Platapus
02-23-14, 08:13 AM
Impact: the Army Air Forces' confidential picture history of WWII in eight books
Published by Historical Times, inc, Harrisburg PA 1982
http://www.amazon.com/IMPACT-forces-Confidential-Picture-History/dp/B000ZG9VEK
During WWII, the USAAF published a classified magazine which was shared with the British Intelligence community. The magazine covered intelligence, tactics, and other strategic information. Since they were declassified the publisher in the 1980's assembled most of these magazines into eight hardback bindings.
I had never heard of this before and was very happy when a friend of mine lent me volume four. As part of the binding, there are also essays published after WWII. One of the most interesting is an essay on the intentions of the Pearl Harbour attack written by Lt Gen Minoru Genda, how happens to know a few things about the attack.
The book is filled with pictures that I have not seen in other WWII books. These are not always pretty pictures as most of them are combat pictures showing the effects of weapons and illustrating target intelligence.
What I find most valuable is that this is a record of the contemporary understanding of the war. When you are studying war, and especially the decisions, it is too easy to take advantage of hindsight. Using data available 70 years after the war to evaluate decisions is not often the right thing to do. You have to consider what did the decision-maker know at the time of the decision. These magazines give that insight. There are mistakes in these magazines... but they represented what we knew at that time and that is a valuable thing to a historian.
Anyone else have these?
Published by Historical Times, inc, Harrisburg PA 1982
http://www.amazon.com/IMPACT-forces-Confidential-Picture-History/dp/B000ZG9VEK
During WWII, the USAAF published a classified magazine which was shared with the British Intelligence community. The magazine covered intelligence, tactics, and other strategic information. Since they were declassified the publisher in the 1980's assembled most of these magazines into eight hardback bindings.
I had never heard of this before and was very happy when a friend of mine lent me volume four. As part of the binding, there are also essays published after WWII. One of the most interesting is an essay on the intentions of the Pearl Harbour attack written by Lt Gen Minoru Genda, how happens to know a few things about the attack.
The book is filled with pictures that I have not seen in other WWII books. These are not always pretty pictures as most of them are combat pictures showing the effects of weapons and illustrating target intelligence.
What I find most valuable is that this is a record of the contemporary understanding of the war. When you are studying war, and especially the decisions, it is too easy to take advantage of hindsight. Using data available 70 years after the war to evaluate decisions is not often the right thing to do. You have to consider what did the decision-maker know at the time of the decision. These magazines give that insight. There are mistakes in these magazines... but they represented what we knew at that time and that is a valuable thing to a historian.
Anyone else have these?