Customer Reviews

White Eagles: The Aircraft, Men and Operations of the Polish Air Force 1918-1939

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If you are interested in aviation history, a fan of vintage aircraft, a modelling enthusiast or a student of middle European affairs in the twentieth century, this book is - quite simply - a gem. The publishers, Hikoki, have an enviable reputation for high quality books which tackle unusual subjects (the air war in Biafra, the Coronation fly-past, photo-reconnaissance in south-east Asia in WWII are recent examples) and make them seem indispensable. This book on the Polish Air Force (1918-39) is one of their VERY best. A hardback of 302 pages, it contains nearly 470 black and white photos and 131 colour profile side-views to accompany the text which is split into three main sections. The first deals with the short period 1918-20 which saw the reconstitution of Poland after 120 years of divided serfdom to Russia, Germany and Austria, only to find itself in an immediate shooting war against Russian Bolsheviks. The fledgling Polish Air Force was equipped with an assortment of ex-German, French and White Russian planes and the authors deal with the overall progress of the conflict plus individual unit histories. The second section covers the inter-war period of 1920-38. For a newly-emerged nation with no WWI aircraft industry, Poland developed some extremely attractive aircraft, of which the most famous - the PZL parasol gull-winged fighter series - get pride of place. The suppression of coups-d'etat and sabre-rattling against Lithuania and Czechoslovakia are minor punctuations of the years of peace that precede section three - 1939. Some seventy pages are devoted to the annihilation of Polish forces by Germany in just over two weeks, the disbanding of air force units and the exodus of flyers and ground crew to join other air forces. There are further short sections on Polish Naval Aviation and Balloon Units, together with numerous maps, tables of aircraft and aero engine production, armaments, losses, personnel, Orders of Battle, glossaries of Polish terms and pronunciation and more. The text is very readable, but it is serious, factual and dense and may not suit those who like their history "chatty". Some colour profiles are accompanied by planform views, most are not. These points aside, the overall verdict is EXCELLENT. You get an awful lot for your money and five stars hardly seems enough.