Mans). This is one of the basic rules of the French language so I have some serious doubts about this person's nationality (no nationality in the world is a shame, by the way) and his academic titles but perhaps they are genuine (on n'arrête pas [you can't stop] le progrès); I even doubt that his name is not a pseudo replacing a typically-foreign name but this is only my personal impression.

He also is adament that a fighter's firepower was the number of rounds it carried for its guns so according to him a fighter armed even with four 20 mm-cannon with 120 rpg had a firepower only 17 %, not even one fifth, as high as a "Hurricane" armed with rifle-calibre machine-guns and carrying 2,800 rounds (this is HIS figure but I think it was rather 2,400 rounds). As usual his volumes were received with great enthusiasm by the usual professional critics - very sad indeed. In particular some FRENCH critics and commentators are out of themselves for joy every time some bloody amateur reduces the number of 1940 French victories or calls French airmen cowards and the like. This is something I'll never be able to understand. Many people in France and abroad (to our British and American friends : seen from France "even" the UK and the USA are foreign countries and their inhabitants are foreigners, or "aliens" - incredible isn't it?) now rely mainly, or exclusively, on Gillet's figures and conclusions, which are extremely unreliable to say the least. In his last ("British") volume he quite simply insulted not only French airmen who knowingly died fighting nazism but also any author or general and any historian who dared (in the past including in the 1940s and 1950s) or still dares publish anything which disagrees with his own conclusions and very low figures for French fighter victories. So according to his standards all outstanding Docavia and Lela-Presse books, all "Icare" issues on the FC as well as all "avions" special issues on the 1940 campaign are full of lies and vichyst propaganda and good for the dustbin. "avions" is about to publish (in October) the second and last special issue on 1939-40 French fighter aces (85 names) with a lot of details. I recommend it and of course the special issue N° 1 on aces too. As you know these aces mostly won shared victories and, in most cases, some victories won alone and not shared (French victory system, and it proved pretty effective to destroy enemy aircraft), for example 14 victories, of which 3 were won alone and 11 were "collective victories" awarded to every pilot who had taken part in the fight (2 to 16 pilots, mostly 2-3, often up to 6 or 7). This system is not ridiculous, it is simply different from others, much more reliable, and above all it worked. Of course they did not count for example 197 victories, because of that, if 46 E/A had been shot down. The number of E/A shot down by every fighter unit (GC or escadrille of twin-engined Potez 630/631, or local flight) was the actual number, possibly with a few exceptions (errors) but one downed E/A never was counted as 16, etc. In a few cases (several units having taken part in a fight) one E/A was counted twice (certainly not more than 25 out of 919 or about 2.7 % - most air forces made much bigger errors didn't they...).

Let us have a look at Mr. A. Gillet's figures - no tricks, no funny business :

1st volume : on page 13 he reproduced and commented very prominently, with a big frame etc. smack right in the middle of the page, the total of "about 245" French fighter victories officially confirmed by their own Air Force HQ. This figure already resulted in enthusiastic comments published by Mr. M. Bénichou and others. In the UK they are enthusiastic only about figures, even totally wrong ones, glorifying their own RAF - not so in masochistic France! Obviously A. Gillet at the time triumphantly considered this ridiculously low figure the real score of the French fighter arm (approx. 1,000 modern fighters) in 6 weeks - lower than RAF's score with much fewer fighters (100-250) having fought for a much shorter time, about 3 weeks at best with a few exceptions involving much lower numerical strengths (15-40 or so) (this he stresses on any occasion to "prove" that the RAF was much better - bad luck, in fact it was the reverse). Quote A. Gillet (page 16, 6th paragraph ) : "La puissance de feu du Hawker Hurricane (2 800 cartouches) équivalait à trois Morane." In another thread (closed on August 10) I already explained how totally wrong this statement is. "The Hurricane's firepower (2,800 rounds) corresponded three Moranes." (His style not mine!) According to him (p. 21) the Bloch 152 had a "weak armament". In fact it was armed with two superlative French cannon (Hispano-Suiza HS 404) and 2 light machine-guns. Even 1944-45 the "Spitfire" was rarely more heavily armed than this in the fighter rôle. The French cannon was so good that the RAF chose it - against several good competitors - produced it in the UK in several special factories and kept it on fighters well after WW II! (Meteor, Vampire, Sea Hawk and more). So Mr. Gillet has no idea what he is talking - or writing - about. One of my own claims is this : if a "historian" obviously has no idea of the most basic things (here : airpower) he CANNOT produce anything of value. If he can't write properly it is even worse : A.G. writes "ibidem" all the time instead of "idem", which is quite surprising for an alledgedly highly-educated person who MUST have mentioned numerous authors in his university thesis; translations are of the worst kind, naïve and simplistic, like "Bordkanone = canon de bord" and "Bordschütze" = mitrailleur de bord ("de bord" must be deleted). It's like writing the following nonsense in English : shooting with correction (deflection shooting), "strokes (or hits) per weapon" instead of "rounds per gun", etc. He also uses some shocking words never used by French aircrew (they used other shocking words!), like "ils tirent comme des pourris" - they fire like rotten ones, or like bastards. This makes his volumes even more ludicrous.

In the third and final volume on French fighter victories (at the top of page 100) we find

254 victories oficially confirmed by French HQ (not "about

245" any more - odd!) and

355 "confirmed" (sic!) by Master Gillet, Esquire.

On page 110 Master Gillet confirms

354,787 (sic) victories.

On page 111 it is

341,29 (sic), don't ask me why.

On page 129 he discusses the "avions homologués", this latter word meaning "officially confirmed by A.A. HQ" :

- Confirmed by SHD (Historical branch of the French defence ministry) :
329 including 5 confirmed as "probables"

- Confirmed according to (by?) A. Gillet :

316,66 including 5 "probables". I think here he means those actually confirmed by the French Air Force but I can't be sure.

On page 133, last paragraph, A. Gillet found
310 victories confirmed before 21 July 1940 (19 were confirmed after this date totalling the aforementioned 329 - can you follow me?).

If you now are totally puzzled and understand nothing I quite understand. I know how you feel (sob, cry, wail)! Please note that I mentioned only the few final results, not the hundreds of other figures, totals and sub-totals. I sincerely fear that nobody is, or will be, able to be sure which figure is the good one. This explains a lot : the usual critics of magazines were totally unable to fight themselves through this jungle of figures contradicting each other so they chose total, blind admiration.

To sum up, A. Gillet mentioned the following totals successively [he used the word "avions" (aircraft) not "victoires" but this doesn't change the results) :

245 (very triumphantly)
254
355
354.787
341.29
329
316.66
310

Here I replaced the normal decimal comma by the obsolete English decimal dot in the hope of becoming clearer.

Unfortunately Peter Cornwell recently adopted this figure of 310 - I don't know why. Don't worry, this does not make his recent monster-book on the FC entirely wrong (far from it) or uninteresting. I guess he was totally puzzled by all these different totals. You can add all the French victories he reported in his long list and obtain your own total. (Please tell us!)

But now, what is A. Gillet's "official" total, so to speak? I am not quite sure for obviously my intelligence level is far too low but I think this total is to be found on

page 111 : Synthèse de l'activité de l'aviation de chasse française (10 mai-24 juin 1940).

Here we find his total of 341,29 or 341.29 if you prefer.

This very topic was discussed 2 days ago on the French equivalent of this forum (Aérostories). They seemed to agree that A. Gillet's total was 670 or something, to reproduce in some other aviation site (!). I wonder how they found this figure, and where, but it certainly does not correspond Gillet's views.

I discussed Gillet's results in some detail (not "in all nauseating detail", as Miss Moneypenny told 007) because they are the most recent ones from France. For the very first time all French 1940-experts including myself agree on a problem : these results are to be taken with great caution to say the least. Personally I say : they are totally wrong. I use to speak clearly. Mr. Gillet, who is a typical amateur suddenly thinking that he now knows everything and understood everything better than all other people (you know this kind!), forgot several very important factors. Sorry, I can't say more now.

Most of you are going to like the fact that he published the most flattering appreciations on BRITISH 1940 fighter pilots so you are going to find him extremely clever, nice and likeable! The firepower of the Hurricane - according to him - has become even more formidable between 2000 and 2008 : it's not only "three times a Morane" but now "over four times". Can you imagine "over four" Moranes firing simultaneously at the same E/A with their four formidable cannon and eight or sixteen machine-guns? This poor E/A would have been literally shot to ribbons, or pulverised. I never heard that any E/A shot down by a Hurricane suffered such a fate (except in the case of explosion in mid-air). At the same time he quite simply insulted (in his volume on the RAF published in May 2008) French fighter pilots (even those who were killed 1940 fighting nazism), authors and historians, as I already mentioned : liars, (Vichy-) propagandists etc. He seems to be visibly enraged and made even more stubborn by all the resistance and heavy criticism he met, including from me : "So they dare disagree with me? I'll hit'em even harder!". Up till now I knew such behaviour from little boys aged from 1 to 10 years. But of course critics are enthusiastic as usual.

* Mille = one thousand (1,000)

In my long post N° 5 in this thread I mentioned half a dozen various (very low) totals of 1940 French fighter victories given by A. Gillet - written by me in red and bold characters - but I forgot to give the necessary explanation on the amazing "precision" of several of these figures (now I'll use the English way of writing numbers - with a decimal dot) :

354.787 (sic) victories.

On page 111 it is

341.29 (sic), don't ask me why.

(...)

316.66

These are, according to A. Gillet, the numbers of actual victories NOT just claims filed by the pilots.

For details please see post N° 5 above. As you all know - I presume - total numbers of victories are almost always very uncertain, be it for a whole air force and a whole battle or even for WW II, for a German "Geschwader" (100-160 fighters during different periods) even only during the French Campaign or the BoB, for an RAF wing or squadron, a French Groupe de chasse or even for individual aces having claimed, for example, from 8 to 25 victories, later up to... 352.

Why are these totals so uncertain? The most important explanation obviously is already the uncertainty about very numerous victories, or claims, as many people nowadays prefer to call them, which is a strong indication that many people doubt every single claim (or victory) or at least want to see some solid proof. Today some people claim that the average overclaim rate during WW II was 2 : 1. So total claims would have to be reduced by half (it has still to be proven that this applies to the fighter forces of all countries). This uncertainty is caused by multiple sources of errors made in good faith, sometimes (much more rarely) on purpose to claim some victories which never were real. At least at the beginning (during the Phoney War only?) Allied pilots draw wrong conclusions when a Me 109 dived steeply, leaving a trail of black smoke. They didn't know (yet) that very often the 109 had not been hit and the black smoke was produced when the pilot applied full throttle, his fuel then not being quite perfectly burned, leaving a rest of carbon particles etc. In numerous instances an enemy aircraft was shot down by a fighter and fell down or its pilot dived more or less steeply to make a belly-landing but another fighter pilot, not being aware of this, shot it down again. In theory the same AC could be shot down several times, resulting in 2-5 victory claims (mostly 2 in such instances) for one single actual victory.

Of course we should not exaggerate the effects of these errors. They did occur but not as massively as some people think. Nowadays we have got a lot of information from the "receiving side", be it the Allied air forces or the Luftwaffe having suffered these losses, to cross-check the claims and the actual losses... which were registered and this is part of the problem for apparently part of the losses - for whatever reason like air attack (on the ground), destruction of some documents in battle or lack of time, or otherwise - were never put down in writing and officially registered, at least within the Luftwaffe.

It often happened, too, as we all know, that fighter pilots and rear gunners claimed some victories in good faith but were wrong, whatever the reason again. In the book on KG 27 we can read the story of a German rear-gunner who said his bomber was attacked by four Morane fighters. He shot down three, he claimed, but the fourth shot down the German bomber while this super-gunner was replacing his empty ammo drum (75 rounds) and couldn't fire. Nothing is impossible but I have some doubts about these three victories won in a few seconds by one single rear-gunner with his light machine-gun. Besides, this story proves, once more, that contrary to what Brian Cull reported in his book "TDIM", French fighters DID "press home their attacks with every ounce of vigour". This is at least what GERMAN (not British) aircrew remember (those who survived).

So I would say that already if a British squadron, a French GC or even half a GC (escadrille or flight) or a German "Staffel" (squadron of 12 in theory) claimed, for example, a total of 45 victories this total could always correspond 30-55 actual victories or something of this kind. Let us not forget that often an E/A was damaged and was not claimed as destroyed but it crashed shortly before landing back at base or, after landing, it was considered u/s and scrapped or used for cannibalisation, if at all. This was a real victory but the victors didn't know so these reservations work both ways. Even individual pilots' scores -as you know - sometimes were too high by several AC or even several dozens.

To sum up, inevitably precision was very poor when counting victories or claims.

Now Mr. A. Gillet comes and publishes grand totals, for the entire French fighter arm, of, for example, 354.787. Everybody having the slightest idea of errors and precision in science and technology knows that such a figure is just an illusion. Every single air battle could already result in an error of 1 to 5 victories (for example), giving a claim error of - for example - 2 to 6 or 33.33 % (sometimes more, sometimes less). When adding all these claims in order to obtain the grand total for the FC it hardly becomes better for the many errors, or possible errors, hardly compensate for each other. They rather are added to each other. So if we take "354.787" the real figure could be 299 or 506 as well, we just don't know and even the official confirmations awarded from some desk at HQ don't help much. Already giving ONE figure after the decimal point is very illusory - naïve. Giving three is sheer madness.

Here we bump into the permanent problem of many purely literary-educated people, who quite simply can't understand such a reasoning. Let us try in a slightly different way : "354.787" is just an illusion because the real figure (hidden by many errors) could be anything between 200 and 500 so it is just useless to give the total with an accuracy of one thousandth of a victory, like here (...7 not ...6 or ...8)! In fact here the illusory relative (proportional) precision is one to 354,787 or better than one third of a millionth, which is possible only for the most sophisticated scientific, possibly technical, measurements including fundamental nuclear research in particle accelerators (CERN etc.) or in space technology and time measurement (which can be extremely accurate thanks to nuclear methods). Electronic devices for ex. are often very precise. A precision of 1 % on the values of their components is already excellent : usually it is rather 10 % as far as I know (perhaps it improved recently), 5 % at best, rarely 1-2 %, for example for resistors (how many ohms?), capacitors (how many micro or picofarads,) etc. 1 % is considered excellent.

One particularly amusing example of illusory precision is Formula 1 car races and all comparable car or motorbike-races : they often give the speed of a vehicle as being something like "302.986 km/h". It is very illusory and naïve because the actual length of the road, or whatever, never is known with such a high precision - by far not - and even less the real trajectory, or path, followed by the vehicle so 303 km/h instead would be fair enough, possibly too acurate. Time, on the other hand, can be measured with great precision (nowadays) but they don't go beyond one hundreth of a second for a time per lap of about 85 seconds, giving lap times like 84.97 seconds - a precision MUCH lower than A. Gillet's for actual victories, below one ten thousandth!

Totals with "only" two figures after the decimal comma are very illusory too, just ten times less for they are ten times less (seemingly) accurate.

To make it short, victory totals with any figure right of the decimal dot (or comma) are an illusion for at least all the figures beyond the decimal dot are devoid of any connection to reality. On the other hand they give amateurs a very comforting impression and illusion of being highly scientific and accurate. Nope!

[edwest]

Gentlemen,


Consider how many people don't even know about this web site. My French is terrible and my German is getting a little better. How does one even begin to locate true professional historians on the internet aside from occasional sites like this and LEMB?

Is there some way to solve these problems? A kind of clearing house for researchers? I know part of the problem is that some collect photos and documents and keep them away from everyone else aside from a priviledged few. Some simply want things handed to them. Others are willing to help, but once again, how to find the people with the relevant details?

It would be nice if there was a way for prospective authors to get some guidance before they publish. And then there may be a need to examine the financial considerations of getting some help depending on circumstances.

It might help prevent situations like this.



Regards,
Ed

Originally Posted by edwest

Gentlemen,


Consider how many people don't even know about this web site. My French is terrible and my German is getting a little better. How does one even begin to locate true professional historians on the internet aside from occasional sites like this and LEMB?

- Ed, I assume you are not being ironic or joking (both could be a possibility here but I'll discard it). If you are after all I'll try to help other (young?) people who doesn't possess your wide experience (and I am not being ironic myself).

"How"? Well, I think we have to do it the usual way : look for them, hunt them down. A Google or Yahoo-search can help a lot. This is how I discovered Lt-Col. Kirkland's article on the 1940 French Air Force. I had made a search on "1940 Air Force". Now, some people will claim that Kirkland's article is no good but I feel it is far from being entirely useless. I certainly got some other hits but I can't remember. Just try! Wikipedia can provide you with some good information too, in particular bibliography. There you'll find works which in turn contain a bibliography and so on (most of it not on the Internet but often available at bargain prices like $ 5 to 15). Likewise at Wikipedia you can look for the names of some famous airmen (at least in French you'll find Accart, Claude, Marin-la-Meslée, Clostermann and others). Clearly a published bibliography mentions works which have been published before (with few exceptions of forthcoming books) and COULD but must not be obsolete, but many of the authors are still alive and still knowledgeable, or even more than before, and you can ask them, possibly through their publishers.

I think everybody is going to bump at least into TOCH and LEMB with a search on, for example, "World War II, airpower, aviation, Luftwaffe, RAF", but also into other ones. I didn't try recently but you can do it.

I understand quite a few university doctor theses are to be found on the Internet. I didn't look yet but it is worth a try. Most theses contain a blibliography with numerous works, often not well-known but interesting, and I guess many of the mentioned authors are still alive. There are some high-level specialised reviews too (you can ask for ex. the library of the USAF or the historical dept. for their titles and addresses).

You can ask the corresponding doctorands (?) and their professors etc. Don't rely on so-called "historians" famous in the mass media but be very careful with the data and information they could provide you with. In most cases their real value is close to nil, at least in France. On the other hand TV networks have got very powerful instruments for finding documents, photos and film footage.

But we shoud not limit ourselves to the Internet. Looking around in bookshops including non-specialised ones, and in libraries, often allows you to find some gems you didn't know of yet. The more recent the book or article the more recent the bibliography. I think many Internet sites discuss existing and also future books, which is very useful.

Is there some way to solve these problems? A kind of clearing house for researchers? (...) Others are willing to help, but once again, how to find the people with the relevant details?

- Of course many historians will tell you : Mr. X is a good man/ an excellent historian. If many historians recommend the same man or men they're probably okay! But you always have to be careful even in this case. You can't do without a reasonably deep and wide own knowledge and you can acquire this only through reading MANY books, articles etc. They may contain a number of errors and contradict each other but all the same, at the end you'll know a lot : it's like a photofit-picture (? French : portrait-robot, a picture created with the addition of little bits like eyes, mouth, beard etc. to get a picture of a suspected criminal). The individual bits of information may be wrong sometimes but the result is close to reality. If you have a reasonable knowledge of your area of interest you'll be able to detect phoneys easily. These are so-called "historians" who put several times serious nonsense in their books (example : 1940 French aircraft production was "of course" not of the same quality... or : Hurricanes won the BoB because they were much faster than the Me 109s... or : The USAAF won the air war over Germany against German fighters thanks to the heavy defensive armament of their bombers...). If an author publishes things which you know are nonsense you can discard this author. He probably published some, or many, correct things too, but how do we know? How can we make the difference between nonsense and correct remarks and statements? They are intermingled so we have to know it all in advance so such books don't help a lot! Obviously you always can ask people, preferably several persons who know the discussed subject well : John Vasco about Me 110s, Chriss Goss about the Bay of Biscay (le golfe de Gascogne is even better), Peter Cornwell about the BoB etc. Of course it is for them to decide and say if they have time. You can ask them directly and frankly in private : is author X a good historian or a phoney? How much BS did he publish, if any? How do you value his work(s)? In any case it's up to you to form your own opinion - there is hardly any fast-made, fast-eaten "Big Mäc" in this field.

I fear there is no "clearing house" for researchers but the good ones who are working on more or less similar subjects often know each other (at least the names). Popular authors are rarely, if ever, serious historians. The very recent example of A. Gillet shows that even a lot of almost unanimous praise doesn't prove much. Several/many heavy, unacceptable errors make him, and others, untrustworthy. But, as I already mentioned, French experts have strong reservations about his works and results - and this is what they published on the Internet! They are shy. I suspect that in private talks some of them express much harsher opinions - which I for my part openly do.

What is a "heavy, unacceptable error"? Let me give you an example but of course there are many others, these are just a few examples among many : many authors, even today, publish totally wrong technical data on 1940-45 aircraft, their engines and their power, their armament and the technical data on these weapons etc., which really is totally unacceptable. A. Gillet, for ex., is still firmly convinced that a fighter's firepower was the number of rounds it carried for its light machine-guns (for ex. : Hurricane). He gave a wrong armament for several 1940 French fighter types : according to him the Bloch 152 had a "weak" armament but actually its 2 cannon and 2 machine-guns were seemingly the same armament as the Me 109's, which nobody except myself considers mediocre (I am the only exception but I insist that the Me 109 E-1 and E-3 had a very mediocre armament; yes, it was even weak - just look at the technical data!). In fact the Bloch 152 had a far better armament because its cannon had a much higher rate of fire and a much higher muzzle velocity, making them deadly weapons contrary to the German MG FF, which were very mediocre cannon (the Luftwaffe introduced the far better MG 151 in a hurry, as early as possible but only around mid-1941 with the calibre of 20 mm not 15). A. Gillet printed, too, that the 2 cannon carried by the Me 109 and 110 had 100 rounds per gun instead of the actual 60, which is 66.66 % too many. With such a "historical method" it is easy to "prove" that French fighters were inferior.

How can we rely on "historians" who don't even master the most basic and the most simple facts, data which have been known for about 70 years? We can't. And indeed, their own results, conclusions and statements are just good for the dustbin too (poor dustbin!). "Great French Historian" Patrick Facon published similar nonsense, like the 1940 Ju 87 "Stuka" carrying 1 000 kg of bombs instead of 500, etc.

It would be nice if there was a way for prospective authors to get some guidance before they publish. And then there may be a need to examine the financial considerations of getting some help depending on circumstances.

- Reading a dozen GOOD (serious) books first is a fairly good guidance already. Many reliable historians (perhaps not all of them - I don't know) are nice persons at the same time and they'll often readily accept to read a manuscript before publication, but in this case they must undertake to really read it entirely and CAREFULLY, not just diagonally in a hurry and say "It's okay/wonderful" in order to please the author. I think many are prepared to do this and even find it flattering. You could also call this "mutual assistance".

It might help prevent situations like this.

- What do you mean exactly? Could you explain please? Do you mean situations in which an author published a voluminous work full of serious errors?

In any case it is very unreasonable, and foolish, to publish anything on a subject you obviously don't know well enough, however exciting and fascinating you may find it. Frankly I don't think you Ed would do such a foolish thing.

I find astrophysics and astronomy really fascinating but I know almost nothing so I wouldn't dream of publishing anything, not even one page of text on this, just because I am interested! It's much better to listen to the experts and read what they publish instead.