Customer Reviews

Combat History of the 654th Schwere Panzerjager Abteilung

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Five stars isn't enough for this mammoth book. If you're an enthusiast of German armor, this is a must-have volume. It's huge, filled with fantastic photos, veterans' first-hand reports, combat reports, you name it, it's in here. Worth every nickel!

Great book,the follow up book to 653th Schwere Panzer battalion by the same author,packed with rare and never seen before photos,over 500 pages,700 photos,30 odd pages of brillant colour art work,20 pages of organisation charts,one fanastic book at a bargin price right now.

Another Fedorowicz gem, nicelly put together! Karlheinz Munch does not disappoint. The photos in this massive 650 page book are great, some 700 of them, plus color plates.

You can follow the unit in different operations on day by day acounts, as well as unit history . A good book for historic and armor enthusiats This book is a welcome addition to my Library.

this book is about as detailed as anyone could expect and covers the unit in great depth - well worth getting though the price of it seems to vary a lot from one supplier to the next

I have not yet finished reading this book,but I have allready spend a lot of hours studying the huge amound of pictures concerning this unit and her vehicles and reading about her history.
Early war pictures with "doorknocker" 37mm AT gun, Ferdinand and Jagdpanther. This book is a musthave for everyone interested in WW2, modelers, and armoured vehicle enthousiasts.
And the stories and pictures of the men who served in it make it extra worth buying.

The book is huge with tons of pictures. I've never seen so many pictures of the Ferdinand Elefant in one book. But there is more. From the begining when the 654th was
a truck based anti-tank pak unit to the Hunting Panther! I love the book and plan on purchasing 503rd.

Bonjour,
Je viens de recevoir le livre sur la 654 sPzJgAbt, pour les fanas de belles photos de jagdpanther, c'est vraiment super interessant. Le journal de marche de cette unité est absolument top. Si je peux me permettre un conseil, achetez le, c'est ce qu'il y a de mieux dans le genre.

I will address the book's contents, compare it with its sister volume(Schwere PJ Abt 653)
and provide photos for the gallery.

Back in 2002-2003 timeframe my Russian friend, professional author, asked me to get him a couple of volumes from USA. Both 653 and 654 books were on the list.

This book is very valuable for student of history because it has primary sources i have not seen elsewhere. Author placed entire documents like after action reports and combat journal (war diary as he refers to it).

First, the Photos in Sch.PJ.Abt.654.
This book has equipment, soldiers in the field/at rest, studio postcards of soldiers, scans of award documents. Photos are non-generic, and specific to time and place discussed. its not a jagdpanther but the jagdpanther kind of thing. Not all things i like - there is a solid percentage of photocards, parades, award scans. I'd prefer more field photos, and photos taken of the environment they were in.

A little more about the image selection in this book. From personally examining photo collections of German soldiers, no less than a third of the photos are usually of local populations, new cities, and other unique items. These photos are almost totally omitted from the volume, and its a sad fact. I think they provide a wealth of information and provide a good backdrop to combat photos and war documents.

There are a number of color photographs(2-3?), which are a very welcome addition. Color plates by the artist Kolacha are large and appear very accurate. HL Doyle's line drawings profile the key tank destoyers of the unit.

Book quality.
Accuracy of data and authenticity of sources is paramount, however a quality presentation goes a long way, especially if you keep the book for a lifetime. In this department JJ Fedorowicz publishing house did an excellent job. Books are large, printed on thick quality paper.

Contents:
Book text is filled with a lot of unabridged documents. This is important as access to them is not made easy by fact that author does not pinpoint their location, as is often done in peer reviewed journals, and even more importantly that some of these documents, even of very official nature, are from private collections of ex-soldiers.

Author does a good job putting documents into context. His system of having a running narrative heavily indexed with dates, and separate boxed areas that have primary sources, works well.

Photos are discussed earlier, but its important to emphasize that they tie to text well. Crediting photos to individual soldiers helps with understanding.

There are few maps. Which is a little strange as author clearly had access to German maps of that time period, and considering the depth of his research, possibly some with inkmarks relating to the 654th.

653 or 654?
If you have to choose: For photo quality i would pick up 653, for primary sources, 654.