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Worth a Thousand Words?

I've got two books on the history of the air war during World War 1. Both are good reference works on the topic, but both books have distractions that get the way of clear presentation of their data. The interesting part is that they are distracting in opposite ways.

John Morrow Jr.'s book, The Great War in the Air, is a scholarly work, crammed full of numbers. And that's the problem: the numbers bog down the narrative. For the most egregious example, try reading this paragraph, which discusses German industrial output in the first half of 1918:

"Ultimately, beyond personnel reserves, of which Germany's did not compare to those of the Allies', success in the war of attrition was a function of production and supply. From the start in 1918, production had not sufficed to supply all the units planned in the America Program. In the first seven months of 1918, 1,009, 890, 1,360, 1,202, 930, 1,189, and 1,478 planes were delivered to the air force. Deliveries thus fluctuated wildly and in July 1918 were only beginning to approach 1,600 -- the War Ministry's minimal figure in July 1917. Monthly engine production from January through July was 1,445, 1,145, 1,290, 1,530, 1,390, 1,430, and 1,420. Average engine production of 1,379 and average aircraft production of 1,151 compared unfavorably to the 1,800 and 1,600 figures for engines and aircraft production in the original minimal program. In April, one of the best production months in the first half of 1918, engine production was 1,530 and aircraft production was 1,360. Thus at the deadline for the America Program's completion, aircraft production in a good month still missed the minimum goal by 240 planes and 270 engines."

If you're skimming this to get a general idea of how German air industry was doing in 1918, you've got an awful lot of numbers to ignore as you read. The big picture gets lost in the mass of details.

But even if you are interested in that level of detail, those numbers are presented in a cumbersome way. Commas are used as both number separators and digit separators, making the numbers hard to scan. Worse, the first number in the first list, 1918, is really part of the list description, not part of the list of delivery figures. And given as running text, the number are hard to compare and look up. For example, try to figure out the months in which airplane deliveries exceed engine deliveries, or locate the production figures for March. A bit cumbersome, yes?

Here's a better approach, using the same text but banishing the number lists to an accompanying chart:

"Ultimately, beyond personnel reserves, of which Germany's did not compare to those of the Allies', success in the war of attrition was a function of production and supply. From the start in 1918, production had not sufficed to supply all the units planned in the America Program:

German Production in 1918

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Avg	Goal
Aircraft	1,009	890	1,360	1,202	930	1,189	1,478	1,151	1,600
Engines	1,445	1,145	1,290	1,530	1,390	1,430	1,420	1,379	1,800

Deliveries fluctuated wildly, and in July 1918 were only beginning to approach the War Ministry's minimal figures determined in July 1917. Thus at the deadline for the America Program's completion, aircraft production in a good month (April) still missed the minimum goal by 240 planes and 270 engines."

The detail is still there, but it's much easier to analyze or ignore, your preference. As proof, take the penultimate sentence of the original paragraph ("In April, one of the best production months in the first half of 1918, engine production was 1,530 and aircraft production was 1,360.") Now compare what that says to the above presentation. See the error? The chart makes it obvious that Morrow has accidently used the March aircraft production figure for April. But what are your chances of noticing that problem in the original paragraph?

In all, Morrow's 350-page book contains only six tables. Ironically, one of them (Table 1) is exactly what I showed above -- a table of monthly French engine and airplane production figures. I can't understand why this wasn't done more consistently throughout the text.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Eric & Jane Lawson's The First Air Campaign. Chock full of sidebars, graphs, and pictures, this is aimed at the popular history crowd. And like many popular history books, it seems to worry more about using that auxiliary material to break up the text, rather than to present useful information.

Examine the accompanying graphic, taken from the Lawson book. The image is not otherwise referred to in the text, so it can't be claimed that I'm taking it out of context. Of course the image looks much better in the book with full print resolution than it does here, where I have a disk quota to worry about. But my point here is to pick on its content, not its looks. The question isn't "is this pretty or not?" but rather "what information is imparted by this graphic?"

Here's a list of my complaints.

Obvious glitches: Why are there two Camels (at 7,500 and 10,000 feet)? What are fighters (SPAD XIII, Siemens D.III, Fokker Tri) doing behind their own lines on a graph entitled Offensive Patrols into Enemy Territory?

Missed opportunities: Why are the icons shaded apparently at random? How about shading by functional type (scout, recon, bomber) or by nationality?

Missing information: Where are the Fokker D.VII, Salmson 2A2 and Breguet XIV? (The French in general seem to be getting shortchanged, as is unfortunately the standard in English WW1 books.)

Wrong information: Why is the Siemens-Shuckert D.III, a high-altitude interceptor, below the Fokker Triplane, which had a much lower ceiling? SPAD XIIIs were used offensively, so why isn't the SPAD icon over enemy lines? (The SPAD also had a higher ceiling than the Fokker). In general, the numbers along the axes fail to correspond with physical or operational limits, so why are they there?

So what does the reader get from this graphic? Much disinformation, very little enlightenment. About the only positive thing that I can say about it is that it does show the British 3-tier fighter sweeps, with Camels on bottom, S.E. 5a's in the middle, and Dolphins on top. But how does the graphic improve on a simple sentence stating that fact?

So if the Morrow book uses too few graphics tricks, this book seems to go too far in the other direction. Too often the need to glitz up some facts sows confusion and misinformation instead.

Surely there's some middle ground between these extremes?

Dave Townsend / townsend@patriot.net

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