Author Topic: The best book on WWII air combat I have read (Read 359 times)

Pongo · « **on:** March 26, 2004, 11:11:38 AM »

Malta: The Spitfire Year 1942
Christopher Shores and Brian Cull with Nicola Malizia.

A day by day account of every engagment and activity that year.
The setting of Malta is increadable. The Spitfire squadrons although officialy RAF were made up of equal numbers of Canadians, Americans, Ausies, Kiwis, South Africans and you name it. Totaly multi national units from all over what was left of the free world(and some frenchies thrown in too)

Every claim is rationalized against the other sides loss records as much as possible. Every attack on a ship is detailed as much as possible. Every pilot recovery is detailed as much as possible.

There are some fantastic stories in there. The South african Beaufort crew that went down attacking shiping to be rescued by the Italians. Taken to thier base and whined and dined. Then while being flown back to Italy for captivity the next day they over power the crew capture the float plane and fly it back to Malta..only to be unsucsessfully bounced by 4 spitfires.
trying to fight Ju 88s in Huricanes and Fulmars..they cant even catch the buggers.
And the difference between a top pilot and the rest.
Exaclty like aces high in fact. The axis got used to doing certain things and treating spitfires a certain way cause most of them emtpy thier whole ammo loads from 100 yards away and dont get a kill. Then someone comes along that can make 800 yard 1.5 second deflection shots and destroy your plane...
Many of the top german pilots killed without the enemy knowing they were there. And again. making the hits count.
We get to learn from our mistakes and those young guys didnt ususally.

The book is 700 pages long...tons of pictures a few good maps.
Great appendicies.

Its on amazon along with the Malta: The Hurricane Year wich I have not got yet.

MotorOil · « **Reply #1 on:** March 26, 2004, 11:29:36 AM »

Ah man, my library doesn't have The Year of the Spitfire. But it does have the Year of the Hurricane. Might just check that one out?

gofaster · « **Reply #2 on:** March 26, 2004, 11:34:17 AM »

Sounds interesting. I picked up "Duel of Eagles" from Barnes & Nobles bargain section - deals mostly with Battle of Britain.

For Malta, didn't the Hurricanes preceed the Spitfires?

Pongo · « **Reply #3 on:** March 26, 2004, 11:44:22 AM »

Ya the Malta: The Hurricane year is about 1941

Nefarious · « **Reply #4 on:** March 26, 2004, 11:58:10 AM »

Sounds like a good read...

Do you have the ISBN#?

Personally I like-

Fire In the Sky: The Airwar in the South Pacific 1943

I really like any Aircraft of the Aces Series, I collect em' like Baseball cards!

ra · « **Reply #5 on:** March 26, 2004, 12:12:06 PM »

Quote

Taken to thier base and whined and dined.

What were the Italians whining about?

Pongo · « **Reply #6 on:** March 26, 2004, 12:14:07 PM »

isbn 0-948817-16-x

I have a dozen or so of the Aircraft of the Aces books.
This has way way more meat to it.
Published in 1991

Pongo · « **Reply #7 on:** March 26, 2004, 12:31:29 PM »

Just the combat reports quoted from the pilots in this book would be 300 Pages. A shame it has almost no German fighter pilot quotes..lots of bomber victim quotes though.

vorticon · « **Reply #8 on:** March 26, 2004, 12:37:59 PM »

wow...

anyone have anything about india?

Sox62 · « **Reply #9 on:** March 26, 2004, 01:09:23 PM »

Just ordered a used copy from Amazon-thanks Pongo.

Pongo · « **Reply #10 on:** March 26, 2004, 03:23:19 PM »

Im sure you will like it.

DiabloTX · « **Reply #11 on:** March 26, 2004, 06:15:45 PM »

The best book hands down to me is 1000 Destroyed, The Life and Times of the 4th Fighter Group by Grover C. Hall, jr. It tells the story of the 4TH F.G. from a first-hand account (Grover Hall was the PR Officer for the 4th F.G. and was a newspaperman from Alabama before the war). His writting style is very nice, very unique. And the yarns he tells in it...find it, buy it, read it, and keep it within arm's length as you will find it a very enjoyable read. This, gentlemen, is the standard to which all other books of the same category are measured.

The Details:
Copyright 1946 by Grover C. Hall, jr.
ISBN 0-8168-5004-6
Library of Congress Card No. 46-20744