PublishedHelion & Company, February 2022 |
ISBN9781915070876 |
FormatSoftcover, 215 pages |
Dimensions29.8cm × 21cm |
Victory or overclaim? That is the question! As new military archival materials began to surface internationally, it became necessary to update and correct some of the legendary chapters of aviation history including world records of the Luftwaffe's famous and most successful fighter unit, Jagdgeschwader 52.
In this book, the respected reader will find a fundamental analysis of the aerial victory claims of the top eight JG 52 fighter aces over Hungary throughout 1944-1945. The method of analysis within this book is very simple: if a plane was shot down by a pilot, then the opposing side had to lose a corresponding plane. While it is true that Soviet aerial losses were inaccessible to most researchers for the past several decades, it is also true that this lack of information created a plethora of legends of the aerial war over the Eastern Front. Unfortunately that one-sided narrative, unable to be verified from the 'other' side, created a biased and 'alternative' aerial history. In our post-archive era, the doors of many archives including that of the military archives of the Russian Federation have begun to open to researchers. This creates an opportunity to learn about an otherwise unattainable piece of history. Since the authors, through their co-operation with the Szolnok Aircraft Museum, had access to the records of every Soviet aircraft lost over Hungary during the Second World War, a comparison of claims to losses could be made right down to the individual pilot-versus-pilot level. Plane to plane and face to face, these former enemies may be seen together for the first time in nearly eighty years. The findings in this book and the authors' analysis and comparison overturns previously known statistics and accounts by verifying the aerial victories of famous pilots including Erich Hartmann, Gerhard Barkhorn, Helmut Lipfert, and others. AUTHORS: Daniel Horvath, son of Gabor Horvath, is an aviation enthusiast currently finishing his MBA specializing in data analytics. He shares in his father's fascination of aviation and has partaken in warplane recovery research, discovering the crash site of a German Bf 109 located between the Lakes Balaton and Velence in 2016. Joining forces with his father he has contributed to this work not only through his research but also in the book's digital art. Gabor Horvath's interest in aviation history spans several decades, particularly for Second World War aviation history over Hungary, eventually propelling him to volunteer as off-site database administrator and researcher for the Hungarian Szolnok Aircraft Museum (RepTar). Gabor is an I.T. professional working in Canada's education sector. He has been instrumental in organising international warplane wreck-recovery projects both in Hungary and in Russia and published his first book titled Bostonok a Magyar Egen es Foeldben 1944-1945 (Bostons in the Hungarian Sky and Soil 1944-1945) in 2013. His specialised research area is the Soviet Air Force over Hungary during WWII. 107 b/w photos, 49 colour ills, 4 maps, 147 tables, 13 charts
