Why this site ?

Photo(A)Rudi Augarten and Avia S199 at Natanya July 1948.

I have been surfing the "net" for some time now and going through the information regarding the Israeli Air Force it is pretty impressive. The modern subjects are well covered from the historical and photographical point of view,but when it comes to the early years, particularly the photographical coverage, a lot more can be offered.For example duplications of the same photo's, inaccurate captions that been inherited from previous publications and dozens of photographs of the same plane from every angle from the IAF museum.

On this set I tried to share some of the material and information that been collected by me through the years from different sources around the world. Here are three examples of inaccurate captions that appeared through different publications. Photo(A) reads:" Rudi Augarten with an enemy shot down plane" in another case the caption reads "Rudi Augarten with a Spitfire in ...." but if you noticed the shape of the propeller, that is obviously a Avia S-199.

Photo(B)Eddie Cohen's Avia S199?

Photo(C)Beaufighter you say!

Photo(B) reads:"The remains of Eddie Cohen's plane that was shot on the first aerial assault by the Israeli Air Force on 29th of May 1948" the problem with this caption is that the first four planes that took part in this assault did not carry any serial numbers on them(there is a photographical evidence). The wreckage in the photo is the remains of a plane that was flown by Robert Vickman on 9th July 1948 on an attack mission in the Rafah/El Arish area(according to records from 101 Squ operation logbook). Photo(C) reads:"Wreckage of a Beaufighter that attack the police fortress at Iraq el Sueidan". Click on the photo to see the real story behind the photo.

Although it is not a question of life and death it is important to keep history records accurate.

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