Continuing my quest to buy models of the tech that inspired Seeds, I picked up a Revell Dornier Do-335 over the weekend. This was the inspiration for the Corkscrews, the South’s push-pull fighters. With two engines and propellers, but minimising the drag by having them both in the fuselage, the Do-335 was one of the fastest ever piston driven aircraft. The designers wanted to nickname it ‘Arrow’, but the pilots, being pilots, called it the Ant-Eater.

The Germans designed loads of off the wall stuff. Whilst it’s unlikely any of them could have changed the course of the war, things would have looked very different if the fighters, bombers, or secret weapons described in these books had made it into use.