RAF_Louvert 101 Posted March 22, 2012 . In my ongoing quest for old WWI aviation volumes I've scored a nice 1939 English translation of M.E. Kahnert's work "Jagdstaffel 356", in original dust jacket. This work is thought to be a semi-autobiographical account written by Rudolph Stark as concerned his time in Jasta 35b. It might also be a grouping of various personal accounts from the Bavarian Staffels. Whatever it may be, it is an excellent read and a welcome addition to my shelves, which are woefully lacking in writings from the German side of the War. With this latest addition my library now looks as follow: Personal Narratives, Biographies, and Novels: "Ace With One Eye: The Story of ‘Mick’ Mannock VC", Frederick Oughton, (1963 1st Edition) "A Flying Fighter", E.M. Roberts, (1918 1st Edition) "Airmen O' War", Boyd Cable, (1918 1st Edition) "All Quiet on the Western Front", Erich Remarque, (1929 English Edition) "An Airman Marches", Harold Balfour, (Vintage Aviation Library Edition) "An Airman's Outings", Alan 'Contact' Bott, (1917 1st Edition) "An Aviator's Field-Book", Oswald Bolcke, English Translation, (1917 1st Edition) "A Poet of the Air", Jack Morris Wright, (1918 1st Edition) "A Rattle of Pebbles: The First World War Diaries Of Two Canadian Airmen", Brereton Greenhous, (1987 1st Edition) "Beyond the Tumult", Barry Winchester, (1971 1st Edition) "Cavalry of the Clouds", Alan 'Contact' Bott, (1918 1st Edition) "Cloud Country", Jimmie Mattern, (1936 Pure Oil 1st Edition) 3-volume set "Days on the Wing", Willy Coppens, English Translation, (1931 1st Edition) "Death in the Air", William Heinemann, (1933 Edition) (famous faked aerial photos) "Double-Decker C.666", Haupt Heydemarck, English Translation, (1931 1st Edition) "Eastern Nights and Flights: A Record of Oriental Adventure", Alan 'Contact' Bott, (1920 1st Edition) "En L'air!", Bert Hall, (1918 1st Edition) "Extracts From the Letters of George Clark Moseley", (1923 1st Edition) "Fighting the Flying Circus", Edward Rickenbacker, (1919 1st Edition) "Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps", James McCudden, (1918 1st Edition) "Flying Corps Headquarters 1914-1918", Maurice Baring, (1968 1st Edition with supplementary notes) "Flying for France", James McConnell, (1917 1st Edition) "Go Get 'Em!", William Wellman, (1918 1st Edition) "Guynemer, Knight of the Air", Henry Bordeaux, English Translation, (1918 1st Edition) "Heaven High, Hell Deep", Norman Archibald, (1935 Signed 1st Edition) "High Adventure", James Norman Hall, (1918 1st Edition) "Horses Don’t Fly: A Memoir of World War I", Frederick Libby, (2000 1st US printing) "I Flew For the Lafayette Escadrille", Edwin C. Parsons, (1962 1st Edition) "Immelmann: The Eagle of Lille", Franz Immelmann, English Translation, (1930 1st Edition) "In The Clouds Above Bagdad", J.E. Tennant, (1920 1st Edition) "Jagdstaffel 356", M.E. Kahnert, (1939 1st English Edition) "Kitchener's Mob", James Norman Hall, (1916 1st Edition) "Letters From a Flying Officer", Rothsay Stuart Wortley, (1928 1st Edition) "Memories of World War 1", William Mitchell, (1960 Edition) "My Experiences in the World War", John J. Pershing, (1931 1st Edition) 2-volume set "Night Bombing with the Bedouins", Robert Reece, (Battery Press Edition) "Nocturne Militaire", Elliot White Springs, (1934 Edition) "No Parachute", Arthur Gould Lee, (1970 1st US printing) "Open Cockpit: A Pilot of the Royal Flying Corps", Arthur Gould Lee, (1969 1st Edition) "Rovers of the Night Sky", W.J. 'Night-Hawk' Harvey, (Vintage Aviation Library Edition) "Sagittarius Rising", Cecil Lewis, (1936 Edition, 1st US printing) "Stepchild Pilot", Joseph Doerflinger, (1959 1st Edition) "That’s My Bloody Plane: The World War I experiences of Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore, as told to Peter Kilduff", (1975 1st Edition) "The Flying Poilu", Marcel Nadaud, English Translation (1918 1st Edition) "The Red Knight of Germany", Floyd Gibbons, (1927 1st Edition) "The Spider Web", T.D. Hallam (P.I.X.), (1979 Edition) "The Way of the Eagle", Charles Biddle, (1919 1st Edition) "Up And At 'Em", Harold Hartney, (1940 1st Edition) "War Birds; Diary of an Unknown Aviator", Elliot White Springs, (1926 1st Edition) "Whom The Gods Love", Lewis C. Merrill, (1953 1st Edition) "Wind in the Wires", Duncan Grinnell-Milne, (1918 1st Edition) "Winged Warfare", William Bishop, (1918 1st Edition) "Winged Peace", William Bishop, (1940 1st Edition) "With the Earth Beneath", A.R. Kingsford, (1936 1st Edition) "With the Flying Squadron", Harold Rosher, (1916 1st Edition) History, Reference, and General Interest Books: "A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914 to 1918", G.J. Meyer, (2006 Edition) "Air Aces of the 1914-1918 War", Bruce Robertson, (1964 Edition) "Aircraft of World War I, 1914-1918", Jack Herris & Bob Pearson, (2010 1st Edition) "Aircraft of Today", Charles Turner, (1917 1st Edition) "Aviation in Canada 1917-18", Alan Sullivan, (1919 1st Edition) "Capronis, Farmans, and Sias: U.S. Army Aviation Training and Combat in Italy With Fiorello LaGuardia 1917-1918 ", Jack B. Hilliard, (2006 1st Edition) "Colliers New Photographic History of the World War", (1917 Edition) "Color Profiles of World War 1 Combat Planes", Giorgio Apostolo, (1974 1st Edition) "Decisive Air Battles of the First World War", Arch Whitehouse, (1963 1st Edition) "Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War", W.M. Lamberton, (1964 Edition) "Flying The Old Planes", Frank Tallman, (1973 Edition) "Fragments From France", Bruce Bairnsfather, (1917 1st Edition) (Great War cartoons by the master of the genre) "German Air Power in World War 1", John H. Morrow, Jr., (1982 1st Edition) "Heros of Aviation", Laurence La Tourette Driggs, (1919 1st Edition) "High Flew the Falcons", Herbert Molloy Mason Jr., (1965 1st Edition) "High in the Empty Blue", Alex Revell, (1995 1st Edition with author's signature card) "Historic Airships", Rupert Holland, (1928 1st Edition) "History and Rhymes of the Lost Battalion", L.C. McCollum, (1929 Edition) "History of the World War", Francis March, (1918 1st Edition) "History of the Great World War", Rolt-Wheeler and Drinker, (1919 1st Edition) "Land and Water" Magazine, (entire April through September 1917 series, hard bound, ex-library copy) "Ludendorff's Own Story", Erich Ludendorff, (1919 1st Edition) 2-volume set "National Geographic" Magazine, (entire 1918 series, hard bound, ex-library copy) "New England Aviators 1914-1918: Their Portraits and Their Records", (1919-20 1st Edition) 2-volume set "Reconnaissance & Bomber Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War", W.M. Lamberton, (1962 Edition) "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man", Robert W. Service, (1916 1st Edition) "Source Records of the Great War", (1923 1st Edition) 7-volume set "The First War Planes", William Barrett, (1960 Edition) (the one that started it all for me) "The Great Air War", Aaron Norman, (1968 Edition) "The Great War", George H. Allen, (1919 1st Edition) 5-volume set "The Great War in the Air", Edgar Middleton, (1920 1st Edition) 4-volume set "The Imperial Russian Air Service, Famous Pilots and Aircraft of World War One", Alan Durkota, (1996 1st Edition) "The Lafayette Flying Corps", by James Hall and Charles Nordhoff, (1964 Kennikat Press limited edition two-volume set) "The People's War Book and Atlas", (1920 1st Edition, signed by Lt. Col. William A. Bishop) "The Sky On Fire: The First Battle of Britain", Raymond H. Fredette, (1966 1st Edition) "The Story of a North Sea Air Station", C.F. Snowden Gamble, (1967 Edition with supplementary notes) "The United States in the Great War", Willis Abbot, (1919 1st Edition) "The U.S. Air Service in World War I", Maurer Maurer, (1978 1st Edition) 4-volume set "The War in the Air", Raleigh and Jones, (1st Edition) 9-volume set including map cases, (originally in the military library at Whitehall; my personal Jewel of the Crown) "The Western Front from the Air", Nicholas C. Watkis, (1999 1st Edition) "Time-Life Epic of Flight", 23-volume set, (not old and not strictly WWI but still a lot of good info and photos) "True Stories of the Great War", (1918 1st Edition) 6-volume set "U.S. Official Pictures of the World War", Moore and Russell, (1924 1st Edition) 4-volume set "1920 World Book Encyclopedia", (entire set with addendums, great for cross-referencing in a contemporary context) Instructional Books: "Aeroplane Construction and Operation", John Rathbun, (1918 1st Edition) "English-French War Guide for Americans in France", Eugene Maloubier, (1918 Edition) "Learning to Fly in the U.S. Army", E.N. Fales, (1917 1st Edition) "Lewis Machine Gun 'Airplane Type' Service and Operation Manual", (1918 Edition) "Manual Of Rigging Notes Technical Data", (1918, possible reprint) "Practical Flying", W.G. McMinnies, (1918 1st Edition) "The Art of Reconnaissance", David Henderson, (1916 1st Edition) "Technical Notes: Royal Flying Corps", (1916 1st Edition) "Science of Pre-Flight Aeronautics", (1942 Edition) "Self-Help for the Citizen Soldier", Moss and Stewart, (1915 1st Edition) . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Olham 164 Posted March 22, 2012 Congrats to your find, Lou. The title is strange - as if the editors had misread "35b" for "356" ? There was, of course, no such high number for a Jagdstaffel; so I had always thought, the work might be rather fictional. However - what I didn't find among your books is that of Julius Buckler: "Malaula! The battlecry of Jasta 17". That book is definitely not fictional, and you can even get it in English, translated - I believe - by Norman Franks. I don't know how good the translation is, but the original is a great read - I recommend it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RAF_Louvert 101 Posted March 22, 2012 . Thanks Olham. Yes, the '35b' '356' is odd, and that fact along with similarities in writing style to "Wings of War" is why some folks think the work was written by Rudolf Stark under the pseudonym M.E. Kahnert. I believe it is a 'fictional' work based on someone's real life experiences, perhaps Stark's. Concerning Buckler's work, it is on my list of books to add to my collection and I am only waiting for the right price. . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites