An introduction to the NEW Wingleader Photo Archive Series.
For quite a few years, Simon Parry and Mark Postlethwaite have been building up a huge library of original WWII aviation photos, partly as a hobby but mainly to help provide photos for the books that they publish. With over 30,000 now in the collection, they realised that they had more than enough to produce a series of photo books on individual aircraft types and sub-types. They set out to make the series as ideally suited to modellers and artists as possible, so large photos, using A4 landscape format, and minimal text except for extended captions. Effectively their aim is to produce a 21st Century version of the Profile Publications series of books from the 1960s, using the latest technology to reproduce their wartime photos to the highest standard possible.
This series is unique in that it will be able to provide large format ORIGINAL photos up to full A4 landscape format width, which is at least 50% larger than any standard book can deliver. Combined with the specialist knowledge of a team of historians and contributors, each book should provide unbeatable and accurate references for any modelling or painting project.
We always planned to do Luftwaffe bombers in this series but never imagined that we’d have enough photos to do them individually. However, after consulting Chris Goss whose Luftwaffe photo collection continues to grow on a daily basis, we realised that the Heinkel He 111 was now more than achievable.
We decided to restrict the book to operations over the UK as the Russian and Mediterranean Theatres could probably be covered in a separate volume. We’ve also included the early war operations over England as these produced some of the best photographs of the captured Heinkels.
The photos are arranged by Kampfgeschwader Gruppes and we’ve included a panel for each Gruppe with a list of official code letters and colours of each staffel, (the individual aircraft letter represented by an X). Also included are the usual detail pages where we focus on one particular aspect such as grenade launchers, formation markings and the differences between the P and H series.
This book contains approx 120 original wartime photos and 6 detailed colour profiles.
