Note on Sources and Translation

Archival material for this book came primarily from the Hungarian Defense Ministry archives in Budapest. Most of the air force’s own documents were destroyed in the Second World War, but sizable elements of the Defense Ministry and General Staff archives relate to aviation matters. The Defense Ministry archives also contain a number of unpublished manuscripts and memoirs. János Vesztényi’s manuscript was extremely helpful, as was László Winkler’s unpaginated scrapbook of documents, photographs, and press reports. In the Defense Ministry archives library can be found Magyar Katonai Szemle, the professional journal of the Honvédség, and the primary source for the discussion of air power theory in chapter 4. The Hungarian National Archives hold Admiral Horthy’s papers, among which were his handwritten notes from the 1938 presentation on air force independence. The Hungarian Transportation Museum and Archives has valuable information on the Hungarian airlines and sport aviation. Other primary sources include various document collections of the Hungarian, German, and British Foreign Ministries, along with the printed confidential documents of Miklós Horthy. The destruction of the Royal Hungarian Air Force archives means that important operational details have been lost; in particular, those relating to logistics and intelligence, which would not have been addressed in General Staff or Defense Ministry records, and which might have seemed less important to memoirists or oral historians.

The most important secondary works on the Royal Hungarian Air Force have been authored by Dr. Miklós M. Szabó. His Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő 1938–1945 is the best work on the subject, includes the major elements of his earlier work, and has extensive documentation. Fejezetek a magyar katonai repülés történetéből, coauthored by Szabó with S. Nagyváradi and L. Winkler, is the most useful guide to the early years of Hungarian military aviation; its reference notes are less complete than Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő 1938–1945, but it includes something rarely found in other Magyar books on the topic—an index. The journal Hadtörténelmi Közlemények carries the most relevant recent articles on military history. There are few English-language works on the Hungarian Air Force, and with the exception of the newly published Baptism of Fire by Csaba Stenge, those rely on personal reminiscences or German works. For the Habsburg aviation experience, the best work is the unwieldy but tremendously informative Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War, by Peter Grosz, George Haddow, and Peter Schiemer.

Memoirs play an important role in determining personal experiences and filling in crucial details, but due to the hyperpoliticization of Hungarian life in the twentieth century, they must be used with caution. Issues of motivation, both one’s own and attribution to others, seem especially susceptible to post hoc revision. Works published in Hungary during the Communist period have the obligatory references to the “imperialists” and “counterrevolutionaries,” but deeper biases exist as well. The Kassa bombing scarcely figures in pre-1990 journals in Hungary. Magyar-language works published by emigrants to the West have the same tendency toward self-justification, exacerbated by Cold War tensions.

For understanding Hungary’s political situation in the period, C.A. Macartney’s October Fifteenth and Gyula Juhász’s Hungarian Foreign Policy 1919–1945 were indispensable.

Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Hungarian are my own.