Review: Double Fighter Knight

[sniper1shot]

Title: Double Fighter Knight
Authour: Ilmari Juutilainen
Publisher: Apali Oy
ISBN: 978 952 5026 47 4
Stars: 4 (out of 5)

Well, it has been awhile since I have posted a review so here we go.....
This book is a Biography about a Finnish Aviator, Ilmari Juutilainen, who fought in both the Soviet-Finish war, and WWII or as they, the Fins, called it the Continuation War. His final total of confirmed air victories stands at 94.
The book is broken down into 4 main topics. The Winter War (Soviet Invasion of Finland), the Peace between the wars, WWII, and the final battles in the Gulf of Finland.
I found the book starts off strong with how the Fins were able to defeat the Soviet Military and what little resources they had at hand to do it. I also enjoyed reading on how the average Finnish soldier was thinking both along the military and political lines during the wars.
The chapters describe all the battles and sometimes the research in the book is able to tell who their foe was at the time. There is also the vivid descriptions of air attacks verse ground targets which will leave the reader able to picture what it was like for both the pilot and the target. There are a few pictures that most will of never seen which in themselves are quite interesting.
The only points that I found that I could fault the bio on was that on some of the air battles seems to be mundane. Some of the battles almost come across as being boring for the pilot. True, you can only describe a plane shooting another plane down in so many words but I did find some of the battles almost seemed to be a repeat in wording (they aren't). The last point that I did not like is the way the authour describes the end of the war. All of this battle and then nothing....."All sorties are cancelled"...."OK boss" (this is a quote on the last 2 sentences of the Bio)
The indexes of top Finnish pilots, their Highest award and a glossary of plane and language terminology will help the reader along with this book.
Recommended for both the Aviation and WWII buff. :[]

[TRDG]

Tanks Sniper, i may have to see if I can get a copy sometime, was there a lot of plane attacks against tanks by chance, and how detailed were they if there was?

Cheers

Tom

[sniper1shot]

No, the only descriptions of Plane vs Tank was when the authour describes the German Stuka units in Finland doing it. Only 1 such attack stands out and is only a paragraph or so.

[TRDG]

I see, do you know of any books that you have read that deal with this subject a bit more, either from the German or the Russian point of view by chance?

Cheers, and thanks for the info on this book as to if it had this topic.

Tom