I would like to promote a new book that for me is, beside beeing well written, both important and a big surprise!!!

Gloster Gladiator and Hawker Hart: In Combat with the Swedish Voluntary Wing F19, Finland 1940



Amongst Swedes, this group (F19) of people (mostly men ) volunteering to defend Finland's northern airspace around Rovaniemi and Salla front during Winterwar 39-40, is shamefully pretty much unknown. They flew Hawker Harts and the for us so beloved J8A (Swedish Gloster Gladiator) depicted in Il2, modelled F19_Haddock (aka Cpt_Haddock).

For those of you who don't know about this group check this .

There was before only one major publication written about F19 before, "F19 - A Chronicle" written by the squadron's Aide-de-camp Greger Falk, and written only in Swedish and Finnish, and is today very hard to come by.

So..this showed up out of the blue, written by photographer and author Mikael Forslund, a new F19 bible, written in English, about a small obscure group of people, well organized who fought for Finland. Finally there is an internationally available account about F19 in book form, well written, personal, loads of info and photos about F19 and the Gladiator, and a must have for WWII-book collectors/readers.

Highly recommendable!!! A4 format and 200 pages

Swedes may order it here at Author's own webpage.

International buyers may buy it from the link above. (amazon.co.uk)

Thank you for your time..


//The Klunk

Author's own description of the book, translated from Swedish by me (so u should blame me if there any "&#/#%&¤%¤)

Gloster Gladiator and Hawker Hart
In combat with Swedish voluntary wing F 19, Finland 1940

F 19 was the Swedish volunteer air squadron, which existed in the first three months of 1940, in northern Finland. Heated air battles and nightly bomb raids carried out in extreme cold, sometimes down to -45 °. A lot of dogfights won, and Soviet aircrafts destroyed on the ground. But F 19 also suffered losses. Despite all F 19 made a significant effort and averted 35 bombing attacks against Finnish ground targets.

Soviet Union had November 30, 1939 started what came to be called the Finnish Winter War. Northern Finland was completely without air defense. A Swedish appeal amongst the staff of the Swedish Air force ended up with some 260 volunteers, airmen and ground crew. F 19 was from the Swedish Air Force equipped with twelve English aircraft type Gloster Gladiator, called J 8A in the Swedish Air Force and four light aircraft bomb type Hawker Hart, called B 4A. To this was a civilian German-built Junkers transport aircraft of the type F-13. F 19 was later supplemented by an additional Hawker Hart, a civil US-based transport of type Waco ZQL-6 and a small 2-seat civilian German liaison aircraft built by the type Raab Katzenstein RK-26.

The Soviet aircrafts that met the Swedes in the air, was double-decked fighter Polikarpov I-15BIS, monoplane and fighter Polikarpov I-16, the twin-engined bombers Tupolev SB and Iljushin DB-3, and the huge 4-engine bomber Tupolev TB-3. These aircraft types were available in large quantities and far exceeded the number of the Swedish aircraft.

Read about gunner Matti Sundsten's amazing hardships on skis, over five days in 40-degree (Celcius) cold, after having been shot down in a Hawker Hart over the front. Pilot of Hawker Hart, Arne Jung's story, about his time as prisoner of war tortured in the Soviet. Ian Iacobi's shooting down of an I-15BIS (book cover image) -moreover, a Swedish pilot's first air victory. Radio operator Roland Sahlberg experiences from the back seat of a Hawker Hart over five night bombing. Read also about when Einar Thelen shot down two Tupolev SB at the same time, while he was trying to get to friendly lines in his shot up Gladiator, and Gideon Karlsson's shooting down of a huge 4-engine Tupolev TB-3.

inspiration:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2408988/f19_m_rkaj_rvi_winterwar_1939_1940_il2_re_enactment/

Thanks for the info Klunk, went on the shopping list

Thx for headsup

any ideas on wich languages it will be available?

only English as far as I know

Kewl! I will definitely check this out.

The eight Gladiators sent to Finland actually constituted one third of the Swedish fighter force at the time!