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Burma Air War Book - 8/25/2005 3:47:22 PM

Speedysteve

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Hi all,

I was searching Amazon and came across this book. Looks like it could be pretty detailed and comprehensive.....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904010954/ref=amb_used_b_ts_1/202-0308710-7168661

Regards,

Steven

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/25/2005 4:23:39 PM

Herrbear

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I have his first two. Glad to see vol 3 is out.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/25/2005 4:40:44 PM

Speedysteve

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Were the 1st 2 good?

Seems similar to the Black Cross vs Red Star series (Germany vs Russia)

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/25/2005 6:40:15 PM

Don Bowen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Herrbear

I have his first two. Glad to see vol 3 is out.

It may be out in the UK but Amazon US has delayed my order three times. Original delivery was supposed to be June, lastest revision is the end of September. I cancelled in frustration. Now I'll wait until it is out and some reveiws are available.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/25/2005 7:08:43 PM

Speedysteve

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Don,

Do you know if this series is akin the the Black Cross/Red Star one?

Regards,

Steven

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/25/2005 8:23:10 PM

AmiralLaurent

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Don,

Do you know if this series is akin the the Black Cross/Red Star one?

Regards,

Steven

The series is better than the "Black Cross/Red Star". The latter is about a wide scope and will only pick some days and actions in each chapter and then have an overall view.

Bloody Shambles vol 1 and 2 are a daily diary of the air war over SRA, PI, Malaya, Burma and Ceylon from 8/Dec/41 (PH is not included, but the first day of the war on the other side of the dateline is) to April or May 1942 depending of the area. There is a lot of personnal accounts and a lot of names, the author trying to identify at least each pilot involved in a claim or a loss. Also you have some good accounts of the paradrops in Palembang and other ground actions involving RAF personnel. Last but not yet the books are using sources from all sides involved so you can check the true losses of both sides for most actions.
Mr Shores wrote books on the same format for Malta, Greece, East Africa and Norway 1940. The latter are more detailled due to more archives being open, so I hope the Burma book will be really good.

Anyway it has been delayed several times since June.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/25/2005 11:32:24 PM

Big B

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Herrbear

I have his first two. Glad to see vol 3 is out.

Very curious - does he give statistical breakdowns on losses, by date, month or week, circumstance, etc?

Are there appendixes full of meaningful data?

B

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 2:44:33 AM

mc3744

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I'm reading "Burma, The Longest War 1941-1946", by L. Allen.
It's a biiig book (over 600 pages of medium size), but the detail is great and it's quite easy to read.

Got it on Amazon.co.uk too.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 3:20:04 AM

timtom

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Big B

Very curious - does he give statistical breakdowns on losses, by date, month or week, circumstance, etc?

Are there appendixes full of meaningful data?

Negative on both. They're blow-by-blow accounts of seemingly every air action in South East Asia, one day at a time. This is both the main strength and the main weakness of the books. The narrative gets swamped with detail, much of which had best been presented in tabular form. The authors don't really get past narrative and on to analysis. There was clearly something very wrong with Allied air operations during the first months of the Pacific war, but Shores is isn't too interested in delving into the underlying issues, content to argue that Japanese succeses rested on numerical superiority in general and qualitative ditto in particular. The narrative suggests a near complete absence of C3 on the Allied part, allowing the Japanese to catch their opponents off balance time and again, while Allied responses were mostly feeble, uncoordinated, and piece-meal. While the Dutch and the Americans might be excused, after two years of war, the lack of "grip" on the part of the Brits is tantalizing. However this is something the reader has to infer on his own. I feel that Shores rather misses an opportunity to present a coherent synthesis on PTO air operations during this period, but it's clearly not his purpose.

One great achievement is the crossreference with Japanese sources, showing the enormously inflated A2A claims of both sides for what they are.

With special relavance to WitP perhaps, it is also demonstrated how the Ki-43 and even the Ki-27, at least in the hands of 1st generation Japanese pilots, performed very favourably indeed against 1st generation Allied aircraft, suggesting that the Zero bonus should be extended to all Japanese fighters - indeed the Oscar was typically mistaken for a Zero.

A great if not indispendable reference work for anyone doing reseach on the subject, they are rather less succesful as general history, somewhat missing the wood for the trees.

Btw, I got my copies off the local library, so I don't have them to hand. Could someone please tell me the distance and direction of P2 in relation to P1? Wondering whether it would warrant a seperate base.

< Message edited by timtom -- 8/26/2005 3:23:15 AM >

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 4:23:20 AM

Nikademus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Big B

quote:

ORIGINAL: Herrbear

I have his first two. Glad to see vol 3 is out.

Very curious - does he give statistical breakdowns on losses, by date, month or week, circumstance, etc?

Are there appendixes full of meaningful data?

B

As TimTom related, no, he doesn't list it out but instead lays it out for the reader to sift out. In a way this is the only way he could have done it because the books clearly show how the whole 'stats' thing can be distorted by differing interpretations. For example.....it would be up to the author to classify whether or not a P-40 that is critically hit and force lands in a paddy field would constitute a "kill" or an "op loss". To be fair, Lundstrom, another well known author doesn't quite break things down for the reader either with the exception of at the end of his Vol II where he lists in his opinion how many planes were lost by both sides in terms of a2a kills. Problem there though is that he never "qualifies" what constitutes a purely "air to air" kill in combat and i ended up going through both volumes with a pen anyway same as with shores recording estimated kills here and there and adding them up for myself. Frank does list tabular losses but doesn't break them down into specifics. A problem I found with Lundstrom is that his references can be confusing because he too is telling a "story" while at the same time trying to get the facts straight but in the process he's listing and describing claimed kills by pilots, "official" kills verified by the USN and finally the "actual" kills as his research indicates. Only the USN official kills though are listed in tabular form so you the reader have to dig out the actual estimated kills yourself and they dont match the numbers he gives in his summary of volume II.

However due to the cross referenced sources the books are IMO at least, an indespensible reference for the air fighting in the SRA on the same par as Lundstrom or Frank in their respective studies. I would have to disagree that the book doesn't do much in the way of exploring the factors of the air war. Quite the opposite in fact IMO. I think Shores and his co-authors clearly showed the principle factors that led to the way thing panned out, particularily the lack of coordinated command and early warning systems....a key and polar opposite of the situation over Lunga that proved so decisive. There was also the complete underestimating of the enemy in terms of skill and quality of the aircraft which proved to be a nasty suprise to all parties involved. As TimTom related, Intel on the enemy was lousy and they never even realized throughout the campaign that they were fighting not one but two modern airframe types and lumped them all together as "Type 0's" when in fact the majority of them were Ki-43's.

TimTom:

P1 is listed as being the main airfield sited at Pangkalanbenteng which was five miles north of Palembang town. P2, the 2nd airfield was 20 miles south of Palembang. So given WitP's scale i would say no, there would not be grounds to seperate them.

Myself.....i cant wait for Vol III.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:14:23 AM

timtom

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

P1 is listed as being the main airfield sited at Pangkalanbenteng which was five miles north of Palembang town. P2, the 2nd airfield was 20 miles south of Palembang. So given WitP's scale i would say no, there would not be grounds to seperate them.

I seemed to recall P2 being 50 miles out of Palembang, but I might've pulled that out of a bottle. Googling it comes up with an BBC oral history interview with one Basil Frank Lawrence. He states that P1 was 14 miles outside Palembang, P2 40 miles out, although this is of course a fairly poor source for this kind of information.

I take it the river on the map is the Mosi (sic)? P1 and P2 were on opposite sides of that river, right?

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 8:49:55 AM

m10bob

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"The Ragged Rugged Warriors" is a good read regarding the early days in the entire Pacific,(IMHO)..I believe it was written by Martin Caiden..Had actions of all Allied nations including Chinese,Dutch, and Phillipinoes.........

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 9:03:36 AM

Vladd

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Just had this book delivered, recommended. Main thing for me, like Vols 1&2, is the Japanese records have been sifted through with great diligence, so it's quite easy to get a true day-by-day impression of what was actually happening regarding sorties, losses etc. Can be heavy going, but no more detailed account exists to my knowledge. For WitP players the first 2 Volumes dealing with Malaya, the Phillipines and the DEI are also of great interest.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 11:50:43 AM

Speedysteve

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Excellent guys.

I will look up the 1st 2 volumes first. They still avialable or only 2nd hand?

Regards,

Steven

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 4:28:07 PM

Nikademus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: timtom

I seemed to recall P2 being 50 miles out of Palembang, but I might've pulled that out of a bottle. Googling it comes up with an BBC oral history interview with one Basil Frank Lawrence. He states that P1 was 14 miles outside Palembang, P2 40 miles out, although this is of course a fairly poor source for this kind of information.

I take it the river on the map is the Mosi (sic)? P1 and P2 were on opposite sides of that river, right?

not sure. your info may be referring to two smaller airfields that were also located in the general vicinity. One is too far away but the 2nd one was located about 50miles SW of P2. Perhaps that was the one you are thinking of.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 4:44:14 PM

timtom

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Not really thinking anything, Buttdemus - it's just the voices in my head...

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 4:45:40 PM

Nikademus

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i dont suppose the voices are listing any winning Lotto numbers are they?

I'd have more time for research if it wasn't for this "work" thang....

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:02:32 PM

Speedysteve

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So are the 1st 2 books still widely available?

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:06:29 PM

timtom

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http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?y=15&tn=bloody+shambles&x=45&sortby=3

< Message edited by timtom -- 8/26/2005 5:13:42 PM >

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:09:06 PM

Speedysteve

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Merci mon ami

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:16:56 PM

Nikademus

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Volume 1 was out of print for a while but is now back in. Unfortunately I had to do the used book search dance and paid a bit more for my copy as a result but it was worth it in the end.

I wish they'd get the lead out and make Vol 3 available!

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:22:29 PM

Speedysteve

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Talking of used books. I had a NIGHTMARE in finding Freeman's mighty 8th. I found some places selling it for over $300

In the end I bought it for �50ish incl shippingfor Aus. What a great book it is.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:25:48 PM

Nikademus

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I think the biggest purchase I had to make was around 60 pounds aquiring a copy of Cambell's naval weapons of WWII from the uk site for Amazon. a teeth gritter but another worthwhile purchase.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:38:21 PM

Speedysteve

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You should buy more from the UK to subsidise our great country

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:50:54 PM

Nikademus

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dons 'Ultimate US Fanboy hat'

ahem....

"Well, I think we've subsudized your poor excuse for a country enough as is dont you think you Pommie UY(&(*(!!!!. HEY! btw....your lend lease LOAN payment is overdue. Late fees WILL apply.

Send check or money order to

ERS (External Revenue Service)
c/o Nik
Seattle
WA
999999999999999-alien

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:55:19 PM

Speedysteve

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Ahem.....swipes Nik's 'Ultimate US Fanboy hat' off his cropper....

Dons righteous crown......

You want payment for lend lease?!?

How about us giving you your country all those years ago. And bailing you out against Japan. If it wasn't for our efforts in Burma

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:56:57 PM

Nikademus

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let me get Mr Stillwell's opinion on that. Mr Stillwell as you know was a well known fan of your country.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 5:59:14 PM

Nikademus

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From: Stillwell, Joe. General. Head cheese

To: Nik

Message: GOD DA*&&*(! POMMIE BAZ98789!!(#(&....I'D BE IN INDO CHINA RIGHT NOW IF IT WASN'T FOR THEM AND THEIR *&()*@ TEA TIME. GOD *&*(@ IT DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF? HOW (*&&^*( HARD IS IT TO MARCH AND TAKE A BASE?!!!!!! MY CHINESE DO BETTER THAN A POMMIE *(&*( DIVISION. GOD (*&*( IMPERIALISTIC BAZ*(&(

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/26/2005 6:06:14 PM

Speedysteve

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Stillwell propaganda.

He was never believed.

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RE: Burma Air War Book - 8/28/2005 1:11:32 AM

AmiralLaurent

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I bought it today. It is not up to standard of the volume 1 and 2 as to details (covering more than 3 years in one book while the former covered 3 months each, even on a wider area) but still in the high category of my WW2 books. Air battles are described in details and losses and claims of both sides are given.

I have still to read the biggest part of it but my impression is that the Oscars did very well during, at least far better than in WITP, if you watch the real losses.

Another thing of note is the fact that Burma skies were really quiet for most of the summer and fall 1942. 3 days of action described in 1942, 1 in July, 5 in August, 6 in September and then more and more.

Like Mr Shore's other last books about the 2nd TAF, this book is very good regarding the A2A battles, losses and claims but paid little attention to the ground bombings or naval strikes (two things well covered in Bloody Shambles 1 and 2). For example RAF bombers sank on 14 Oct 42 a cargo in Akyab, its name is not given. Also the routine ground support actions of both sides are described only when a loss was suffered.

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