Aircraft of World War II: 300 of the World's Greatest Aircraft Review

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(More customer reviews)This compact volume promises on first inspection to be an authoritative guide to the major aircraft types of World War II. It lists 300 aircraft, one per page, arranged mostly in alphabetical order by manufacturer and illustrated by side-view color paintings of each plane. The illustrations are generally of good quality; the text descriptions and performance data, although severely limited by space considerations, cover the basics. Closer examination, however, reveals a work unfortunately marred by sloppy editing and riddled by errors of fact and omission.
Selective reference works necessarily require editorial judgment in the selection process. The reasonable reader will allow the author the benefit of the doubt when assessing the criteria the author uses to determine what will be included in the book and what will not. But the selection of aircraft in this book is odd enough to make any reader wonder about the editorial judgment behind it. A selection of three hundred airplanes might well have been sufficient to include the major combat types, including representative variations of the most important ones, together with common transport/cargo and training aircraft. But the author has devoted too much of his limited space to the treatment of obscure aircraft, as well as essentially prewar and exclusively postwar types, while ignoring a number of important wartime airplanes.
For example, the Plage and Laskiewicz R-XVI, a Polish transport built as an air ambulance, gets a page in this book although only six were built, including the prototype. But the C-46 Commando, more than 3,000 of which were built, and which served with distinction in Europe, the Pacific, and especially the China-Burma-India theater, is not included. Only two examples of the Besson MB-411, a French floatplane designed to be operated from a submarine, were built, but it gets a page. The Yokosuka E14Y "Glen," also designed to be launched and recovered by submarines, was extensively operated in that role by the Japanese Navy (and has the peculiar distinction of being the only enemy aircraft ever to have bombed the continental United States); hundreds were built but the Glen is not included in the book. The Blackburn Firebrand, a carrier fighter-topedo bomber that did not enter operational service until September 1945, is here, but the Fairey Firefly, a much more successful British carrier fighter-bomber built in far larger numbers and flown successfully from British carriers in the last two years of the war, is not.
The Hawker Tempest II did not reach operational status until after the war but has a page nonetheless. The Bell P-59 Airacomet was an largely unsuccessful early jet design that was built in small numbers and saw some limited service as a trainer, but it gets two pages. The Grumman F3F, the biplane predecessor of the famous F4F Wildcat, was obsolete by the beginning of the Pacific war and saw no combat service, but also gets two pages (the F4F gets one). The Bell P-63 Kingcobra, used by the U.S. Army for advanced fighter training and exported in large numbers to the Soviet Union--which employed it very successfully in combat on the Eastern Front--isn't here. Neither is the Bristol Beaufort--the predecessor of the Bristol Beaufighter--which saw service in the anti-shipping role in Europe and the Pacific. The P-51A shares a page with the P-51B/C, although the Allison-powered P-51A was a substantially different aircraft in performance and design from its Rolls-Royce/Packard-powered successors. There's no mention at all of the A-36, the U.S. Army's dive-bomber version of the P-51A, which saw combat in the Mediterranean and the China-Burma-India theaters. The Japanese Navy's air arm is particularly neglected: The Kawanishi H8K "Emily," which many consider to be the best flying boat of the war, isn't here; nor is the Yokosuka P1Y "Frances"; nor is the Yokosuka D4Y "Judy," which was in continuous combat service from Midway to the end of the Pacific war; nor is the Mitsubishi/Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe," the floatplane-fighter version of the famous Zero.
There are many mistakes in the book, ranging from minor typographical miscues to editorial confusion and outright errors of fact. The illustrations of the B-25 variants described on pages 259 and 260 are reversed. The illustration accompanying the description of the Supermarine "Spitfire Mk I to V" illustrated on page 299 appears to be a postwar Seafire Mk XVII (not a Spitfire Mk XII as suggested by another reviewer). The Aichi B7A "Grace" illustrated on page 15 is said to be armed with a "Long Lance" torpedo, but that extraordinary torpedo, the Type 93, was exclusively a ship-borne weapon. The F4U Corsair on page 84 is referred to as the "Chance Vought V-166 Corsair," a confused reference to the manufacturer's project number for this famous U.S. Navy and Marine fighter plane.
The Douglas A-20/Boston/DB-7 is described and illustrated on pages 111-112, and then again, oddly enough, on pages 118-120--following the pages for the the C-47, the A-26, and the SBD and A-24. The Boston Mk IIIA on page 120 is mistakenly labeled "Boston Mk 111A. Unaccountably, two different pages depict DB-7 aircraft flown by the French. The one illustrated on page 118 is described as a Vichy aircraft based in Algeria in autumn 1940, but it's plainly a Free French aircraft in Allied invasion markings, probably from autumn 1944.
The list of errors goes on and on. This book would have benefited by more authorial expertise and greater editorial attention. As it stands, it's a handsome little volume that is too unreliable to be recommended.

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From the moment World War II began--with the German invasion of Poland--to its end in 1945 with the American bombings of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, it was clear that aircraft would play a crucial tactical role. Afterwards, air power became the absolute arbiter of the new world order that emerged from that cataclysmic confrontation. Here are 300 of the top planes from both the Axis and Allied forces, including the famous Supermarine Spitfire, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, North American P-51 Mustang, Messerschmitt Bf 109, and Boeing B-17 Fortress.

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