Dan Hagedorn

Suprisingly thorough book about a minor detail of an obscure historical event. Paraguay, having fought a bloody and disastrous war against three out of four neighboring states in the 19th century (see the War of the Triple Alliance) decided to complete the set by going to war with Bolivia in the 20th. Nobody is quite sure what happened; it seems like Paraguay started things off by an unprovoked attack on a Bolivian border outpost in 1928, but it also seems like nobody was really sure where show more the Bolivia/Paraguay border was. There are various suggestions that interests from the United States, France, Italy, and Germany had talked the Bolivians into believing that there was abundant oil in the Chaco region of Paraguay, and that conquest would merely be a matter of marching.


On paper it probably looked that way; Bolivia had about three times the population of Paraguay, had enough national mineral and oil wealth to pay for armaments, and had a German-trained army; while the principal export of Paraguay was malaria and the entire Paraguayan army wouldn’t have quite made a regiment by First World standards. However, things didn’t work out that way; the Bolivian highlanders didn’t do very well in the Chaco lowlands, communication and transport favored Paraguay, and the Paraguayans were fighting for their homeland – at least according to some maps. Thus the Paraguayans took some Bolivians fortifications, surrounded and captured two entire Bolivian divisions, and were marching into Bolivian territory when the war was ended by arbitration.


Aircraft of the Chaco War is co-authored by Dan Hagedorn, a curator at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and Antonio Sapienza, a Paraguayan Air Force officer. Sapienza must have been diligently collecting photographs and documents for years – the illustrations include an excellent photograph of a Curtis Osprey attacking Paraguayan ground troops, from a situation where cameras must have been a rarity and the presence of mind to use them during an air attack must have been even rarer.


The authors comment that the first casualty of the war was business ethics; despite League of Nations and United States Congress arms embargos, aircraft salesmen descended on Asuncion and La Paz like condors on a dead llama. Bolivia ended up with the larger air arm, with a fleet of Curtis Ospreys and miscellaneous other craft; Paraguay made due with Potez 25s. Although the Osprey was faster and more maneuverable, the Potez had heavier armament; both sides scored some air-to-air victories. However, as might be expected most aircraft attrition occurred through accidents, with aircrew, maintenance, and airstrip quality leaving something to be desired on both sides.


A few aircraft turn up that became familiar later; Bolivia had some Fiat CR-32s and Ju-52s (the authors don’t understand why the Bolivians didn’t use their Ju-52s as bombers). Near the end of the war, Bolivia bought a fleet (four) of Curtiss BT-32 “transports”. Curtiss literature showed the aircraft equipped with gun turrets, a bomb bay, and underwing bomb racks; the aircraft that were interned in Lima on their way to La Paz didn’t have these features but the US government was not convinced and indicted some Curtiss officials.


Strictly a specialist publication; the publisher (Schiffer Military History) does a lot of this sort of thing. Well illustrated and large format make for a list price ($45) that should discourage all but the most OCD; however I got mine from a remainder house for a small fraction of the cover price. Just the thing if you want to build a detailed model of a Wibault Type 73 or an Ansaldo SVA-5. show less

This book covers a broader subject area than the cover would suggest, in that Dan Hagedorn is interested in examining the role of the observation plane in the Army Air Force of the Interwar Era, not just producing a type history, though you will learn just about everything that can be known about this aircraft in the course of this book. The basic problem is that the O-47 (it never had an official or informal nickname), and the follow-on Curtiss O-52, were almost too sophisticated for the show more role of forward reconnaissance and artillery spotting that U.S. Army ground forces officers desired, while still not being able to survive in the combat airspace of the 1940. They were soon to be replaced by light aircraft (referred to as "Liaison" machines), in the direct army-cooperation role. However, when the mission statement was written for the competition that produced the O-47, Air Force officers were mostly concerned with "Frontier Patrol," meaning that the O-47 was very useful for submarine hunting, and served in that role throughout World War II. show less

Best Available Coverage on a Now Obscure Airplane
First, let’s cover what was disappointing. No index, no bibliography, no footnotes, and sparse technical coverage.
What you do get is an excellent introduction to the history of US Army observation aircraft with a few fairly decent paragraphs fleshing out a few of the foreign contemporaries of the O-47. As part of the design competition the author also provides a nice specifications chart covering the entrants to the design competition that show more led to the O-47. Postwar service is covered fairly well. The book while not heavily illustrated is well illustrated with photographic quality appearing to be more dependent upon the quality of the source material rather than the publisher cheaping out on quality. For the modeler? There’s a bit of coverage on float and ordnance installations with along with a photo of a Nash Turret fit and form mockup. This is in addition to a few detailed photos of the target tug installation and a few photographs of the cockpits of fair quality.
There are 16 pages of color illustrations of mostly O-47 minus the 3 pages of color profiles or precursor Army Air Corps observation aircraft. There are 138 pages devoted to service units with organizations in Hawaii, the Canal Zone, Australia, etc. getting some coverage.
Too be frank, I’ve gernally been disappointed by the coverage given to airframe development and systems in the books authored by Mr. Hagedorn. However, his operational coverage is first rate. And makes his books worthy of purchase as aircraft histories within an organizational context. When taking his predilection towards now obscure aircraft and or obscure service use into consideration? I will continue to purchase his work.
I cannot enthusiastically recommend the book for either modelers or those like myself with a technical interest in the airframe and systems.
For someone with an interest in pre-war National Guard units and history? This book is an absolute goldmine and worthy of purchase. show less

This is a great volume if you’re interested in the stations where the AT-9 was used and or a brief history of the purpose designed multi-engine Advanced Trainers (AT) used by the US Army Air Forces during WWII.
There are a few paragraphs interspersed throughout the book describing various accidents and incidents and the recollections of pilots who flew the airplane that also make for interesting reading. And the postwar history of the aircraft is not only probably as complete as one could show more expect at this date, but done in a way that keeps the airplane in context with the times. With 93 pages dedicated to Stations and Units the author provides an outstanding overview of the size the US Army aviation training program that is worthy of being a book onto itself.
Regrettably the number of pages dedicated to the AT-9 itself are relatively sparse (And probably not the fault of the author.) Less 20 percent of the book are dedicated to the development and technical aspects of the aircraft out of 175 pages. So, you end up with nothing describing why some aircraft had redundant gyros on a center panel (page 43) and others did not (Page 45). Other pictures illustrate the controls located on the floor on pages 29 and 30 with no discussion of the difference in layout as to if they’re on a AT-9 or AT-9A.
Overall? Based on the Amazon scale of not how the good the book is, but how much I enjoyed it, the book rates a solid three stars.
Although partially disappointed by this particular volume, I remain an avid reader of Mr. Hagedorn and have a copy of his upcoming book on the O-47 on my list.
As the only publication extant on the AT-9? It gets a “buy” recommendation. show less