Talk:Junkers Ju 488

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 17:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Which sources to believe?

I have two sources on this aircraft, both cited in the article: Sharp (2016) and Green (1970). They differ in many details. Sharp bases most of his account on an Allied CIOS document dated January 1945. At one point he remarks that "The historical account that included this information, which also suggested that the Ju 488 was to have a dorsal gun turret, was written during the 1960s at a time when most intelligence reports on German wartime projects were still classified as secret. It ought now to be treated with a degree of caution, if not downright scepticism." In this context we may note that the contemporary drawings reproduced by Sharp conspicuously lack any such turret. Green is unclear which documents he draws on, but that 1960s account was probably one of them. We see photos in Green purporting to be prototype V 401 at Latecoere, and photos in Sharp purporting to be that same plane at Breguet. Both have everything blown up by the French Resistance at the same time, but again they disagree about whose factory it was! Green has the half-built machine scheduled to go to Germany to have its outer wings fitted, while Sharp's photos show the outer wings present at Breguet. One resolution of this is to credit Sharp's contemporary 1945 photographs as unarguable evidence. The question then arises as to whether Green is wholly mistaken or he and his sources might have mixed up V 401 with the second prototype V 402. In this, Green is insistent that both were made at the same time, while Sharp passes by V 402 without comment. Might say V 401 have been made by Breguet and V 402 by Latecoere? But why then did the contemporary CIOS report make no mention of V 402? Critical to my view is that Sharp bases all his published work almost entirely on contemporary documents, whereas I have noted that on occasion Green was not above regurgitating the odd myth perpetrated by predecessors such as Heinz Nowarra. I would therefore give credence to Sharp where these sources differ and qualify any material from Green as "it is thought that" or similar. Does anybody have any problems/comments etc. with regard to all that? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:05, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Green's material is so old that I'd discount it almost entirely, much like I do Nowarra's stuff. Kay's book on Junkers aircraft and engines dates to 2004 and has a brief account of the aircraft that I'd combine with Sharp, along with any other material that is 30 years old or less.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:18, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I take it you mean:

• Kay, Antony L. (2004) Junkers Aircraft And Engines, 1913-1945. Putnam. ISBN 0851779859

Bit out of my price range these days, sadly. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:31, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Can you borrow a copy through Interlibrary Loan?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:12, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Interlibrary loans cost money these days, I don't do that any more. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:21, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Then your articles will often be lacking important sources.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:59, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

If I may say so, that remark shows a gross misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. There is no such thing as "my" articles, they are Wikipedia articles and anyone can edit them, including you. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:26, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Or, more plausibly, I was referring to articles that you've worked on.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:15, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

You can always work on them yourself, you know. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:57, 7 December 2019 (UTC)