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KG 200: The Force with No Face
Paperback book
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 15, 2021
In medias res, gripping from page 1 to the end. No useless pages, or useless explanations for pages, as in Ken Follett.
June 7, 2025
When a movie or show uses the phrase “based on a true story” or inspired by real events” it can pique the interest for some, especially those who enjoy historical fiction stories like I do. In my experience however, those phrases often come with a built-in quantification level: based on a true story tends to mean up to around fifty percent is historically accurate, whereas inspired by real events rarely reaches more than the ten-twenty percent area. I have no scientific basis for this beyond personal observation but going by those numbers this book falls into the latter category.
While KG200 was a real group within the Luftwaffe, it was nowhere near as expansive as the book of its namesake might lead you to believe. I don’t mention this as a criticism per se; it is after all a work of fiction, I just think this story might’ve worked better if it focused more the espionage aspect of finding out what KG200 is doing rather than contriving a situation that didn’t actually exist and therefore had no tension, for me at least. Doing a cursory search of that secret unit today revealed extremely few updates since this book was published in 1978, so why all the overdramatic nonsense when a simple spy tale would suffice?
Another thing that bothered me was there was this habit of not translating words. People would be having a conversation and a (usually) German word would pop up out of the blue and slow the pacing. If they were all proper names I could understand but they weren’t; rank and titles do have English translations. A basic line of “said in German” or whatever the case could be added but I think most readers will know characters are speaking their native tongue to each other. I also don’t really know who the protagonist was. The book is titled KG200, and we spend almost as much time with the Germans as we do the dynamic duo of Gene and John. It really could be either one for that role, and that doesn’t necessarily make an antagonist out of the other, as far as literary terms go anyway.
I enjoyed learning something new about this point in history, and the comradery of Gene and John was nice, but ultimately this book was rather dull IMHO, and the ending felt a bit rushed. As far as the ratings on Goodreads go I’d say this book was “ok” which just so happens to be two stars. Cheers
While KG200 was a real group within the Luftwaffe, it was nowhere near as expansive as the book of its namesake might lead you to believe. I don’t mention this as a criticism per se; it is after all a work of fiction, I just think this story might’ve worked better if it focused more the espionage aspect of finding out what KG200 is doing rather than contriving a situation that didn’t actually exist and therefore had no tension, for me at least. Doing a cursory search of that secret unit today revealed extremely few updates since this book was published in 1978, so why all the overdramatic nonsense when a simple spy tale would suffice?
Another thing that bothered me was there was this habit of not translating words. People would be having a conversation and a (usually) German word would pop up out of the blue and slow the pacing. If they were all proper names I could understand but they weren’t; rank and titles do have English translations. A basic line of “said in German” or whatever the case could be added but I think most readers will know characters are speaking their native tongue to each other. I also don’t really know who the protagonist was. The book is titled KG200, and we spend almost as much time with the Germans as we do the dynamic duo of Gene and John. It really could be either one for that role, and that doesn’t necessarily make an antagonist out of the other, as far as literary terms go anyway.
I enjoyed learning something new about this point in history, and the comradery of Gene and John was nice, but ultimately this book was rather dull IMHO, and the ending felt a bit rushed. As far as the ratings on Goodreads go I’d say this book was “ok” which just so happens to be two stars. Cheers
June 24, 2023
J.D. Gilman and John Clive's 1977 KG 200 is a quite decent Second World War spy story centering around aircraft and pilots and flying, plus of course "the women who loved them," and including as well some some walk-ons from major political and military figures such as Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Herman Goering.
The book's plot is launched the from real-life existence of the secretive Kampfgeschwader 200, which operated captured Allied aircraft for various sneaky purposes. The unit receives a brief chapter in, for example, Roger A. Freeman's 1977 B-17 Fortress at War, which notes that American bomber crews as early as 1943 had grown suspicious of occasional stragglers--always with apparent radio trouble and sometimes with paint colors that seemed ever so slightly off--trying to join groups returning from a mission. Scuttlebutt was that captured ships must be trying to come back to base and shoot down as many as they could during landing operations, but of course these suspicious-looking Fortresses always took a powder right quick when a formation's guns began to swivel their way.
From the facts of history just a generation previous, and from the secrecy and unknowns discussed on the cover flaps and in the concluding Authors' Note, Gilman and Clive hypothesize Operation Ulysses, a plan whose details, and even target, they carefully withhold until very late in the novel. The story begins with a lone B-17, on fire and heavily damaged by German 88mm flak, about to crash-land near an English town...and yet the bomb bay holds not empty shackles for 500-pounders but instead "an open plywood container in a tangle of rigging lines and billowing parachute silk," with the bodies of "a youngish man in a blue civilian suit" and "a middle-aged woman in a beige coat, blouse and skirt" (1977 Simon and Schuster hardcover, page 8). Clearly, this is no ordinary Flying Fortress of the Eighth Air Force.
The plot is good. There are enough pleasant twists that I simply won't say any more...even about the great shock on page 11 that first really jolts us, or the line on page 19 that begins to clue us in to the situation. KG 200 master airman Rolf Warnow, his deep-cover emergency contact in London, clue-hunting Lt. Colonel Vandamme and Squadron Leader Croasdell, Croasdell's wife, other KG 200 members, bigwigs high up in both in both governments-- All revolve teasingly about the sinister, looming, and yet mysterious Operation Ulysses. There is suspense, there is danger, and there are pleasant little splashes of levity here and there as well.
Of course, there are a few slightly stagey pieces now and then, along with--worse, to my taste--some places in which aviation-related details just don't feel right. Several times, for example, the Plexiglas nose at the front of a B-17's bombardier's station is called a "nose canopy," and--maybe I'm wrong here, but I doubt it--I just don't think that's correct. A fighter plane would have a canopy over the pilot, but I really think the clear nose of a bomber is called the "nose," period. There also is a reference to a burned "body in the tail turret" of the crashed B-17 (page 37), but even when the Cheyenne turret replaced the hand-swiveled tail guns, the turret still only rotated the guns and, unlike the rear turret of, say, a B-24 or a British Lancaster, did not move the gunner himself. I strongly believe, therefore, that anyone at the time would have referred simply to "the tail gunner" or a "body in the tail" rather a "body in the tail turret."
The idea of a German "in the tail turret" pops up in conversation a second time--though not as much as reference to a supposed "nose canopy," fortunately--and on the very same page is the description of "a sheepskin-lined flying jacket" (page 45), which grates as well. Call it "fleece" or "sheepskin" or "shearling," but it definitely should not be called lined, for a heavy jacket like the American B3 or the British Irvin--this one is the latter--is not lined but instead simply is made of shearling. That is, rather than removing the hair from steerhide or horsehide or goatskin and then tanning the tough outside, here the manufacturers have left the wool still upon the sheepskin and have treated the softer inside for use as the exterior of the jacket. Yes, this is a niggling little detail, but if the reader happens to know anything about flight jackets, it rankles.
At one point there also occurs a description of a B-17 being protected by 10 machine guns (page 144), when even an F model prior to the Bendix chin turret still would have 12--a single .50 in the nose for the bombardier, one in each cheek on either side of the navigator, a pair in the top turret, one at the rear of the radio room, a pair in the ball turret, one in each waist position, and a pair in the tail. This gaffe is very, very noticeable. Another odd spot occurs when one of the KG200 pilots "turn[s] irritably to his radio operator" and "[t]he operator passe[s] him the [radio] headset" to listen to the American challenge call (page 302)...because the radio operator on a B-17 isn't in the cockpit but is in his own compartment, aft of the top turret gunner. He's not far away, of course, but he definitely isn't in the same place, unless the authors want him to walk forward, maneuvering around the gunner while carrying a headset on a long, long cord--in which case they need to have written that rather than having him standing miraculously on the flight deck.
Gilman and Clive's KG 200 is for the most part an entertaining and absorbing story. The ending may or may not be a trifle rushed--I have a hard time making up my mind whether this is the case or whether it simply is appropriately swift as a combat denouement--but a number of aviation-related glitches are quite noticeable in a book focused on flying. Still, the piece for me nevertheless remains quite a decent 4-star read.
The book's plot is launched the from real-life existence of the secretive Kampfgeschwader 200, which operated captured Allied aircraft for various sneaky purposes. The unit receives a brief chapter in, for example, Roger A. Freeman's 1977 B-17 Fortress at War, which notes that American bomber crews as early as 1943 had grown suspicious of occasional stragglers--always with apparent radio trouble and sometimes with paint colors that seemed ever so slightly off--trying to join groups returning from a mission. Scuttlebutt was that captured ships must be trying to come back to base and shoot down as many as they could during landing operations, but of course these suspicious-looking Fortresses always took a powder right quick when a formation's guns began to swivel their way.
From the facts of history just a generation previous, and from the secrecy and unknowns discussed on the cover flaps and in the concluding Authors' Note, Gilman and Clive hypothesize Operation Ulysses, a plan whose details, and even target, they carefully withhold until very late in the novel. The story begins with a lone B-17, on fire and heavily damaged by German 88mm flak, about to crash-land near an English town...and yet the bomb bay holds not empty shackles for 500-pounders but instead "an open plywood container in a tangle of rigging lines and billowing parachute silk," with the bodies of "a youngish man in a blue civilian suit" and "a middle-aged woman in a beige coat, blouse and skirt" (1977 Simon and Schuster hardcover, page 8). Clearly, this is no ordinary Flying Fortress of the Eighth Air Force.
The plot is good. There are enough pleasant twists that I simply won't say any more...even about the great shock on page 11 that first really jolts us, or the line on page 19 that begins to clue us in to the situation. KG 200 master airman Rolf Warnow, his deep-cover emergency contact in London, clue-hunting Lt. Colonel Vandamme and Squadron Leader Croasdell, Croasdell's wife, other KG 200 members, bigwigs high up in both in both governments-- All revolve teasingly about the sinister, looming, and yet mysterious Operation Ulysses. There is suspense, there is danger, and there are pleasant little splashes of levity here and there as well.
Of course, there are a few slightly stagey pieces now and then, along with--worse, to my taste--some places in which aviation-related details just don't feel right. Several times, for example, the Plexiglas nose at the front of a B-17's bombardier's station is called a "nose canopy," and--maybe I'm wrong here, but I doubt it--I just don't think that's correct. A fighter plane would have a canopy over the pilot, but I really think the clear nose of a bomber is called the "nose," period. There also is a reference to a burned "body in the tail turret" of the crashed B-17 (page 37), but even when the Cheyenne turret replaced the hand-swiveled tail guns, the turret still only rotated the guns and, unlike the rear turret of, say, a B-24 or a British Lancaster, did not move the gunner himself. I strongly believe, therefore, that anyone at the time would have referred simply to "the tail gunner" or a "body in the tail" rather a "body in the tail turret."
The idea of a German "in the tail turret" pops up in conversation a second time--though not as much as reference to a supposed "nose canopy," fortunately--and on the very same page is the description of "a sheepskin-lined flying jacket" (page 45), which grates as well. Call it "fleece" or "sheepskin" or "shearling," but it definitely should not be called lined, for a heavy jacket like the American B3 or the British Irvin--this one is the latter--is not lined but instead simply is made of shearling. That is, rather than removing the hair from steerhide or horsehide or goatskin and then tanning the tough outside, here the manufacturers have left the wool still upon the sheepskin and have treated the softer inside for use as the exterior of the jacket. Yes, this is a niggling little detail, but if the reader happens to know anything about flight jackets, it rankles.
At one point there also occurs a description of a B-17 being protected by 10 machine guns (page 144), when even an F model prior to the Bendix chin turret still would have 12--a single .50 in the nose for the bombardier, one in each cheek on either side of the navigator, a pair in the top turret, one at the rear of the radio room, a pair in the ball turret, one in each waist position, and a pair in the tail. This gaffe is very, very noticeable. Another odd spot occurs when one of the KG200 pilots "turn[s] irritably to his radio operator" and "[t]he operator passe[s] him the [radio] headset" to listen to the American challenge call (page 302)...because the radio operator on a B-17 isn't in the cockpit but is in his own compartment, aft of the top turret gunner. He's not far away, of course, but he definitely isn't in the same place, unless the authors want him to walk forward, maneuvering around the gunner while carrying a headset on a long, long cord--in which case they need to have written that rather than having him standing miraculously on the flight deck.
Gilman and Clive's KG 200 is for the most part an entertaining and absorbing story. The ending may or may not be a trifle rushed--I have a hard time making up my mind whether this is the case or whether it simply is appropriately swift as a combat denouement--but a number of aviation-related glitches are quite noticeable in a book focused on flying. Still, the piece for me nevertheless remains quite a decent 4-star read.
October 9, 2024
Almost impossible to believe but purported to be true in the technology and strategy presented. A novel bringing to life the hopes and dreams of German planners to strike a blow against England and the alliance against them. Using captured plans and a new type bomb the plan is to attack without warning and drive a wedge between the British and Americans. The plot weaves its way through the efforts of both sides to discover the other's intentions and disrupt their plans. A neglected topic in the early days following the war this book brought the plan into the open.
October 17, 2023
Decided to read this book again after many, many years, so I had completely forgotten what the storyline was. All I could remember was that it had to do with this secretive Luftwaffe unit, KG200.
It was an okay read, but overall the story was somewhat disappointing. At the time it as written, early '70s, far less was known about KG200 than we know now. I do remember that I wanted to have a copy of this book because of this.
It was an okay read, but overall the story was somewhat disappointing. At the time it as written, early '70s, far less was known about KG200 than we know now. I do remember that I wanted to have a copy of this book because of this.
Want to read
January 27, 2022
July 12, 2020
This was a book that sat on Dads shelf for years and got handed down to me. Wouldn’t have chosen it but we’ll written, gave me information I didn’t know and was entertaining! Win!
April 3, 2021
3.5* Though the story is quite convoluted (so many characters, types of planes, serial numbers, ...), I have to say the book aged pretty well. An enjoyable read.
January 10, 2023
Przeczytałam ją z rekomendacji mojego chłopaka, na początku nie mogłam się w nią wciągnąć, bo akcja wydawała się bardzo powolna i myślałam, że fachowe określenia z dziedziny lotnictwa mnie przerosną. W końcu się przełamałam do przeczytania jej i nie żałuję tej decyzji, niesamowicie ciekawa, akcja rozwijała się z każdą kolejną stroną i dopingowałam postacie w dążeniu do celu.
October 7, 2012
Little is known about Kampfgeschweder 200, a top-secret Luftwaffe unit, other than its pilots dressed, looked, and acted American and flew American aircraft. With this fascinating premise, Gilman spins a first-rate tale.
January 25, 2016
FANTASTIC BOOK !!! Loved reading this book and amazed by the German plan during WW II. Amazing secret unveiled in this book. KG 200 exists!! Must read
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews