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Dambusters Vol 1: The Rise of Precision Bombing March 1943-M

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:12 pm
by gate1
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.

Re: Dambusters Vol 1: The Rise of Precision Bombing March 19

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:34 pm
by smudgersmith218
Gate1,

Was this published here in the UK? I seem to remember it was either Yank or Aussie publishers from a few details I was sent. I deleted the emails so cannot recall. :o :o

Smudger

Re: Dambusters Vol 1: The Rise of Precision Bombing March 19

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:47 pm
by gate1
Hi Steve

Its a Swedish book (Leandoer & Ekholm) by a New Zealand Author, Sam Olsen. I am told the second volume is much of the same.

Re: Dambusters Vol 1: The Rise of Precision Bombing March 19

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 9:03 am
by smudgersmith218
Gate1,

Yes your right, could not put my finger on it, thanks. ;)

Yes I was contacted last year or 2011 about the book and the role of No.3 Group and the use of G-H.

Cheers

Smudger

Re: Dambusters Vol 1: The Rise of Precision Bombing March 19

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 11:30 am
by gate1
Just as a postscript to this post. I have been asked by my publisher to check the text for plagiarism, and have found that it contains 263 photos, of which 160 are taken directly from five other books, complete with their captions. Another 80 or so are also copied from other boks with 'generic' titles such as 'Wing Commander G P Gibson', etc.

There are severa reproduced more than once, captions taken from other books that refer to text not in this book, and even a couple reproduced upside down!

If you have a handful of books on te subject, you will have all thats reproduced here, and in far, far better quality!

Re: Dambusters Vol 1: The Rise of Precision Bombing March 19

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 1:00 pm
by K4KittyCrew
Many thanks, Alex. Good to hear from you mate.
John