Cyberspec wrote:I use to watch Red Dwarf religiously as well back in the day.
As far as books go, I would recommend Bagration to Berlin: The Final Air Battles in the East 1944-1945 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1903223911/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i01
The title is misleading as it covers virtually the entire conflict from Barbarossa to Berlin. It's well researched and pretty balanced...the only downside is it's not cheap.
Man that reminds me
I started reading this book a few years back; it was the autobiography of a Soviet Airforce Marshal.
It was written in the 70s I think
Basically it started off with him telling about his early life in 20s Soviet Russia; about living on the streets as a boy, getting into fights against gangs of kids who robbed and beat him, getting in with a gang who were based around the old Tsarist-era army barracks, who fed him and taught him how to steal and so on
and then about getting taken into some sort of new government-run orphanage, later on starting training there as a dieselist and learning about engines.
Then he got the chance to apply to a flight academy. He came out the top of his class in all parameters, and constantly. He graduated and was promoted from one position to the next; got his officer stripes and then shot straight up the ranks; he became a flight instructor at the academy (a position which was reserved for the very best pilots), and then continued to advance.
When war broke out he got command of his own squadron having turned down some other more prestigious and less front-line position or something like that. Can't remember the details. Actually I think I got a lot of details wrong in my description.
But it was a damn interesting book. Unfortunately I didn't get far into it and only made to it to just where the war broke out in '41; or perhaps when the Soviet-Japaneses border conflict erupted; one of those two.
I was reading it at the garrison infirmary while I serving; and as soon as I got better I left the infirmary... and the book.
There were so many insights there, so many things about early flight, life during those times, and some things which are being twisted and ignored today.
For example, he was talking about how in the last few years prior to the war - him and his fellow officers all knew that war with Germany was coming; it was no secret despite the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
Which makes today's propaganda efforts by various Eastern European governments to equate the USSR & Nazi Germany, claim that they were in an alliance, etc... all the more cynical.
I'll buy the person who names this guy a bottle of fine wine next time you're in St. Petersburg. I really can't for the life of me remember the Marshall's name.
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I am the same... if I like a digital copy I will usually buy the original even though I already have a free copy.
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