This good new book ‘Forgotten Heroes: Aces of the Royal Hungarian Air Force in the Second World War’ gives the reader an overview of the “forgotten” Hungarian aces who fought their air battles in the second world war on German side. Their opponents were mainly Russians and Americans. Interesting part of the book is the Hungarian description of the definition of an air victory or ace. From documents and eye witness reports it appears that especially on the German side the number of air victories that were published was grossly exaggerated. Also the tactics that the Hungarian Air Force used against the often far more superior opponents is thoroughly explained.
In many cases on German side an air victory was allocated to multiple pilots who were involved in a particular air battle in their hunt for the highest decoration and fame in which the top aces mostly had the advantage of their rank. That was not the case with the Hungarian Aces who flew mainly with German made fighters like the Me-109 and gained with this plane their biggest victories. These victories are captured in this book with original documents and reports.
All big Hungarian Aces are presented and classified by the number of victories and confirmed by copies of logbooks and war documents supplemented by photo material and descriptions of their biography, training history and the decorations they achieved. Amazingly in addition to many cases also photos and a short life review of their American or Russian victims are also published. All the important air battles these heroes fought are described as well in this book especially those that gave them the ace status.
The book is an unbelievable profound and in depth document of their lives as a pilot and ace. In fact it is astonishing that so much historical material and reports could be reproduced from a war more than 70 years ago. It contains 448 pages supported by a huge amount of original black and white photos (350) and some of them recoloured including relevant drawings and tables.
The research for this book took the author 23 years that shows in the details of the stories. The overall execution and paper quality of this hard cover book is outstanding and resulted in a exclusive highly rated edition. It is a brilliant in every ones bookcase and for those who are interested in this historical period of WW2 worth every penny.
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