Dambusters Vol 1: The Rise of Precision Bombing March 1943-M
Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:12 pm
I had a call from a friend of mine who works in a bookshop in London about this at the weekend. Its a large hardback volume, the first of two, retailing at £45.00. When I saw it I was disappointed to say the least.
For a start almost the entire photo contents have been featured in other books over the last five years or so, with many reproduced in the book more than once! It is clear through the quality of the photographs that many have simply been photographed from other books, and no credits or acknowledgements are given. Where they have featured in other books, I was dumbfounded to see that the author, Sam Olsen has also lifted the captions and reproduced them in this book, word for word!! There are large chunks of text also taken direct from other books, and numerous errors in things such as crew names.
At the back there are a number of colour plates, but these too are repetitious (for example, do you really need colour plates of a dozen dams Lancs, only the individual code letter being changed?), with glaring errors in some (the 617 Squadron Mosquito's never carried the KC coding as depicted there).
All in all there is nothing new in this book, and many pages are simply taken up with routine details of general aircraft types such as the Mosquito.
If you have books such as those by Chris Ward, Alex Bateman, Alan Cooper and John Sweetman wou will find much of the content repeated here, word for word. In short, this is a high price for a poor quality work and I would advise keeping your money in your pocket.
For a start almost the entire photo contents have been featured in other books over the last five years or so, with many reproduced in the book more than once! It is clear through the quality of the photographs that many have simply been photographed from other books, and no credits or acknowledgements are given. Where they have featured in other books, I was dumbfounded to see that the author, Sam Olsen has also lifted the captions and reproduced them in this book, word for word!! There are large chunks of text also taken direct from other books, and numerous errors in things such as crew names.
At the back there are a number of colour plates, but these too are repetitious (for example, do you really need colour plates of a dozen dams Lancs, only the individual code letter being changed?), with glaring errors in some (the 617 Squadron Mosquito's never carried the KC coding as depicted there).
All in all there is nothing new in this book, and many pages are simply taken up with routine details of general aircraft types such as the Mosquito.
If you have books such as those by Chris Ward, Alex Bateman, Alan Cooper and John Sweetman wou will find much of the content repeated here, word for word. In short, this is a high price for a poor quality work and I would advise keeping your money in your pocket.