 Kurt Tank's Photo Album 1940-1943
Compiled by Roy Powell & Barry Ketley
Flight Recorder Publications, ©2004
ISBN 0-9545695-3-1
Softbound, 68 Pages
Available from Specialty Press for $16.95
Many of us have photo albums, and many of our family members have
photo albums. Collecting photos of a certain event, or a certain time
frame, is a common thing for people to do, which has often led me to
wonder what it would be like to come across the photo album of someone
famous. This book does just that, bringing to the public eye the photo
collection of Kurt Tank, the chief designer of Focke Wulf. As such, these
photos are of an unusually high quality and show predominantly Focke
Wulf aircraft.
The book starts out with some background information and early photos
from the album, including some interesting poster sketches. These apparently
depict people from the company, displayed in tongue-in-cheek caricatures.
The obvious humor clearly depict a company in high spirits. As this is
before the war, the high spirits are understandable, as German industry
was in full swing, producing both military and civil aircraft.
Immediately following this is a section showing France after the fall
in the summer of 1940, where apparently Kurt Tank toured. The photos
here show French aircraft in varying states of disarray. For those of
you who have given thought to doing a destroyed French aircraft diorama,
you'll find lots of potential here. In addition to aircraft, there are
also several photos showing armor vehicles, including an interesting
Renault Char B1 tank with the name "Madagascar" on the turret
side.
Once past this general overview comes detailed sections on aircraft.
Adolf Galland gets some exposure here (in fact, it was through Galland
that this album was identified as belonging to Kurt Tank), but the majority
of the stuff presented here are Focke Wulf aircraft. These include the
Fw 190 and Fw 189 in some detail, as well as the little-known Berlin
B 9. This is an interesting little plane with a fascinating history captured
in photos. Also presented is the unique Fw 191, an aircraft that had
every moveable surface controlled electrically. Needless to say, this
aircraft was a dismal failure.
This is a fascinating piece of history reproduced by the people at
Flight Recorder Publications that will be of interest to both researchers
and modelers alike. My thanks to Specialty Press for the review sample.
Visit their website for this and other interesting aviation book titles.
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