Page 157 - Demo

157to Mk VIs), to the Hs 297 (probably vice the Hs 293), and to No 524 Sqnbeing equipped with Wellington XVIIIs (instead of XIIIs).In one case, where the author refers to the short northern light of aNorwegian summer, a (presumed) typo has completely changed hismeaning %u2013 short %u2018night%u2019 surely. This sort of thing really ought to havebeen picked up at the proof-reading stage and an independent readermight well have ironed out several instances of careless sentenceconstruction. For instance, the first serious Luftwaffe reaction did notoccur when the RAF aircraft %u2018took off%u2019 on 7 December; it happenedseveral hours later. Similarly, those were not %u2018cannon%u2019 that %u2018flashed past%u2019in combat; they were shells. The worst example is a passage that reads%u2018unfortunately only three passengers were killed%u2019; would it have beenbetter if the RAF had killed more Norwegian civilians? Then again,while Flt Lt Shanks was certainly an American, he can hardly have been%u2018USAAF%u2019 and by page 161 AVM Aubrey Ellwood has been promoted toair chief marshal in a garbled reference that should really have been toSholto Douglas. There are other annoying anomalies and inconsistencies.What, for instance, was the significance of the %u2018B%u2019 suffix in thedesignation of the Mustang IIIB? And why identify some Luftwaffeaircraft in English, as in %u2018Black 11%u2019, and others in German as in %u2018Weisse4%u2019? But if you are going to do it, the corresponding (nominative,feminine) form of yellow would be Gelbe, not %u2018Glebe%u2019!The photographic content amounts to some ninety very interesting,and mostly fresh, pictures of aeroplanes, of personalities (both friend andfoe) and of combat situations. I would have to take issue with a couple ofcaptions. For instance, a line-up of Ju 188s is identified as belonging to%u201826 KG/III%u2019 which should, I am sure, read III./KG26. Another picture isclaimed to show, presumably Polish, pilots of No 315 Sqn clusteredaround a late model Mustang. No 315 Sqn never progressed beyond theMk III; there do not appear to be any Polish uniforms present and theaeroplane%u2019s (black and yellow?) banded spinner would strongly suggestthat we are actually looking at a bunch of No 19 Sqn%u2019s chaps with one oftheir Mk IVAs.I am afraid that the foregoing will have presented a rather gloomypicture. That is unfortunate because the book is not really as bad as Ihave probably painted it. It certainly provides an excellent impression ofthe conduct of the campaign that it sets out to chronicle and, the defectsin the presentation aside (and I have cited only examples here), it is not