A new book in my library.

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This arrived today, and looks brand new - not a mark anywhere, and looks like it's never been opened, so very pleased as I paid £10, with free shipping, and the RRP is £25.

Jim asked me my opinion, so I've posted a couple of rather poor pics of sample pages, but note that the quality of the actual printing, and colour, is far superior to that shown in my pics, under poor light conditions.
The book is A4 format, hard back with 160 pages including the index, and is in colour throughout, covering forty eight units of the 9th Air Force, with pics from the UK and on the Continent, location maps, some colour profiles and colour unit badges. The overall quality of the colour images is very good, with some really excellent "look like taken yesterday" examples, many spread across two pages.
The layout is the same as Roger Freeman's "8th Air Force in Colour", with photo captions describing the subject, personnel and location, with aircraft, locations and personnel featured, depending on the unit.
A goo companion to "8th AF in Colour", and my other 9th Air force reference, and well worth having.


 
Been looking for this one for a while for a good deal and finally found one I was willing to pay. Lots of pictures and history on the Polish air-force. Covers from 1918-1939. Covers the combat operations of the Polish air force from 1921-1939 and was surprised to see it also cover's the Polish Naval Aviation and balloon forces. Covers some of the history of the squadrons , orders of battle, commanders and such. Should be an interesting book as I have nothing like it in English to compare it to.

 

A surprisingly quick read, overall this is an excellent buy with interesting information that will be new to most readers. In particular, the table of operating units in chapter four give a pretty good idea of the number of units operating the P-39 while the unit histories provide ample coverage of the number of theaters where the Airacobra was employed.
The brief biographies of the Airacobra aces in chapter five were also interesting reading in that it enabled me to go back and look at Dmitriy Loza's book Attack of the Aircobra's which covers Soviet Airacobra operations from August '42 to May '45 ( https://www.amazon.com/Attack-Airacobras-American-AgainstGermany/dp/0700611401/r...) and be able to place faces names (Along with complete biographies.) to the classic Russian work on the P-39.
Chapters two and three which take up a sparse 28 pages and do provide a good background on the introduction and technical testing by the Soviet engineers and also makes for good reading. One area of surprise was the length of postwar Soviet service by both the P-39 and P-63 with chapter seven devoting six pages to postwar operations.
At the risk of sounding contradictory the book is so heavily illustrated and the font is large enough to make me question how much more detailed it would have been with say 1/3rd of the illustrations. My one other nit is the lack of an index. Given the number of units that flew the aircraft and the number of aces (64 pages, essentially 25% of the book is dedicated to the numerous aces.) yet in order to find a particular individual or a place you have to thumb page by page. Not good. Another questionable quirk was the P-63 chapter at 48 pages long is the same length as the three chapters that cover the introduction, testing and variant of the P-39 which had a much longer combat service and arguably more service testing.
For all of this book's quirkiness, I really enjoyed it and consider it to be a cornerstone in my P-39/P-63 library. It is well illustrated, for the "train-spotters" there are comprehensive S/N listings, along with an ample number of color profiles to keep the modelers happy as well.
Highly recommended without reservation for anyone interested in the P-39/P-63, Soviet WWII aviation and modelers.
 
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This one came today and glad I did not pay a lot for it and pretty disappointed in it and hope when I really dig in to it that the reading it its better but browsing through it does not seem to. Very rarely do I right bad reviews but this one really disappointed me. There are no pictures of aircraft of any kind in the book. Most if not all of book is copied out of diaries on certain dates and from the look of it word for word. No details, Looks like the author did not add anything to the areas or details. Jumps from recon cars to artillery to some squadrons but all info very vague. Especially since it says on the cover through the eyes of the squadrons and flights of the RAF regiment. There is also no cross index any where that I have found yet of details of the enemy units that might have been encountered.

An example, The enemy attacked the flying field with 5 M.E. 109's and 2 Fw 190's dropping bombs and gunning ground installations ect and yes the ect is in the book. Unit guns opened fire, but no results, as the enemy was just out of range. That's it then jumps to another battle. Very vague for a researcher. Seems like half the book is on ground support diaries but just as vague.

Another example, Armored Car reconnaissance S/L Willington, with P/O Oswald and Sgt Pringle of area east and south east of the areodrone. Then drops to next paragraph says no incident and then next jumps to No 3 Rifle Flight (under command of F/O Hebb) arrived from base after refitting- part of rear echelon which landed in boats at Oran after being torpedoed in the STRAHALLEN.

My two cents on it so far is save your money.

 
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