Talk:Henry Sakaida

Some mistakes in Sakaida's books

I happen to have some of Sakaida's books, and noticed a couple rather disapointing mistakes and controversial claims.

From his book Heronies of the Soviet Union 1941-45, these are just a few of them:

• In the "complete list of heronies of the Soviet Union", Olga Sanfirova was ommitted from the list - despite the fact that she CERTAINLY was awarded the title (as indicated by Soviet newspapers and literally every other historian who has written about the issue).
• He claims that Klavdiya Fomicheva was the highest-scoring Pe-2 "ace" with 11 kills. Most sources indicate five kills, and no Russian historian has made this claim about her.
• He listed Larisa Litvinova as having received the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1945; she received it in 1948. Soviet newspapers, official documents, and all other historians indicate a 1948 award date.

I do not think that Sakaida consulted the official documents available online at pamyat-naroda.ru when writing his books, and it certainly appears that he relied heavily on eyewitnesses who were quite old (when memory is not that good). While the books are not as unreliable as something like Daily Mail or The Onion, information from the books ought to be taken with a grain of salt and compared against other publications.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 16:16, 5 July 2019 (UTC)