40 numbered A4 size pages of high quality gloss paper but in fact 43 pages because the inner side of the front cover and the both sides of the back cover are fully utilized with drawings, text and photos. By using a small font much information and many photos is succeeded to be crammed on those 43 pages.
30 colour profiles
one 5-view colour drawing  
1:72 scale 5-view line drawing of standard production model, two profile line drawings (Long Range Development Unit version and standard plane with extended cockpit canopy) and a scrap profile of the Bristol Hercules HE 18 powered prototype.

I bought a second-hand copy of this publication. It was fairly cheap and I have been interested in Wellesley since I saw the box art of the Matchbox plastic model of it as a teenager. The main reasons to buy the copy were the geodetic construction of Wellesley (Vickers Wellington has always been one of my many favourite planes) which is well illustrated and explained in the booklet and the very reasonable price of it. And I wasn’t disappointed, the publication is very good in explaining the geodetic construction of Wellesley and the use of the plane by the RAF. The main operational area for Wellesley during the Second World War was the Horn of Africa during the East Africa Campaign 10 June 1940 – 27 November 1941.

There is not much to complain, some small details, e.g. the fact that all escorts of the convoy BN 3 are given as HMS Xxxx, in other words as Royal Navy ships when in fact the light cruiser HMS Leander had been HMNZS Leander since 1933 and there was no HMS Parramatta but HMAS Parramatta.

On the pages 32 – 33 the story on the occasion on 21 October 1940 when according to White a Wellesley crew got eight light bomb hits on an Italian destroyer putting it out of commission for a while somewhere near the Straits of Mandeb. The place is given as off Haleah Island, probably same as Halib Island. I cannot find any confirmation to this from any of the sources I have in my possession. But on the same day according to the British Official History, Playfair et al page 248, the Italian destroyer Francesco Nullo was driven ashore near Massawa by the Royal Navy and was subsequently bombed and destroyed by three Bristol Blenheims of No. 45 Squadron. Rohwer’s & Hummelchen’s Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939–1945 on page 39 gives essentially the same info and confirming that the three Blenheims destroyed the ship on 21 October 1940. Wiki and wrecksite.eu confirmed the story and give the exact place, on Harmi Island. It, also known as Harmil Island, lays NE of Massawa while Halib Island is SE of Assab, so a considerable distance to SSE. The Italian destroyers in Red Sea area usually operated from Massawa and nothing I have seen on the operational history of the seven Italian Red Sea destroyers implicates that any other of them but Francesco Nullo would have been damaged on 21 October 1940. But the damage to that unidentified destroyer might have been so light that it is not mentioned in any of my source. Or the ship was not a destroyer but a smaller ship. It is certainly not unheard that aircrews claimed hitting a much larger vessel than their real target was whether they hit it or not. Even the fate of Francesco Nullo is not entirely clear. While Langtree in his The Kelly’s on page 109 claims that Francesco Nullo was sunk by a torpedo from HMS Kimberley off Harmil Island after the latter had disabled it with gunfire. This is agreed by Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922-1946 but according to Whitley while agreeing that HMS Kimberley forced Francesco Nullo ashore he agrees with the Playfair et.al. and several other sources that after that the Italian ship was bombed and destroyed by the RAF. Strangely neither Shores in his Dust Clouds in the Middle East nor Warner in his The Bristol Blenheim mention this action even if this would have been a significant success to the RAF and particularly to the Blenheim unit if the ultimate destruction of a 1058 tons destroyer was their achievement.

On November 16, 1940 according to Shores and the FlyPast Special one Wellesley (L2695) failed to return from a bombing sortie against Massawa. White only mentions that three Wellesleys were sent to bomb Gura, circa 75 km SSE Massawa and did that without a loss. The anti-aircraft defences of Massawa claimed one Aden-based bomber shot down during a raid. The Wellesley was a part of the small on Prim Island based detachment of No. 223 Squadron. Perim Island situates circa 170 km West of Aden.

On 3 April 1941, there were only five Italian destroyers putting to sea for a raid because the sixth had ran aground earlier. And one of them aborted the mission early because of engine trouble, of the remaining four two were sunk by Swordfishes of HMS Eagle. Later five Wellesleys of the 223 Squadron attacked the remaining destroyers Tigre and Pantera while they were at anchor off Saudi Arabia coast south of Jeddah and transferring fuel and ammunition from Tigre to Pantera in order to scuttle Tigre and continue the operation only with Pantera. The attack foiled the Italian plan and their commander ordered abandonment and scuttling of both destroyers. The Wellesleys might well have sunk Tigre, which the Italians were already abandoning. Pantera might has been sunk by the British destroyer HMS Kingston. But it may be that both of the destroyers were already scuttled as the Italians claim.

The last active Wellesley unit was the No.47 Squadron Air Echelon flying A/S and convoy protection sorties over the Eastern Mediterranean from late April 1942 to the end of February 1943.

Tables:
Vickers Wellesley Production & Serial Numbers
Vickers Wellesley Technical & Performance Characteristics, there is an error in converting the capacity of the two auxiliary tanks of Wellesley from imperial gallons to litres which gives ten times too much volume in litres.
Vickers Wellesley Units & Representative Aircraft
Vickers Wellesley Units & Bases
Vickers Wellesley Kits and Decals

Two maps: the area of the East Africa Campaign, or the Horn of Africa and The Eastern Mediterranean.
The map of the area of the East Africa Campaign shows the locations of several Eritrean places mentioned in the text but of those locating in Abyssinia or British Somaliland only the locations of both capitals are shown. 

Airplanes with short production runs and fairly short service histories are good topics for books in the sense that their service histories are easy to describe in fairly short books. For example, describing the service history of the Messerschmitt Bf 109, Supermarine Spitfire, or Consolidated B-24 Liberator with the same accuracy would mean a massive series of thick books.

Barfield, Norman, Vickers Wellesley variants Aircraft Profile 256 (Windsor: Profile Publications, 1973).
Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922-1946 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1980).
FlyPast Special WELLINGTON Edited by Ken Ellis (Stamford: Key Publishing 2013).
Langtree, Christopher, The Kelly’s British J, K, & N Class Destroyers of World War II (Annapolis: Naval Institute
     Press, 2002).
Mason, Francis K, The British Bomber since 1914 (London: Putnam, 1994).
Orange, Vincent et.al., Winged Promises: History of No.14 Squadron, RAF 1915-1945 (London: The Royal Air
     Force Benevolent Fund Enterprises, 1996).
Playfair, Major-General I. S. O. et. al, The Mediterranean and Middle East Volume I (London: Her Majesty’s
     Stationery Offife, 1954).
Rohwer, Jürgen and Hummelchen, G., Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939–1945: The Naval History of World
   War Two (London: Greenhill Books, Second, revised, expanded edition 1992).
Roskill, Captain S.W., The War at Sea 1939 – 1945. Volume I The Defensive (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery
     Office, 1954).
Shores, Christopher, Dust Clouds in the Middle East. The Air War for East Africa, Iraq, Syria, Iran and
   Madagascar, 1940 – 42 (London: Grub Street, 1996).
Warner, Graham, The Bristol Blenheim A complete history (Manchester: Crecy Publishing, Second edition
     2005).
Whitley, M.H., Destroyers of World War Two: an international encyclopedia (Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute
     Press, 1988). 

http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-10.htm
https://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/41-04.htm 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Convoy_BN_7 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauro-class_destroyer 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leone-class_destroyer 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_October_1940#20_October http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?138168 

96 pages

The book begins with a short but interesting development history of the Pe-2. Interesting and to me new information on how Petlyakov got arrested in autumn 1937 and how long he resisted his interrogators before cracking and confessing his ‘anti-Soviet crimes’.

Then the story of how Petlyakov and his team designed the high altitude fighter/fighter-bomber ‘100’ while serving their time in the special prison, Special Technical Department of the NKVD. The plane was later radically redesigned to the dive-bomber PB-100, later re-designated as Pe-2. Also new to me was the information that the German air raids during summer of 1941 had effect on Pe-2 production. 

The authors go briefly through the main modifications of the Pe-2. One notice, KlimovM-105R vs PF, the poorer high altitude performance of the latter was the result not only of the poorer propeller efficiency but also of the lower full throttle height. According the authors the last big change to production Pe-2s was the changing of the shape of the leading edge of the outer wing section at the very end of 1944. My other Pe-2 sources say that these charges, designed Pe-2B, tested on Pe-2 c/n 19-223 and 14-226, were proved beneficial especially during take-off and landing, making them clearly easier and safer but because of the strong demand of Pe-2s it was decided not to disturb production by new outer wings and so the change was not implemented into production aircraft.

The combat descriptions are based predominantly only on Soviet information, but sometimes the authors has checked it against information from German documents. While I hope that authors would use sources of both sides so that readers would learn what really happened in this case the authors at least clearly state when given information is based solely on Soviet documents which is good and fair. And as said sometimes they give both the Soviet losses and claims and also the German claims and losses based on the information from German documents.

The 17 pages long Guards Bomber Air Regiments chapter is a bit list-like, but that is not surprising because the authors go through the combat histories of eight regiments. But it still shows how heavy and costly the first months, in fact even the first one and a half years of the Great Patriotic War were for the Soviet bomber units. E.g. 31st SBAP (later redesignated as 4th GvBAP), even if it dispersed all its SB bombers on the evening of 21 June 1941 and so none of its bombers was destroyed on the ground during Luftwaffe bombing raids the following morning, lost 88 percent of its original strength of 59 aircraft in less than a month. Of course also many successful operations are mentioned.

Interesting to note how effective the bombing attacks on Soviet airfields by the Luftwaffe were in Far North during the first couple months of the war when one thinks how meagre resources the Luftwaffe had there and they had no advance of surprise because the weather was very poor there during the first week of the Operation Barbarossa. The first attack on airfields was made on 23 June 1941 but only with two Ju 88s. I had seen the German claims earlier but because bomber crews often reported very optimistic results it is nice to have info on the real results.

On the page 17 “the port town of Vyborg and the railway station at Vipuri”, the latter should be Viipuri, and it is the Finnish name of the city which Russians call Vyborg.

The Mannerheim Line had been the main defensive line of the Finns during the Winter War (30 Nov. 1939 – 13 March 1940) but Soviets had blown up all those its bunkers that had not been destroyed during the fighting immediately after capturing them in mid-February 1940, so it did not have any significant defensive importance in 1944. The Finns’ main defensive line in Karelian Isthmus in 1944 was based on field fortifications because it was also the front line. Authors probably mean the VT-Line, which was Finns’ second defence line in 1944. It was partially completed line of permanent fortifications. But it was manned entirely by Finns. German reinforcements (a Sturmgeschütz-Brigade and an infantry division) arrived only after Soviets had broken through the VT-Line and conquered Viipuri/Vyborg.

On the bombing of the railway yards of Viipuri/Vyborg. The biggest attack was done by the ADD (Soviet long-range Air Force, their Bomber Command so to speak) when 142 of its planes bombed Viipuri during the night 14/15 June 1944 but the worst damage was achieved on 15 June, when 72 aircraft (Pe-2s, Il-4s and escort fighters) attacked on Maaskola railway yard at Viipuri/Vyborg and Karjala suburb, two ammunition trains were hit and began explode at Maaskola railway yard causing extensive damage. According to Inozemtsev, the 34th GvBAP (Guards Bomber Air Regiment) participated amongst others the quite an effective 17 June attack on Maaskola railway yard. It also made a rather ineffective, contrary to what crews reported, attack on Hovinmaa station on 19 June, the through pair of tracks was broken but it was repaired quickly. Only other results were a few damaged wooden houses and one wounded. And it seems that it participated the very effective raid on Elisenvaara railway yard on 20 June. There almost all of the tracks in the yard were damaged, only one thorough pair of tracks remained intact, 38  railway carriages and a couple engines were more or less damages, 167 people were killed, mostly civilians.
There were also other effective Pe-2 strikes in Finland during the June 1944 e.g. on 20 June bombing of Kirkonmaa which destroyed a mine depot, German mine transport ship ‘Otter’, two mine barges and eight motorboats. 

In the 13 pages long Guards Bomber Air Division chapter there are more descriptions of individual missions, both very successful and very costly ones and the developments of tactics used to reduce losses and increase effectiveness. But there were only two Pe-2 equipped Guards Bomber Air Division.

The authors explain the formation of the ‘punishment squadrons’ and their intended use. The punishments were much harsher with the Soviet and German armed forces than with the Western ones. And the battles on the Eastern front were bitterer.

I was surprised to learn that a recce squadron under 204th BAD (Bomber division) was still equipped with Su-2s in January 1943, then I remembered that while the type was at least mostly withdrawn from bomber and ground attack units by then it was still at that time used as a reconnaissance aircraft.

The massive attack by 3rd GvBAD on a German airfield on 14 September 1943 which according to Soviet intelligence information destroyed 50-55 German combat aircraft on Borovsk airfield (according to the caption on page 45) or on the airfield at Vorovsoye (according to the text on page 46) and according to the authors based on on German reports the Stukageschwader operating from the airfield temporarily lost its combat capability after as many as 20 of its Ju 87s were destroyed. Probably the unit hit was II./St.G. 1 which lost according to de Zeng IV and Stankey on the ground at Shatalovka-East airfield five Ju 87 Ds destroyed, seven more severely damaged and seven more moderately damaged and this reduced the Gruppe to the strength of a single Staffel. A loss of 20 planes did not usually made a circa 100 planes strong Geschwader inoperative but would critically weakened circa 33 aircraft strong Gruppe. Identifying places in ex-Soviet Union is sometimes difficult because Germans and Soviets sometimes used different names on certain locations and many places were renamed after fallen heroes after liberation.

Ps. I found out that I have more information on this attack.
Laurent Rizzotti 14th September 2009 16:31     Re: Soviet raid on Schatalowka airfield, 14 September 1943
 
Thanks Larry, that made the location of the action far clearer to me (and also explains why the two airfields were attacked at the same time, being only some km apart).

By the way I found on another Russian site a list of aircraft destroyed on the ground during this raid:
1./JG54   FW190A WNr 7053 - 20%
5./JG54   FW190A WNr 1092 - 30%
12./JG54  FW190A WNr 7277 - 100%
NAGr4    Bf109G-6 WNr 26006 - 40%; WNr 15891 - 10%; Bf108 WNr 2011 - 20%
II./StG1   Ju87D-3 WNr 1178 & 110865 - both 100%; WNr 110804 - 90%; WNr 110754 - 50%; WNr
          2675 – 40%; WNr 1241, 110036 & 110514 - all 20%
          Ju87D-5 WNr 130850, 130666 & 130761 - all 100%; WNr 130673 - 80%; WNr 130671 &                130670 - both 60%; WNr 130659 & 130851 - both 50%; WNr 130662 - 15%; WNr 130667 &              130672 - both 10%

So that made 10 aircraft destroyed/damaged beyond repair and 15 other damaged, not too bad.
The source: http://www.airwar.ru/history/av2ww/axis/germloss4/germloss9.html 

This information is from http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=18216

The chapter Guards Bomber Air Corps is also 13 pages long. The first one and a third pages of the chapter in fact tells the story of Aviation Armies, naturally mostly the 1st Bomber Aviation Army. When these were found too cumbersome it was decided to form less cumbersome Reserve Air Corps and 1st Bomber Aviation Army became 1st Bomber Air Corps (BAK) in September 1942 and became 2nd GvBAK on 5 February 1944. Again besides information on selected missions, both very successful and exceptionally costly, also on improvements in tactics. The other Guards Bomber Air Corps was 1st GvBAK, originally 2nd BAK which was formed October/November 1942 and became Guards formation on 3 September 1943. The famous 587th Women’s SBAP had became a seventh regiment of 2nd BAK by the end of 1942. At the end of June 1944 1st GvBAK was redesignated as 5th GvBAK in order to avoid numerical duplication as ADD merges with the VVS RKKA.

Next there is 16 pages of information on the guards reconnaissance units, reconnaissance was and is an important part of the aerial activity which often does not get the attention it deserves in aviation literature.

On the attack on Idriza airfield on 27 February 1944. On the Luftwaffe units based on Idritsa/Idriza airfield according to Henry L. deZeng IV; its anti-aircraft defence consisted only elements of gem.Flak-Abt. 294 at that time. So maybe the reports of dozens of flak batteries were exaggerating. What AA defences the nearby station and the town of Idritsa itself had I don’t know. Of the flying units based there 1. /Nahaufklärungsgruppe 5 had no losses in February 1944, 2./Nahaufklärungsgruppe 5 lost one Bf 109 G-6/U3 as destroyed or badly damaged by enemy action in February 1944 and sent one to overhaul. 1.(H)/Aufklärungsgruppe 31 lost one Fw 189 A-2 destroyed or badly damaged by enemy action in February 1944 and sent two to overhaul. I have no information of the possible losses of Nachtschlachtgruppe 1 but anyway it was not yet using Ju 87s but still using normal NSGr equipment, He 46s, Ar 66s etc.  According to Arro  Nachtschlachtgruppe 11 (estnisch) had left the airfield in early February 1944.
On the Ju 87 units of Luftflotte 1. I./SG 3 was based in February 1944 at Tartu/Dorpat, appr. 265 km NNW of Idriza. It lost (destroyed or badly damaged) in February 1944 five Ju 87 Ds because of enemy actions. 
II./SG 3 was based in February 1944 at Pskov/Pihkova appr. 170 km north of Idriza. It lost (destroyed or badly damaged) two Ju 87 Ds because of enemy actions in February 1944 and sent five other to overhaul. 
I./SG 5 was based in February 1944 at Korowje-Selo, 145 km north of Idriza and in February 1944 it lost (destroyed or badly damaged) three Ju 87 Ds because of enemy actions.
For the Germans Idriza airfield was a field airstrip (Feldflugplatz).

Not mentioned in the book but for comparison and because one Pe-2 guards unit mentioned in the book participated in it. On 2 July 1944, at Lappeenranta the attacking force consisted of 16 Pe-2s from 34th GvBAP and 36 Il-2s plus fighter escorts. Finns lost on ground two Bf 109 Gs and two war-booty Pe-2s and two Bf 109 Gs were so badly damaged that their repairs were completed only after the Continuation War. In this case Pe-2s dive bombed. At Immola, where Luftwaffe Gefechtsverband Kuhlmey was based, 44 Pe-2s made a level bombing attack and 28 Il-2s low-level attack. There three Finnish Brewster 239s were lost when a maintenance hangar was hit and burned. Germans lost nine planes: 4 Ju 87 Ds and 6 Fw 190s, and 15 of their other planes were very badly damaged, two less so and seven suffered only minor damage. In both cases bombing was accurate. At Immola the attack was more successful because the very well and cleverly planned attack using a feint and very carefully planned approach routes achieved complete surprise, only two of II./JG 54 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 As got airborne before Soviet planes attacked. So Il-2s could make three attacks. At Lappeenranta most of Finnish Bf 109 Gs were already airborne when Soviet attack force arrived and they began engage Il-2s during their first attack and so prevented any follow-up attacks.

While writing on the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive the authors make overstatements. Army Group North Ukraine was forced to retreat but the fighting was hard and both sides suffered heavy losses, so it was not complete routed and while it lost, besides other losses, most of its XIII Corps in the Brody encirclement, it did not ceased to exist, it was simply renamed to Army Group A, probably mainly because it was mostly pushed out from Ukraine, northern half of it was fighting west of the Curzon Line, so definitely in Poland and the southern part on the north-eastern slopes of the Carpathians, so still just inside pre-1938 Poland or post-1945 Ukraine.

The last chapter is eight page long Guards Bomber Air Regiments of Naval Air Forces. The account of 73rd BAP KBF (later 12th GvBAP KBF), KBF = Soviet Baltic Fleet, attacks on the Narva railway bridge reminded me that I read decades ago a report of the Finnish liaison officer at the HQ of the Luftflotte 1 which informed the Finnish Air Force HQ of a German warning that the Soviet Air Force had several highly skilled units that could execute well planned and highly effective strikes, one example given was a cleverly and skilfully executed dive bombing attack on an important bridge somewhere in Baltic States. IIRC the attack began with low level attack, probably by Il-2s, against the bridge and the AA positions. When AA crews were distracted by this a sudden dive-bomber attack destroyed/badly damaged the bridge.

On the sinking of German 4,030 t, not 6,000 t as claimed in the caption of the front cover, AA ship (Schwimmende Flakbatterie / Flakschiff) Niobe in the port of Kotka on 16 July 1944. The high command of the Soviet Baltic Fleet Air Force was certain that Niobe would in fact be the Finnish coastal defence ship Väinämöinen, which has the displacement of 3,900 t, so it was almost the same size and sent a massive air group of 132 or 133 planes to sink it. The attack was well planned and executed and Niobe was sunk. According to Finns and some Soviet/Russian sources it was the four very low flying A-20Gs from the 51st Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment of the Baltic Fleet Air Force which achieved the fatal hits with two 1000 kg bombs. According to Kotelnikov and pseudonym Warjag at www.forum-marinearchiv.de Niobe was hit by two FAB-250s and two FAB-1000s. The former were dropped by Pe-2s and the latter by Bostons.  Niobe, ex- Gelderland, was originally a Dutch protected cruiser, not a coastal defence destroyer, the term used by the authors it the text, Finnish Väinämöinen was a coastal defence ship, a kind of mini-battleship. While in the authors used the right term on Väinämöinen in the text and the caption of the cover image, in the caption on the page 84 the term coastal defence destroyer is used. 

The authors also give three pages long description of the Operation Arcturus which consisted five big raids by the Baltic Fleet Air Force against the port of Liepaja/Libau in October and December 1944. Liepaja was the main supply port for the isolated German Army Group North, later renamed as AG Kurland. The description includes German defences, Soviet preparations, the Soviet planes participating the raid on 30 October, a recollection of one Soviet pilot of the 22 December raid, the number of German fighters usually participating the defence, German fighter pilots claims versus the real Soviet losses during a couple raids etc. There is also a table showing for each raid the number of Soviet aircraft participating, how many of these were Pe-2s or Il-2s, the total number of Soviet aircraft lost and the number of German ships claimed sunk. After the table in the text the results according to Germans.

The authors give a brief descriptions of the main organizational changes with the Soviet air forces and the beginning of the tradition of awarding the title of Guards units to combat units after a success in battle in September 1941. The first six aviation units were awarded the title on 6 December 1941.

One piece of Interesting information is that members of Guards units got 1½ - 2 fold increase in their financial allowances.

Many interesting but small photographs with informative captions. There are also a couple wartime instructional drawings on tactics used by Pe-2 units.

30 colour profiles by Andrey Yurgenson with several camo patterns and with interesting individual markings in ten cases.

There is one appendix in the book, Scheme of Pe-2 Guards units transition. It shows when units got their guards status, old and new unit designations and if the unit was formed after the beginning of the Great Patriotic war, 22 June 1941, roughly when it was formed. I did not check the table but noticed that of the naval units, in the table 34th Guards BAP previous designation is given as 34th BAP Baltic Fleet Air Force but in the text as 34th BAP of the Air Forces of the Pacific Fleet and that it stayed a part of that throughout the WW2.

In the book there are the following scale drawings: a 3-view of Pe-2 18th series, a 2-view of Pe-2R based on the 110th series and a side view of Pe-2R based on the 83rd series. And also an index, not all-encompassing but reasonably comprehensive.

So a good nice book on its subject, worth getting. The authors give numerous times the number of sorties, the amount of bombs dropped, the number of planes and aircrews lost and claimed results during the given timeframe by the given unit or formation.


Sources:
Sota-arkisto T 19280/49 Yhteysupseerien raportit LFl. 5 ja LFl. 1 22.06.41-27.12.42

Andersson, Lennart, Soviet Aircraft and Aviation 1917 – 1941 (London: Putnam Aeronautical Books,
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Geust, Carl-Fredrik, ’Neuvostoliiton kaukotoimintailmavoimat kesän 1944 suurhyökkäyksessä Karjalan
     kannaksella’, English summary ’The Soviet Long-range Air Force During the Great Offensive on the
     Karelian Isthmus in Summer 1944’, Sotahistoriallinen aikakauskirja 23 (2004) pp. 143 – 158.
Gordon, Yefim, Soviet Air Power in World War 2 (Hinckley: Midland Publishing, 2008).
Gordon, Yefim and Khazanov, Dmitri, Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War. Volume Two
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Gordon, Yefim and Komissarov, Sergey, Ilyushin Il-2 and Il-10 Shturmovik (Ramsbury: Crowood Press, 2004).
Haapanen, Atso, Kesäsota . Suomen ilmavoimien sotalennot kesällä 1944 (Tampere: Apali, 2006).
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Kauranen, Heikki and Vesen, Jukka, Simolan pommitukset 19. – 20.6.1944 (Tampere: Apali, 2006).
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Lappi, Ahti, ’Viipurin ilmatorjunta’, Eero Elfvengren, Eeva Tammi (toim.) Viipuri 1944 (Helsinki: WSOY).
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Henry L. deZeng IV, Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 The Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 
     http://www.ww2.dk/Airfields%20-%20Baltic%20States%20-%20Estonia,%20Latvia%20and%20Lithuania.pdf 
     extracted on 12 December 2020.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=65762&highlight=niobe extracted on 20 October 2012.
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https://www.flightforum.fi/topic/30561-douglas-a-20-havoc-l%C3%B6ytynyt/   extracted on 11 October 2019.
https://www.forum-marinearchiv.de/smf/index.php?topic=1095.15  extracted on 4 December 2020.
http://www.kurkijoki.fi/kylat/elisen03/elis_v_pomm.html extracted on 11 November 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-2  extracted on 11 September 2020.
http://www.ww2.dk/air/attack/stg1.htm  extracted on 14 May 2011.
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/stuka/bststg1.html  extracted on 14 May 2011.
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/stuka/bistg1.html  extracted on 14 May 2011.
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/stuka/biistg1.html  extracted on 14 May 2011.
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/stuka/biiistg1.html  extracted on 14 May 2011.
http://www.ww2.dk/air/attack/stg2.htm  extracted on 23 June 2011.
http://www.ww2.dk/air/attack/stg77.htm  extracted on 1 October 2017.
https://ww2.dk/Airfields%20-%20Russia%20and%20Ukraine.pdf  extracted on 28 September 2020.
http://www.ww2.dk/Airfields%20-%20Baltic%20States%20-%20Estonia,%20Latvia%20and%20Lithuania.pdf 
     extracted on 12 December 2020.
https://ww2.dk/air/recon/nagr5.htm  extracted on 28 September 2020.
https://ww2.dk/oob/bestand/aufkl/bstnagr5.html  extracted on 28 September 2020.
https://ww2.dk/oob/bestand/aufkl/b1nagr5.html  extracted on 28 September 2020.
https://ww2.dk/oob/bestand/aufkl/b2nagr5.html  extracted on 28 September 2020.
https://ww2.dk/air/attack/nsgr11.htm  extracted on 28 September 2020.
https://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/aufkl/b1ag31.html  extracted on 28 September 2020.
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/bstjg54.html  extracted on 2 March 2009.
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/bijg54.html  extracted on 22 March 2009.
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/biijg54.html  extracted on 29 April 2013.

96 pages. Two appendices, Luftwaffe Air-Sea Rescue Do 24 Squadrons and Dutch Navy Do 24 Aircraft Groups. Bibliography

Very nice book on an interesting aircraft. It tells the story of service of Do 24 with the Dutch navy (14 pages), the RAAF (4 pages), as transport plane supplying Germans at Narvik during the spring of 1940 (3 pages), service with the Seenotdienst (German Air-Sea Rescue Service) (34 pages) and KG 200 (1 page). Also its service with the French naval air service after the WWII (3 pages) and with the Spanish Air Force from 1944 to 1969 are told (2½ pages). Even services of single examples used in Sweden and the Soviet Union are mentioned (1 page). The British and Norwegian service (¾ page). The British used two Do 24s with German crews as rescue cover for mine clearing operations in Norwegian waters after the war, later the planes, still flown by Germans came under Norwegian control. There might have been two more Do 24s used by British locally at Bodo. Three Do 24s captured at Schleswig were flown to England for evaluation. One of those was test flown by Eric Brown, a famous British test pilot and in his book he tells that he liked it and concludes his assessment: “To me, the Do 24 was virtually viceless, and I certainly never met a German or Dutch pilot who had anything but praise for it…” But in fact he noticed earlier in the text that while generally its take-off characteristics were excellent “…Before we got up on the step the boat assumed a steep nose-up attitude, giving very poor view ahead, but once on the step that attitude decreased markedly…”. Development and production is dealt with on eight pages. 30 colour profiles, six of Dutch, 19 of German, two of Spanish, on each of Australian, Swedish and French ones, on 15 pages. Some combat reports of the Allies on Do 24 shoot downs. And a few German pilots and crewmembers recollections. (e.g. on pages 54-55). Even an appraisal by a RAAF pilot is there. It is the most critical assessment of the characteristics of Do 24 I have seen but even it is not overly critical.

Some especially interesting points for me were:
During the occupation of Corsica in July and August 1943, for troops transported there by Ju 52/3ms and Me 323s neither life vests nor dinghies were provided to.
Aircraft and boats of the Seenotdienst rescued 11,561 survivors from the sea during the World War 2 of which 3,815 were Allied personnel, the book gives also numbers per operational areas.

As a Finn I noticed that all Finnish place names are written correctly except Kupoio-Rissala, should be Kuopio-Rissala. 

I cannot say much on the colour profiles but I was surprised how light the ‘mud blue grey’ is in the profiles 5 to 7 i.e. Dutch Do 24K-1s in 1941-42 camouflage. It is lighter and greyer than the upper colour of the Do 24 I saw in 2005 at the Soesterberg Military Aviation Museum or the colour of the profile on the Do 24 site in 2001 and 2020.

Only error I noticed is not directly connected to Do 24. HMS Warspite did not participate the First naval Battle of Narvik which cut the German troops occupying Narvik out. During it five destroyers of the Royal Navy sank two German destroyers and the supply ship Rauenfels. She participated the Second naval Battle three days later when it attacked with nine destroyers and the other eight German destroyers were sunk as is told in the book.

Warmly recommended for those interesting in flying boat operations, the desperate fight of Dutch against Japanese in 1941-42, the activities of the Seenotdienst or Dornier Do 24 itself and its use.

Sources:
Brown, Eric Captain, Testing for Combat (Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1994).
Geust, Carl-Fredrik and Gennadiy Petrov. Red Stars Vol 2: German Aircraft in the Soviet Union (Tampere: Apali
​     Oy, 1998).

http://www.dornier24.com/  ex-http://masterdrew.topcities.com/pages/… Retrieved 29 November 2001.

80 pages.

A blow-by-blow description of the air fighting between Airacobras and Zero-sens in New Guinea in 1942.

The structure of this book is the normal for the Duel series.

The beginning of the book is very good, giving interesting information on the circumstances in which the combatants fought. Both sides suffered from bad food and had severe health problems, but on the Japanese side the situation was worse. On both sides there were severe supply problems and initially both sides suffered equipment and replacement aircraft shortages, but over the time, the massive production superiority of the U.S. began to take effect. The airfield situation was better on the Allies side, being better equipped for the construction, improvements and repairs of airfields. Also they had much better early-warning system, not because they had radar – radar performance was much hampered by the Owen Stanley Ranges – but by the Australian spotter network. To their merit U.S. leaders and pilots heeded the advice given by surviving Australian P-40 pilots, which they had learned by hard way in their previous fierce battles against Zeros over Port Moresby. This was by no means self-evident, e.g. Spitfire pilots who later arrived from Europe to Australia and India did not at first believe the warnings about the phenomenal agility of Japanese fighters to their own cost.

Also interesting is the information that the results of Japanese strafing attacks against Port Moresby airfields were minimal because of the effectiveness of AA defences there. Earlier they had been fairly effective and Airacobras made few fairly successful strafing attacks against Lae airfield. Maybe the USAAF had also learned disperse its aircraft better. 

In Chronology it was interesting to note that the first flight of P-39 was within a week a year earlier than that of A6M.

Design & Development chapter is generally good.
On page 13 there are mostly the same interesting quotes from summary reports submitted by several Airacobra pilots in May 1942 on Airacobra vs. Zero as given by Dunn in his research article on http://www.j-aircraft.com site. Claringbould adds some unsurprising Airacobra pilots’ comments on Zeros manoeuvrability and rate of climb. Overall the book contains a fairly reasonable number of recollections and contemporary reports from pilots of both sides.

There are some errors in the technical descriptions:
The reason why the wing machineguns of P-39 were so far out was not the propeller arc but the wing fuel tanks. The propeller arc itself would have allowed clearly more inward placement.

On the ammunition supply of 20 mm Hispano. The cannon in the drawing on page 19 is a Hispano but the ammunition supply looks like that of the 37 mm M4 cannon. It might be that the Hispano used same kind of endless belt magazine as M4 but I doubt that. IMHO it is much more probable that the Hispano used the standard 60 rounds drum magazine used with it in French fighters like Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 and Dewoitine D.520 and the early cannon armed British fighters like Westland Whirlwind Mk. I, Spitfire VBs and very early Bristol Beaufighters. And the 6th Part of Report A.A.E.E./774 BOSCOMBE DOWN Airacobra A.H.573 (Allison V-1710 – E.4.) Weights and loadings data in its paragraph 5. Loading Details under the 20 m/m Cannon Ammunition states: ‘Drum and 60 rds. 54 lb’. I had difficulties to find a good photo of the weapon bay of a P-400 but in the end I found one in the same folder that contains the Report A.A.E.E./774.  It shows a normal 60 rounds drum magazine. Also the Soviet technical description had a cutaway drawing of the P-400 which seems to show a drum magazine on the Hispano. And as the 20 mm cartridge was significantly slimmer and significantly shorter than of the 37 mm, it could not anyway use the same magazine than the 37 mm ammunition. The photo of the weapon bay of a P-400 also clearly shows why the British complained about poor access to areas requiring maintenance.

The book shows two rates of fire to the 20 mm Type 99-1 cannon, 540 and 490 rpm. According to Williams & Gustin, the right figure is 520 rpm, 490 is the rpm for the longer barrelled and heavier Type 99-2 used by later A6M models from A6M3a Model 22a onwards. Contrary to Claringbould claim it seems that 20 mm Type 99-1 cannons in A6M3 were still drum magazine fed but used bigger 100 rounds drum, the belt-fed cannon with 125 rounds per gun came later according to Williams & Gustin, Nohara, Millman and Mikesh. Also Kohjiro Funatsu, a former IJN maintenance crew had bitter memories of the 100 rounds ammunition drums of Zero, it was too heavy for easy loading, making loading process very painful.

The specifications figures of Airacobra are identical to those obtained from the official tests of the P-39D A.C. No. 41-6722, which was powered by earlier Allison V-1710-35 but the climb data (5 min 7 sec to 15,000 ft) but this might well be a misunderstanding, in the above mentioned test report the climb time is marked as 5.7 min meaning 5 min 42 sec. Of course it is possible that the author has had access to a test report of a P-39D-2, this subtype was powered stronger V-1710-63, which with 100/125 fuel could produce more power at low level than -35 because it could tolerate higher manifold pressure but its supercharger could produce the maximum manifold pressure only up to 2500 feet so the maximum speed stayed identical. Nevertheless the speed and climb rate were better low down. So it is possible that Claringbould has found a test report of a P-39D-2 showing the time to 15,000 ft as 5.11 or 5.12 min but I somewhat doubt it. Wagner gives for P-39K, which had the same V-1710-63 engine as in P-39D-2 but was 200 lb heavier than P-39D, the same 5.7 min. to 15,000 ft as for P-39D. P-39 D-2 had 121.5 lb heavier basic weight than the plain D according to Dean, so P-39K was not much heavier than D-2, so very probably D-2 had the same rate of climb as K and so the same as the plain D.
Soviet data shows 363.5 mph at 13780 ft with Allison V-1710-E4 powered Airacobra. That means P-400. British test results for P-400 gave the maximum speed of 355 mph at 13, 000 feet.
On A6M3 range, almost all my books on Zero give a different figure for the range of A6M3, Claringbould’s figure is one of the middle ones. Francillon 1987 and 1991 gives normal range for Model 21 as 1,160 miles, the same as Claringbould gives as the range. Francillon 1987 and 1991 give maximum range for Model 21 as 1,930 statute miles; 1987 gives for Model 32 1,477 statute miles, a reduction of 453 statute miles, Noharas figures are 1930 and 1284 miles, a reduction of 646 miles.

Maps 
The map on page 28 gives according to its caption the strategic situation in April 1942 but e.g. the Gilbert & Ellis Islands were occupied by Japanese in December 1941, Rabaul on New Britain in late January of 1942 and Shortland Islands in Northern Salomons at the end of March, and had at least begun the occupation of Bougainville during March. So Japanese flags should be at least on the Bismarck Archipelago, after all Rabaul had become the Japanese bastion in the area, also on the Gilbert & Ellis Islands, it was already part of the Japanese outer defence perimeter. The situation in the Northern Salomons in early April was more so and so but still the Japanese were already there. The southern part of the Salomons were still in British/Australian hands.
The map on page 30, there is a plenty of room on the map for more place names mentioned in the text, e.g. Rorona airfield, Cape Ward Hunt, Ora Bay and Cape Nelson. In the text it is revealed that the airfield situated to the west of Port Moresby. And Milne Bay is marked a bit too much south. The locations and layouts of the main airfields around Port Moresby are shown on the map on the next page, very interesting piece of information.

 In The Combatants chapter on US pilots only the flight time during the advanced training phase, 70 hours, is given, I would like to know their total flight time US fighter pilots had when they arrived to their first 1-line unit in early 1942.
But there are nice drawings of the cockpits of P-39D and A6M2 with the explanations of the gauges and switches shown. 
The two short biographies are of 1Lt, later Captain, Arthur “Art” E. Andres and Lt, later Lt Cdr, Shiro Kawai.

Combat

This 32-page section is pretty good, the essence of the book I think. And the main reason I bought the book. A bit more on tactics used would have been beneficial, I think. On page 47 in the caption of the diagram it should read that sticking to one’s leader not to one’s wingman was essential in air combat and the caption of the diagram on page 53 should have explanation how IJNAF pilots loosen their three plane shotai formation from the tight British style “vic” over areas where there was a risk of combat. That was because combat experience in China had demonstrated to them that the tight “vic” formation was too rigid and so they had adopted a looser formation whenever they expected action, wingmen, especially No.3, moving further away and higher than the leader and so the formation gained more flexibility.

On 26 May 1942 a P-39 mission was to escort five troop-laden C-47s to Wau. Claringbould describes the combat between escort and Zeros giving claims and real losses of fighters but says nothing on the success or failure of the escort mission, in other words whether the C-47s succeeded to carry out their mission or not.

On 16 June 1942 there was a big air combat over Port Moresby. One can count from Claringbould’s text that the USAAF losses were five Airacobras lost and two damaged with wounded pilots bringing them back to their base, but unusually he does not give the claims. IMHO it would be interesting to know what Japanese claims were during this mission, which produced the heaviest one-day losses for Airacobras operating over New Guinea. Fortunately both Millman and the Pacific Wrecks site disclose that Japanese pilots claimed 17 plus two probables while losing none of their own. It seems that USAAF pilots made no claims. So the Japanese were clearly overclaiming, but by no means outlandishly, bearing in mind that it was rather large air battle, 21 Zeros vs. 32 Airacobras, which took place partly over the sea and partly deep in the Allied territory.

Previously I have seen the P-400 joke more often as ‘the P-400 was nothing more than a P-40 with a Zero on its tail’ but of course substituting P-39 for P-40 is technically more correct and I have also seen it in that form in the past.

Statistics and Analysis chapter

I am puzzled that in the Statistics and Analysis chapter Claringbould at first on page 75 writes that “In 1942 in New Guinea a total 44 Airacobras was lost in combat compared to just 15 Zero-sens, constituting a loss ratio almost three-to-one...”. But on page 76 he writes that of the 44 Aircobras lost in combat in 1942 in New Guinea only 15 were shot down by Zeros. Who shot down the rest, ground fire got some but the first JAAF fighters unit, the 1st Chutai of the 11th Sentai, became active in New Guinea on 26 December 1942 and it did not claim Airacobras during the last few days of 1942. Japanese air gunners seems to have got a few but what about the rest. Did the combat losses include those destroyed on ground by bombing and strafing? But Claringbould notices earlier that the results of Japanese strafing attacks against Port Moresby airfields were minimal. Some Airacobras were destroyed by bombing, that is true but still the figures seem not to add up. And it seems that the 15 Zero losses does not include losses on ground because already the first Airacobra strafing attack on Lae on 30 April 1942 destroyed three Zeros according to Claringbould and according to Tagaya burned one and wrecked another Zero. Lae and other Japanese airfields in the area were also bombed rather regularly. The Zero pilot losses were shown on the Amazon.com page in image 3, which is unfortunately no longer shown. According to it Tainan lost altogether 44 pilots in New Guinea, 13 of them to the Airacobras of the 8th and 35th FGs. Others include e.g. seven to RAAF Kittyhawks, four to B-17 and B-25 gunners, seven to operational causes and five to marginal weather. For the rest either the table was partly blocked so I could not see what happened to them or was it that I just did not write the reasons of the loss of the rest down when I looked the image, I cannot remember for sure which but the reason was probably the first one. From Claringbould’s text one sees that some were lost to ground fire. 

And  pseudonym Wildcat on the thread http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/p-39-zero-killer-40531.html writes: 'According to the excellent book "Eagles of the Southern sky" by Luca Ruffato & Michael Claringbould, during the period 1 April to 15 November 1942, the Tainan Kokutai shot down 38 Airacobras for a loss of 12 Zero's (1 by collision). These are confirmed victories, not claims.' At first I thought that the figure probably includes victories over Guadalcanal but in another thread, https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/p-39-vs-german-fighters.47960/page-3, Greg Boeser clearly stated that the figure is on the results of combats over New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. So it does not include losses suffered in the fighting over the Solomons. Altogether according to Boeser, based on Luca Ruffato and Michael J. Claringbould, Eagles of the Southern Sky: The Tainan Naval Air Group in WWII Volume One: New Guinea (2012) the Tainan pilots shot down 81 enemy a/c of all types over New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, losing 42 pilots to all causes. These 81 shot down aircraft were: 17 Kittyhawks/Warhawks, 38 P-39/P-400s, five A-24s, one Hudson, 10 B-25s, 5 B-26s, 5 B-17s. The Tainan Naval Air Group lost 11-13 pilots to P-39s during this period. This is more or less in line with JoeB’s figures he gave in 2007 in threads https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/how-good-was-japanese-aviation.730/page-12 and
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/allied-vs-japanese-losses-7203.html, namely: 'stats from Apr 30-June 1 '42, 45 e/a claimed, 37 of them Zeroes, for 26 P-39's (13 pilots) lost in air combat. The Tainan Kokutai lost 11 pilots in this period, w/ the 8th the only Allied fighter unit it faced after May 3.' According to Boesner Ruffato & Claringbould agrees that Tainan lost 11 pilots during that timeframe, but they say that of those seven were lost to Airacobras, two to B-25s and two to ground fire. According to Hata and Izawa the Tainan Air Group lost over eastern New Guinea from April through July 1942 ‘…twenty aircraft that either destroyed themselves or failed to return to base.’ Destroying oneself meant in Japanese parlance either that other Japanese pilots saw that the plane was shot down or that they saw that in a desperate situation, e.g. when his plane was so badly damaged or suffered so serious technical problems that the pilot concluded that his plane could not reach the base he deliberately dived onto ground.

I could have read the book one more time and count the P-39/P-400 losses, but did not bother. Instead I went through the P-39/P-400 losses in New Guinea in 1942 on the Pacific Wrecks site. When it in few cases does not give a clear reason, I checked what Claringbould says. All Airacobra losses are not mentioned on the site. Results were: 
P-39s/P-400s reason of loss:
Zeros 20
Possibly Zeros 5
Forced landing because of Zero, plane not recovered, so lost 1
Ground fire 3
Friendly fire 1 possible
Engine 4
Probably engine 1
Weather 4

Millman writes that during fighter combats in May and June the Tainan Kokutai accounted 29 Airacobras for the loss of eight of its own pilots. Maybe his source is Ruffato & Claringbould. So it seems that Claringbould’s figure 15 is too low.
According to Pacific Wrecks there is one case in which a P-39 claimed in Eagles of the Southern Sky to be lost over Port Moresby in fact crashed into sea off Queensland. 

It is easier to believe that A6Ms had an upper hand, IJNAF pilots were at this stage better trained than their USAAF counterparts and they had already got significant combat experience when for almost all US pilots New Guinea was their first combat assignment. And Airacobra was not in its element in high altitude interception missions. Even if USAAF pilots used more modern finger-four formation, braking up into two two-fighter elements and the Japanese three plane shotai, the difference was not so marked because combat experience in China had taught the Japanese to enter combat in a more open and so more flexible formation. Airacobra was sturdier and had armour protection, self-sealing fuel tanks and a good radio. It also dived faster. It was also somewhat faster at lower altitudes. So at lower altitudes the planes were more evenly matched. Of course at quite low level Airacobra lost its best way to disengage, namely diving away.

Aftermath chapter

The first deliveries of P-39Q were made in May 1943, so the 35th FG was hardly operating them in April 1943, P-39N, which had almost identical performance, was possible, its first deliveries had been in November 1942. Claringbould rightly notice that neither Zero nor Airacobra units could achieve air superiority over New Guinea in 1942 and on the Allies side situation eased when US forces landed onto Tulagi, Gavutu and Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 and forced the IJNAF divert its resources there. In late December 1942 first P-38s arrived in New Guinea and in late summer of 1943 the first P-47s. He might somewhat underestimate the significance of P-39s during the first part of 1943. But in 1943 the main opponent of the Allies was the JAAF, not Zeros of the IJNAF. At the turn of the year 1942/43 the Japanese Army Air Force had accepted to take the sole responsibility for fighter operations in New Guinea from the badly over-stretched IJNAF. So Airacobra actions in 1943 are not part of the subject of this book. Maybe he mentions these combats briefly in his new P-47D Thunderbolt vs Ki-43-II Oscar NEW GUINEA 1943–44 DUEL 103 book. On the other hand, Claringbould gives almost a whole page of interesting information about the use of the P-39 in 1944 in New Guinea.

Anyway Airacobra had its moments of glory in air combats during the first part of 1943. Stanaway in his P-39 Airacobra Aces and Nijboer write that between February and August 1943 P-39 pilots claimed more than 40 of the 50 kills credited to USAAF units between those months, but this is hardly true because e.g. on 21 July P-38 pilots claimed 21 or 22 Japanese aircraft and 16 August P-38 and P-47 pilots claimed 15, and on 6 February, while Airacobra pilots claimed 11 Japanese planes, other USAAF fighter pilots claimed additional 13. But up to late summer 1943 Airacobras still made some significant contributions in air fighting over New Guinea. During the air battle over Wau in 6 Feb 1943 Airacobra pilots from the 40th Fighter Squadron/35th Fighter Group made 11 claims against JAAF fighters and bombers but during this engagement USAAF pilots heavily overclaimed, making altogether 24 claims, plus 3 claims made by Australian AA gunners, for seven Japanese planes lost. Another important combat was over Tsili Tsili on 15 August 1943 when Airacobra pilots made 14 claims for nine Japanese losses, six Ki-48 light bombers and three Ki-43 fighters, but three P-39Ns and two C-47s were also lost plus a P-39N was damaged and crash-landed at Tsili Tsili Airfield. The latter may have been a written-off because some sources say that four P-39s were lost.

Photos are well chosen, but many are reproduced rather small. Of course this book is rather small and so space limited, maybe some photos could have left out and so create space for reproducing some photos larger. There is a nice aerial reconnaissance photo of Lae airfield taken in May 1942.

Warmly recommended especially as a good blow-by-blow history of the air fighting over New Guinea in 1942.

Sources:
6th Part of Report A.A.E.E./774 BOSCOMBE DOWN Airacobra A.H.573 (Allison V-1710 – E.4.) Weights and
   loadings data. On the front page there is a written archive ID AVIA 18/724 but according to the
     database of The National Archives, Kew this folder holds  Chesapeke aircraft: performance trials,
     Chesapeke, in fact Chesapeake Mk.I, was an export version of Vought SB2U Vindicator. On the other hand
     the description of AVIA 18/725 is  Airacobra aircraft: performance and handling trials. On the front page
     of the 1st Part of Report A.A.E.E./774 BOSCOMBE DOWN Airacobra A.H.573 (Allison V-1710  E.4.)
   Preliminary Handling Tests there is a written archive ID AVIA 18/725. But also e.g. on the front page of
     9th part of the report, namely Climb and level speed performance there is a written archive ID AVIA
     18/724.
Pilot’s Flight Operating Instructions for Army Model P-39Q-1.
Soviet Airacobra with Allison V-1710-E4.Technical description. That means P-400.
US Reciprocating Engine Characteristics 1 Jan. 1949.
U.S. Army Air Forces Combat Chronology 1941 – 1945, Compiled by Kit C. Carter, Robert Mueller AFD-
      090529-036 (Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1991). https://www.afhra.af.mil/Portals/16/documents/Studies/101-150/AFD-090529-036.pdf  Retrieved 12
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Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War (London: Putnam 3rd Revised Edition, 1987).
Francillon, René, ‘Zero-Japan’s greatest fighter Part One’, Air International Magazine, Vol. 41, No. 6 
     (December 1991).
Francillon, René, ‘Zero-Japan’s greatest fighter Part Two’, Air International Magazine, Vol. 42, No. 1
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Green, William, Swanborough, Gordon, ‘The Calamitous ‘Cobra’, Air Enthusiast, August 1971.
Hata, Ikuhiko, Izawa, Yasuho and Shores, Christopher, Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units and Their Aces
     1931 – 1945 (London: Grub Street, 2002).
Hata, Ikuhiko and Izawa, Yasuho, translated by Don Cyril Gorham, Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in 
     World War II (Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1990).
Ichimura, Hiroshi, Ki-43 ‘Oscar’ Aces of World War 2. Osprey Aircraft of the Aces • 85 (Botley: Osprey, 2009).
King, Charlie, ‘Leadership 101’, in Eric Hamel, Aces Against Japan (New York/London: Pocket Books 1995).
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Lundstrom, John B., The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway (Annapolis,
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https://pacificwrecks.com/date/index.html  Retrieved 15 August 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wau    Retrieved 15 August 2020.
https://pacificwrecks.com/airfields/png/wau/missions-wau.html  Retrieved 15 August 2020.
https://pacificwrecks.com/airfields/png/tsili-tsili/missions-tsili-tsili.html  Retrieved 16 August 2020.
https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/p-38/mccarthy.html  Retrieved 19 August 2020.
https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/p-39/mikiska.html  Retrieved 19 August 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortland_Islands  Retrieved 22 August 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Buka_and_Bougainville  Retrieved 23 August 2020.

96 pages, 30 colour profiles, 15 colour drawings of unit badges, two appendices (S.79 warship kills 1940-41 and S.79 merchant ship kills 1940-41, in fact the tables also include damaged ships, the warship table down to splinter damage) and index.

Since childhood I have been interested in this sleek-looking Italian trimotor. And I was happy to see that again Mattioli has done a very good job. Again he has been trying to dig out what S.79 Sparvieri actually achieved by checking Italian claims against Allies’ records and clearly states which claims can be verified from Allies’ reports. There are still few overclaimings left but these are minor errors.

p. 11 Spanish battleship Jaime I
After S.79s bombed the ship in Almeria harbour it was according to Spanish Wikipedia able to reach the Cartagena naval base on its own power, not towed there as Mattioli writes.
Silverstone mentions the damage by bombings at Almeria in May 1937 but does not mention how she got to Cartagena. Conway does not even mention the bombings, only the explosion that wrecked Jaime I in June in Cartagena harbour. So I cannot say who is right.

s.57  While in his text Mattioli writes that 11° Stormo S.79s scored the Regia Aeronautica’s first ship ‘kill’ of the war when they damaged destroyer HMS Diamond off Malta on 17 June 1940. On the other hand, this attack is not mentioned in the book’s Appendix A S.79 warship kills 1940-41 -table. According to Naval-history.net HMS Diamond suffered only slightly damage on 11 June 1940 and it makes no mention of June 17. According to en.wikipedia, she was slightly damaged by air attacks near Malta on 11 and 17 June 1940, so its combat capabilities was unlikely to be affected by the damage, so IMHO not even a ship ‘kill’ with quotation marks. Chronik des Seekrieges 1939-1945 does not mention any damage of HMS Diamond on those days. Also, none of the books on my source list mention the possible damage on 17 June.

s. 72 The text states on July 6, 1940 that S.79s ‘were credited with having hit one of the naval vessels’. In fact,  British ships have not suffered any damage and correctly nothing is mentioned in the Appendix A.

On the Appendix A, very light damage are included into the table. E.g. battleship HMS Malaya suffered only splinter damage on 8 July 1940 – As it is written in naval-history.net: “During the day, the fleet was under air attacks from a total of 126 high level bombers. In one attack fire control cables were damaged by near misses and repaired.” So only slight damage that was repaired immediately, but the classification is ‘damaged’ in the table.

I checked the table for HMS Ark Royal and HMS Liverpool, for Liverpool it is OK, but for Ark Royal there are IMHO a few trivial matters. For 1 August 1940, Mattioli notes in the text that “shrapnel from the S.79s’ bombs inflicted modest internal damage on Ark Royal.” My other sources do not mention any damage. HMS Ark Royal could launch a planned air attack the following night as planned, so the damage she suffered had no operational impact. In the table, this is marked as “internal damage”, which tells very little about how dangerous/disabling the damage was. IMHO a better damage classification would be (insignificant)?, minor, moderate, heavy etc.

On 9 July 1940 HMS Hood, Resolution and Ark Royal suffered only splinter damage, the table and text say “minor damage”, which is practically the same thing.

On 27 November 1940 HMS Ark Royal suffered again only from near misses, but this time a few of those were very near misses indeed. On the page 157 in Apps’ book there is a sketch map showing the impact points of the misses in relation to the Ark Royal. Some bomb salvos were very close to hitting the ship and a few bombs exploded only appr. 10 yards from her hull.  Again in the table damage classification is “internal damage”. This time maybe at least partly meaning damage caused by the mining effect of so near misses.

So only few minor complains.

I was at first puzzled by the captions of two colour profiles (profiles 1, 12) which say that the planes illustrated have a large three-tone camouflage (green, brown and yellow), whereas the drawings themselves show a two-tone band camouflage (brown and yellow). Only after looking at page 46 in Sgarlato’s Italian Aircraft of World War II, which has a small colour plan view of the standard Italian large three-tone band camouflage, although the places of the green and brown are reversed to that in Mattioli’s book and at the b/w photos in this book on pages 19, 24 and 26 I understood that the Italian large three-tone band camouflage shows clearly as a three colour scheme only when viewed from the right or above. But IMHO probably even when viewed from the left,  the engine cowlings and the upper parts of the engine nacelles should have been painted with the third colour, in the case of the profiles 1, 2, 5 and 12 green, at least some of them. But I am a total amateur in the Italian camouflage schemes, so this is just an opinion of a total amateur. But any case the lack of any three-way profile drawings is IMHO a shortcoming.

So overall, it's nice to have a book that is based on careful research and contains accurate information about the machine's operations and what it really achieved.

Marco Mattioli’s text gives a brief description of the aircraft’s development and a detailed but clear account of its operational history on all fronts it served. But due to the limited number of pages available, the text sometimes felt a bit too catalogue but there are some short quotes from  war diaries of squadriglie, wartime reports and recollections of crew members.

I was surprised that S.79’s active involvement as a bomber ended so early, from 1941, its use decreased significantly and became more marginal towards the end of 1942. It operated as a torpedo bomber still in late 1944 as Mattioli has told in his earlier book, which I have reviewed earlier.

A lot of interesting photos unfortunately many are rather small.

Hopefully Mattioli will also write a book on CANT Z.1007bis in the future.

Apps, Michael, The Four Ark Royals (Abingdon: Purnell 1976).
Dunning, Chris, Combat Units of the Regia Aeronautica Italian Air Force 1940-43. Volume 1(New Malden: Air
     Research, 1988).
Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921 (London:
      Conway Maritime Press, 1985).
Green, William, "Zappata's Wooden Kingfisher". Air International, August 1992, Vol. 43 No. 2, pp. 81–90.
Greene, Jack & Massignani, Alessandro, The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940 – 1943 (Barnsley:
      Frontline Books, 2011).
Playfair, I. S. O. et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East Volume 1: The Early Successes Against Italy, to
      May 1941 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1954).
Roskill, S. W. Captain RN, The War at Sea 1939-1945. Volume I. The Defensive (London: Her Majesty’s
      Stationery Office, 1954).
Sgarlato, Nico, Italian Aircraft of World War II (Warren, MI: Squadron/Signal, 1979).
Shores, Christopher et.al., Malta: The Hurricane Years. 1940-41 (London: Grub Street, 1987).
Shores, Christopher et.al., A History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940-1945 Volume One (London: Grub
      Street, 2012).
Silverstone, Paul H., Directory of the World’s Capital Ships (Shepperton: Ian Allan Ltd., 1984).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_battleship_Jaime_I  Retrieved on 23 November 2019.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_I_(1921) Retrieved on 23 November 2019.
https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-19D-HMS_Diamond.htm  Retrieved on 19 August 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Diamond_(H22)  Retrieved on 19 August 2019.
http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-Capetown.htm [July  6th  Carried out bombardment at
            Bardia in support of shore military operation] Retrieved on 19 August 2019.
https://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-06.htm  Retrieved on 19 August 2019.
http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-07.htm Retrieved on 19 August 2019.
https://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-11.htm Retrieved on 4 January 2020.
http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-Caledon.htm [bombardment at Bardia not mentioned]
           Retrieved on 19 August 2019.
https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Malaya.htm  Retrieved on 19 August 2019.
https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-04CV-HMS_Ark_Royal.htm  Retrieved on 29 December 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91) Retrieved on 29 December 2019.

Khazanov, Dmitriy & Medved, Aleksander, Bf 109E/F vs Yak-1/7 Eastern Front 1941 – 42 Osprey Duel 65 (2015) 80 pages, ISBN: 978 1 4728 0579 9

The book was a bit disappointment. It has its good points and generally while the situation is much improved since 1980s there is still lack of books on the Soviet side of the Great Patriotic War as they call the WWII on the Eastern Front from 22 June 1941 onwards. The book shows that while Yak-1 or Yak-7 were not in par with Bf 109F-4, IMHO the best short-range fighter in the world from mid-1941 to mid-1942, they were good, if somewhat rudimentary equipped low- and medium altitude fighters during that timeframe.

The book gives as usual in this series the basic information on the versions of Yaks and Bf 109 up to mid-1942, the strategic background and the pilot training, combat tactics and organization of the respective air forces. The biographs given are those of Mikhail Dmitrievich Baranov, an ace with 24 individual aerial victories and Hermann Graf, 206 aerial victories according the book, 212 aerial victories according to the most sources I have seen, e.g. Bergström et. al. Graf biography and http://www.luftwaffe.cz/graf.html . There is empty space worth of 15 lines on the page allocated to the Graf’s biography which could have been easily filled by more facts from Graf’s long combat career and e.g. his father’s occupation, he was a farmer, later a baker who served as an artilleryman during the WWI, not simply an artilleryman as given in the bio. And while JG(r) 50 was a specialist unit JG 11 wasn’t. The book illustrated some battle formations used by the VVS KA (the Soviet Army Air Force), they were standard “vic” based formations used rather universally before a pair and its multitudes became the new norm. The Combat part is somewhat vague but includes some interesting quotes from pilots’ memoirs.

On the pages 58 – 59 there is a good analyse on the problems faced by the Soviet fighter formation leaders during the early part of the Great Patriotic War; lack of radios, poor communications generally, too strict orders which limited formation leaders initiative, obsolete formations etc. But I doubt the claim that Soviet fighters were invariably being outnumbered even in the initial stages of the fighting on the Eastern Front, front was simply so long and there were too few German fighters to give adequate cover to everywhere along it.

The authors give as the total number of Bf 109s ranged against the Soviet Union as approximate 820, not much over the usually given figure of 793 single-engine fighters of which 619 were serviceable.

There are three maps on pages 36, 40 and 41. The first one gives information on the Luftwaffe and VVS KA (Army Air Forces) fighter strengths on the eve of the Operation Barbarossa on the very early morning of 22 June 1941 on the Eastern Front from the Gulf of Finland to the Black Sea. The number of VVS KA fighters, 4,226 is smaller than that given in Tomasz Kopanski’s Barbarossa Victims on page 13, namely 4 730. On the other hand, the number of Bf 109s readying to attack the Soviet Union is given as 824 which is a little more than 793 given in Balke’s and Bergström’s books. The number of Yak-1s given is identical in both this and Kopanski’s book. The second map shows the Soviet fighter units in the Moscow area on 30 October 1941. Based on my very limited sources of Soviet air forces it seems that some of the 6 IAK (fighter corps) Moscow Region PVO fighter units are left out, e.g. 16 and 34 IAPs equipped with MiG-3s. The map reveals the bases used and the fighter regiments and also shows which fighter regiments had Yak-1s in their strengths but doesn’t give any strength figures for the Soviet units shown. The last one gives the disposition of the VVS-KA fighter units in the Stalingrad region in October 1942, giving the number of Yaks and the identity of the IAPs (fighter regiments) for each IAD and SAD (fighter and mixed air divisions) in the region. Also given is the number of Bf 109s in the region (both Bf 109F-4s of the JG 3 and the Bf 109E-7/Us of the SchG 1). The number of  Bf 109 fighters is correct but according to the Michael Holm’s site (http://www.ww2.dk/air/jagd/jg3.htm etc.), most were in fact Bf 109G-2s, only III./JG 3 was still equipped with Bf 109F-4s. This is confirmed in the Prien’s & Stemmer’s Jagdgeschwader 3 “Udet” in World War II multivolume unit history. I./Sch.G.1 had exactly 28 Bf 109E-7/U-1s on 31.10.1942 plus Stab/Sch.G.1 had five more and on 1 October they have had 22+3 Bf 109E-7/U-1s according to Michael Holm’s site. So one can say that the number of Bf 109s given is the correct one but most of the fighters were in fact already Bf 109G-2s and F-4s were already a minority.

But the book has its problems. It is a bit misleading to compare the number of Bf 109s with the number of Yaks in service because in 1941 Bf 109 was the only single engine fighter in service with the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front while Soviet air forces had, besides the huge number of older fighters, three types of modern single engine fighters in service. The most numerous of these in June 1941 was the MiGs, around 1,000 in service compared to 200+ Yak-1s. Those LaGG-3s which were with first–line units were with Moscow and Leningrad PVOs or in Far East. I don’t have exact number of LaGG-3s with first-line units, but the number of the modern single-engine fighters produced by 22 June 1941 was 2,030 (1,309 MiGs, 399 Yak-1s and 322 LaGG-3s). And even during the last six months of 1941 both MiG-3 and LaGG-3 productions were twice as high as the Yak production. Only in 1942 Yak became the most produced Soviet single engine fighter.

Bf 109E-3 was powered by a DB 601 A, not by a DB 601Aa.

On p. 22 there is a typo and a mistake in the last chapter, M-105P/PA produced 1,100 metric hp/ps/л.с. (1,085 hp) at 2,000 m alt. and 1,050 metric hp/ps/л.с. (1,036 hp) at 4000 metres. M-105PF produced 1,260 hp/ps/л.с. (1,243 hp) at 700 m, 1,180 hp/ps/л.с. (1,164 hp) at 2700 metres. So the full throttle/rated altitudes were lower than claimed in the book.

In Bf 109Fs its 7.92 mm MG 17s had 500 rpg, not 300 claimed in the book. Probably the error is because from Bf 109G-5/-6 onwards the two MG 17s with 500 rpg were replaced by two 13 mm MG 131s with 300 rpg.

The maximum speed of Bf 109F-4. The DB 601 E was initially restricted to 1,200 PS (1,184 hp) at 2,500 rpm; however, the full rating of 1,350 PS (1,332 hp) at 2,700 rpm (Start und Not that means Take-off and Emergency, allowed only for a short duration of 3 minutes) was cleared for service use by February 1942. With 1,184 hp Climb and Combat power maximum speed of a Bf 109F-4 was 660 km/h at 6,200 m according to the Datenblatt  109 F4 Augsburg, den 29.11.41. I don’t know if the speed is with or without compressibility correction, often German performance figures are given without compressibility correction. At that speed and altitude, the compressibility correction should IMHO reduce the attained speed about 15 km/h. In this case I think that the figure is without the compressibility correction because the maximum speed with 1,184 hp Climb and Combat power was given as 635 km/h at 6,000 m in the Datenblatt  109 F4 Augsburg, den 1.7.42. Anyway faster than 610 km/h given in the book and of course during 1942 even faster with Take-off and Emergency power, which gave extra 150 hp for maximum of 3 minutes. Also the ranges given to Bf 109 F-2 and F-4, 580 km and 560 km respectively, seems to be too short. A British test, dated 3rd Dec 1944, gave the maximum tactical range of Bf 109G (no information on subtype) with greater displacement DB 605 engine and the same amount of fuel as 615 mls/990 km without the 300 litres drop-tank and 1145 mls/1682 km with it. It also gives the fast cruise range of 450 mls/724 km without and 795 mls/1280 km with a drop-tank for the Bf 109G. Finnish experience was that the practical maximum range of Bf 109G-2/-6 was c. 750 km without a drop-tank because when flying lower, more economical speeds there were problems with spark plugs soothing and exhaust leakage into the cockpit. The Soviet data I have seen gives 650 km range for Bf 109F-4. Also the specification given in the table on the page to Yak-1b are the same but for the armament as given to normal high-back Yak-1 powered by a M-105PF tested at NII VVS in June 1942 in the Gordon’s book. According to Gordon Yak-1B was a bit lighter and 19 km/h faster than given in the table of this book. The information given on Yak-7B in the table and in Gordon’s book are almost identical.

On page 33 the ammunition load for the 20 mm MG 151/20 in Bf 109F-4 was given as 200 rounds. That is what could be loaded into a F-4 but at least Finns found out with their Bf 109Gs that the 200 rounds 20 mm belt was too heavy and often produced a breakage of the ammunition belt approximately halfway. When modifications didn’t eliminate the problem and Finns heard that Germans used to load their 109Gs only with approximately 130 rounds, Finns began to load the MG 151/20 of their 109Gs with 155 rounds (130 in the ammo box and 25 on the loading tray). Still more 20 mm rounds than in a Yak.
 
DB 605A engine didn’t immediately bring more power to Bf 109 because the use of the 1.42 ata boost which was needed for the 1,475 PS (1,455 hp) take-off and emergency power was banned most of the time up to autumn 1943, before that but some intervals maximum allowed boost was 1,30 ata producing maximum take-off power of 1,310 PS (1,292 hp). So at low and mid altitudes most of time before autumn 1943 Bf 109G had less power that Bf 109F-4 with heavier engine, only above circa 5,250 m DB 605A produced more power at 1.30 ata than DB 601E at 1.42 ata because the former had higher full throttle height but that was more important against the Western Allies than on the Eastern Front.

The book gives a bit too good picture on the pilot training in the Luftwaffe. Even if the Luftwaffe fighter pilots got some training on instrument flying, that wasn’t good enough for bad weather operations as the Luftwaffe learned in the West during the winter 1943/44.

On the page 43 the figure given as the Luftwaffe total losses between 1 May and 31 August 1942, 4,460 aircraft, is IMHO odd, the Quartermaster Generals Loss Returns gives the total losses of that time period as a little under 3,000 and that is the figure for all fronts plus a little under 2,400 damaged. According to Williamson Murray’s Luftwaffe p. 107 Table XXV, 53,7 % of the Luftwaffe total losses between 1 June and 31 August happened on the Eastern Front.  So the figure in the book doesn’t seem to fit the information from the Quartermaster Generals Loss Returns and Murray’s book. It may well be that the authors had access to better sources than I but according to the sources I have access the figure seems odd.  And the number given as the number of German single-engine fighters in the frontline, 554, must be that of on the Eastern Front. A right figure but maybe the definition “on the Eastern Front” would have been nice to be added to that sentence.

On the page 52 the authors claim that ”The highest  homogenous tactical fighter unit was the Luftflotte. As a rule, every Luftflotte consisted of three combat geschwader, the Luftflotte HQ, a HQ detachment and a Communication Company…” I’m totally lost with that. To my understanding a Luftflotte was area based and was flexible in size and number of subordinated units, and its size changed depending on need. And it was heterogeneous, usually consisting fighter, bomber, reconnaissance etc. units. The main Luftflotten in the East in 1941 (1, 2 and 4) were all more powerful than three Geschwadern, 2 and 4 significantly so. And on 27 July 1942 Luftflotte 1 was about the size of three combat Geschwadern but Luftflotte 4 was massively more powerful, some 11(+) combat Geschwadern. Same to Luftflotte 2 in Mediterranean area (over six combat Geschwadern). In West Luftflotte 3 had almost worth of five combat Geschwadern.

While on the page 57 the numbering of the items in the Bf 109F-4 cockpit colour drawing is sequenced logically that isn’t the case in the Yak-1B cockpit colour drawing on the page 56. I notice that the clock is missing from the Bf 109F-4 cockpit colour drawing, should be in the right top corner.

On the page 70 the claim of 45th IAP seems odd if the date isn’t a typo. The text gives an impression that the regiment claimed eight Bf 109s while losing only a single Yak-1 on 11 July 1942 while part of the Sevastopol air group but most of the air group including all flyable fighters had been evacuated on the night of 30 June/1 July to Kuban and the city itself had fallen on 1 July and the last bigger Soviet formation had surrendered on 4 July even if some scattered resistance to the south of the city continued until 9 July. Or maybe that combat happened after the unit was evacuated from Sevastopol, but in that case it would have been nice to be told by the authors where the combat took place.

The information given in the table “Leading Yak-1/7 Bf 109 killers 1941 – 42” on the page 75 is different in several cases from that given by Mikhail Bykov. e.g. the scores of Sultan Amet-Khan and Schirov are somewhat different and there is bigger difference in I. I. Kleschev’s case, namely 16 individual + 15 shared vs 13 + 10 and in this book it is claimed that K. S. Alekseyev and M. Avdeyev/Advdeev served with the VVS of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet when in fact they served with the VVS of the Black Sea Fleet.

On Further Reading, almost all of the Russian books are unknown to me but according to my understanding Bykov’s book is highly regarded as are Prien’s JG 53 book and his, Stemmer’s, Rodeike’s and Bock’s Die Jagdfliegerverbande der Deutschen Luftwaffe series, even if the latter series is almost purely based on German documents and so has almost purely the German point of view. But I’m surprised that Nowarra’s (in the book typed as Novarra) Die 109 is in the list. IMHO it is obsolete and unreliable source. I have used Willy Radinger’s and Walter Schick’s Messerschmitt Me 109 Alle Varianten: von Bf (Me) 109A bis Me 109E (1997) for information on the early Bf 109 versions, on the later ones I have used a bit old Prien’s and Rodeike’s Messerschmitt Bf 109 F, G & K Series (1993). It doesn’t have specifications, so those I have usually checked from copies of documents and en.wikipedia pages, wiki’s Bf 109 pages are good ones.

IMHO the conclusions are mostly correct, the main problems of the VVS were inadequate training, organisational and control problems and obsolete combat tactics. Yaks, while not equal to Bf 109F-4 were still fairly well-matched to it at lower altitudes, which were the main combat altitude band on the Eastern Front, and had its strong points, e.g. being able to turn tighter. And as always in combat it was vital to try to use own strengths against opponent’s weaknesses.

Sources:
the Quartermaster Generals Loss Returns
Kennblatt für das Flugzeugmuster Bf 109 Baureihe F-1 und F-2 mit DB 601 N Motor Berlin 1941
Ladeplan Me 109 F-4/Z
Datenblatt  109 F4 Augsburg, den 29.11.41
Datenblatt  109 F4 Augsburg, den 1.7.42
L. Dv.T. 2109 F-2 und F-4/Wa Bf 109 F-2 und F-4 Bedienungsvorschrift - Wa

Balke, Ulf, Der Luftkrieg in Europa. Die operativen Einsätze des Kampfgeschwaders 2 im Zweiten Weltkrieg,
    Teil 1 (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe , 1989).
Bergstrom, Christer, Barbarossa - The Air Battle: July–December 1941 (London: Chevron, 2007).
Bergström, Christer, Mikhailov, Andrey, Black Cross / Red Star Air War Over the Eastern Front, Volume 2,
    Resurgence January–June 1942 (Pacifica, California: Pacifica Military History, 2001).
Bergström, Christer, Antipov, Vlad, Sundin, Claes, Graf & Grislawski—A Pair of Aces (Hamilton MT: Eagle
    Editions, 2003).
Gordon, Yefim, Soviet Air Power in World War 2 (Hinckley: Midland Publishing, 2008).
Khazanov, Dmitriy and Medved, Aleksander, MiG-3 Aces of World War 2 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2012).
Kopanski, Tomasz, Barbarossa Victims. Luftwaffe kills in the East (Redbourn: Mushroom Model Publishing,
   2001).
Mellinger, George, LaGG and Lavochkin Aces of World War 2 (Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 2003).
Mellinger, George, Yakovlev Aces of World War 2 (Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 2005).
Murray, Williamson, Luftwaffe (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985).
Pitkänen, Mika ja Simpanen, Timo, 20 mm Suomessa - Aseet ja ampumatarvikkeet ennen vuotta 1945 / 20
    mm in Finland - Weapons and Ammunition prior to 1945 (Tampere: Apali, 2007).
Prien, Jochen & Stemmer, Gerhard, Jagdgeschwader 3 “Udet” in World War II Vol. I: Stab and I./JG3 in Action
   with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing 2002).
Radinger, Willy and Schick, Walter, Messerschmitt Me 109: das meistgebaute Jagdflugzeug der Welt.
    Entwicklung, Erprobung und Technik. Alle Varianten:  von Bf (Me) 109A bis Me 109E (Oberhaching: Aviatic
    Verlag, 1997).
Raunio, Jukka, Lentäjän Näkökulma II (Kuorevesi: Jukka Raunio 1993).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109_variants#E-3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109_variants#Bf_109F
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109#Specifications_.28Bf_109_G-6.29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Graf
http://www.luftwaffe.cz/graf.html
http://www.ww2.dk/air/jagd/jg3.htm
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/bstjg3.html
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/bijg3.html etc.
http://www.ww2.dk/air/attack/schg1.htm
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/schlacht/bstschg1.html
http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/schlacht/bischg1.html
/results-of-the-soviet-turn-times-tests.html

128 pages, about 220 b&w photos and six sketches. ISBN: 978 1 78159 034 8
 
A pleasant surprise, not a perfect book on the subject but anyway gives information on an interesting subject and with plenty of interesting black and white photos on British fighters in various stages of construction.

The beginning of the content listing is a bit inaccurate, on the page 4 there is Selected Technical Glossary, which is a good idea. On the pages 5 and 6 the author gives very short summary on the RAF expansion schemes in 1930s, the Shadow Scheme etc. So the Spitfire chapter begins on the page 7. In many chapters the information how the aircraft type in question was built came mainly from numerous photos and their captions, the text in these chapters gives a brief production history of the aircraft. Four of the six sketches are in the Seafire chapter (of the wingtip joint and locking mechanism on the front spar, the main hinge of the front spar, the main hinge of the rear spar and the arrestor hook).

Small Scale Track Builds is a very interesting chapter on the manufacturing Martin Martinet target tug cabin tops, explaining an early 1940s mass production system.

Besides aircraft and aero engine production, propeller production is also explained and funnily there is the typo which according to an anecdotal information got the RAF to substitute the term propeller for airscrew, namely airscrew is typed as aircrew.

The article on a “real” cottage industry is very interesting. Volunteers, mainly half-time women, produced parts in garden huts, lounges of large houses, and usually these shops were for various hand-assembly and non-machine operations. The Ministry of Production, in conjunction with the Ministry of Labour and Supply Departments, extended the plan and by 1943 figures showed that there were some 20,000 outworkers in Britain, many in rural districts, but nearly half of them in the London area. De Havilland’s made particular use of this available labour force and ʽout-worked’ a lot of small components for their Mosquitoes. Long runs of light parts were the most suitable for outworking. A high degree of skill and accuracy was attained by women producing particular components in their own homes or local workrooms. Also in the London and South-Eastern region, 320 National Fire Service Station carried out productive work.

Also there is a chapter on the manufacturing of barrels of 20mm Hispano cannon. Lathes used in manufacturing 20mm Hispanos were longer than I had thought.

Supermarine Walrus, not the most modern plane in early 1940s but IMHO surprisingly it was the first British squadron-service aircraft to incorporate a fully retractable main undercarriage, completely enclosed crew accommodation, and an all-metal fuselage in one airframe.

Also pantograph routing and drilling machine is explained with a sketch.

Lastly de Havilland Hornet, which is IMHO a bit unnecessary addition. As the article itself noted, its production was much the same as that of DH Mosquito but in incorporating stressed Alclad lower-wing skins bonded to the wooden upper wing structure using the new adhesive Redux which technic was also in the fabrication of the aluminium/wood main wing spar even if this latter fact not mentioned in the article. And it was in essence post-war aircraft. The first series production Hornet F.Mk. 1 first flew on 1 February 1945 but the Pacific War was over before any could reach the combat area.

 I have a few complains. There are too much clip and paste text, e.g., in the Chapter on RR Merlin there is an interesting information on testing a new engine, but it only gives the last part of that, made after the final reassembly, clipped from a contemporary report. That part of the chapter would be much more informative if the author had given a short introduction in which he would have given the amount of running hours in earlier testing so that a reader would have got information how many hours a Merlin was run before it was handed over to a customer.

On the man hours needed to produce a Hurricane and a Spitfire. The book gives only one number per type but does not mention the date, but clearly the figures are those achieved in January 1940, probably taken from Postan’s British War Production. It is known that the man hours needed dropped during the production run as the experience and knowledge increased. And by January 1940 Supermarine had produced a bit over 500 Spitfires, so it was still fairly beginning of the learning curve. And Supermarine was a fairly small manufacture, a bigger factory was usually more efficient than a smaller one, e.g., the large Castle Bromwich shadow factory, which began its production in June/July 1940, needed later on significantly less man hours to produce a Spitfire V than Supermarine which itself used 2,200 man-hours less to produce a Spitfire Mk. VC in 1942 than had used to produce a Spitfire Mk. I in January 1940.

The Beaufighter chapter doesn’t make it clear that while the intention was a maximum re-use of Bristol Beaufort components, the end product, i.e., series production Beaufighters had almost no structural commonity with Beaufort. One can see from photos and drawings that Beaufighter's fin and rudder areas have been increased on production examples and the control surfaces have been changed as the trim tabs on the Beaufighter increased in size over those fitted onto the Beaufort. Also wings changed in structure owing to weapons fit and IIRC even landing gear was changed because of the weight increase. And contrast to many other chapters most of the text of this chapter is on the operational history of the type, but at least the photos are on production phases.

The book is clearly for us amateurs and not so much for those who design aircraft structures but an interesting book well worth of having giving interesting information on the subject not too often dealt with.

ʽForties Favourites – 5’, Aeroplane Monthly, Vol. 15, No. 9, September 1987.
Buttler, Tony, ʽType Analysis: Hornet and Sea Hornet: The ultimate piston twins’ International Air Power
   Review, Vol. 10 (2003).
Morgan, Eric B., Shacklady, Edward, Spitfire: The History, Fifth impression (revised) (Stamford: Key
   Publishing, 2000).
Postan, M. M., British War Production, (London: H.M. Stationery Office and Longmans, Green & Co., 1952).
Price, Alfred, The Spitfire Story (London: Cassell & Co, Revised Second Edition, 2002).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Walrus
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/spitfire-v-me109-i-have-found-these-links-on-the-net.29431/page-15
   message 07-03-2011 11:15 PM by Hop

Hard-bound, 206 pages incl. 4 pages of colour profiles.
ISBN : 0-7643-1876-4.

I am a bit disappointed with this book, maybe I had too high expectations. It is a good book with many good qualities. It is solidly based on documents and IMHO generally gives very objective appraisal on the qualities of the Fw 190Ds. It also has many facsimiles of original type drawings, performance charts etc.

But there are some weak points, firstly the layout is too “airy”, i.e. there are too much white on many of the pages. While there are many interesting drawings on different Fw 190C and D prototypes and paper studies there are also some identical or almost identical drawings and graphs, e,g., those on pages 28, 31 and 35. And photos like that of the Fw 190 V53 on pages 82 and 89. There are also some annoying typos, MK 103 being printed when the weapon in question is the more compact MK 108 etc.

While interpreting the Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau G.m.b.H.’s performance chart on page 104 Hermann seems to have took the curve of Fw 190A-8 Notleistung (WEP) with increased boost pressure as that of Fw 190D-9. The curves of A-8 Notleistung and that of D-9 are mostly overlapping but IMHO the Hermann’s error is clear. I checked my interpretation against the 25 Oct 1944 performance chart of A-8 Normaljäger and 24 March 1945 climb graph of D-9 and IMHO my interpretation seems to be true.

The specification table of Fw 190 the D-9/R14 Torpedo-carrier on the page 109 there are two lines for To/from target at height of 3000 m, one with combat power and other with cruising power but strangely that with 2 x 220 l Doppelreiter gives same from target speed in both cases, the other three speeds given give circa 50 km/h difference between combat and cruising power as logic demands. Probably there is/are error(s) in one or both of the from target speed(s) shown.

In the table comparing Fw 190 D-9, P-51 D and Spitfire Mk XIV on the page 122, the wing loading given for Spitfire Mk XIV is much too high, the true one is only 55 per cent of that given. Because correct figures for the gross weight and the wing area are given the error was easy to spot. When for the lightest plane with the biggest wing area is given the highest wing loading, one instantly notice that something is wrong. The low level climb rate given is a little bit too low for Spitfire Mk XIV using 100/130 grade fuel and +18 lbs boost but on the other hand the times to altitudes are clearly more optimistic than the figures in the Aircraft Data Sheet for Spitfire Mk XIV and in Morgan’s and Shacklady’s book but are identical to those achieved during the tests of the Mk XIV prototype JF319. Also if one uses the weight and the wing area given in the table to calculate the wing loading for Fw 190D-9 one gets somewhat poorer figure than the one given in the book.

Fw 190 D-13 vs Tempest Mk V, the wing loading given to Tempest Mk V is a bit under 4 per cent too good. Late Mk Vs had the Sabre IIB engines with max. power of 2,420 hp, max. speed at FTH was almost identical but S.L. speed was better, being something around 620 km/h with 11 lbs boost. And in an RAE test even better and the RAE estimated that with better paintwork on the wing leading edges 650 km/h would have been achievable. Interestingly the Aircraft Data Sheet for Hawker Tempest Mk V Series II powered by a Sabre IIB engine gives time to 6,096 m as 7 min 30 sec. So strangely higher power didn’t produce better time to altitude, also the max. rate of climb was only circa 20,5 m/sec so less than given in Hermann’s table. While the comparison between Fw 190 D-13 and Tempest Mk V is understandably because of the mock dogfight flown between the two types just after the war, maybe better comparison against Fw 190 D-13 would has been Tempest Mk II, of which 50 production aircrafts had been produced by the VE-Day. They were ear-marked for Far East, so didn’t see combat service. Tempest Mk II was somewhat faster and climbing better than Mk V (708 km/h at 4,572 m, 4.5 min to 4,572 m). Or comparison with Spitfire Mk 21, which was the last Spitfire version to reach squadron service before the VE-Day (711 km/h at 6,645 m, 22,6 m/s, 2.6 min to 3,292 m, 4.05 min to 4,877 m, 5.15 min to 6,096 m, 9.9 min to 9,754 m, 11.15 min to 10,363 m).

And the “what if” part. Hermann claims that DB 603 E powered Fw 190 would have been possible year earlier than historically happened. That is based on the claim made on pages 30 and 174, that DB 603 G was in full production by 1944 and that it entered service in April 1944 in the Messerschmitt Me 410 B-1 heavy fighter and the Heinkel He 219 A-5 night fighter. There is some disagreement about production of DB 603 G, but it seems that the series production of it began at the end of 1944 at the earliest. Mankau and Petrick state in their Messerschmitt Bf 110/Me 210/Me 410 book that while Me 410 B series was planned to be fitted with DB 603 G in reality when the Me 410 B production began in May 1944 they were powered by DB 603 As and that Me 410 Bs never got the planned DB 603 Gs. The history of DB 603 G powered He 219s is more ambiguous but it seems that series production He 219s got DB 603 Gs near the end of 1944 at the earliest. Griehl and Dressel in their Flugzeug Profile write that He 219A-0s and most of A-2s, A-5s and five first A-7s were powered by DB 603 A. And in their Luftwaffe Album while writing that the first He 219 A-7 was given service trials in July 1944 and that the forerunner of the He 219 A-5/R-3 He 219 V 28 arrived at Venlo in June 1944, for the prototype trials it was fitted with DB 603 Gs. On the other hand in the table of the He 219 versions and subtypes they claim that He 219 A-5/R-3 subtype was powered by DB 603 Es. But again in the table they give a different information, according to it most A-7 subtypes were powered by DB 603 G plus one subtype with Jumo 213 E and one with Jumo 222A.  According to Green’s and Swanborough’s article all He 219s flown to the UK and transported to the USA were powered by DB 603 As. Aders writes that series production of DB 603 G powered He 219s began only in January 1945.

The DB 603 had run into difficulties being able to get near the demanded 100 h between overhauls only in 1944. Initially, the engines often had to be replaced after 40 hours of operation. Because of the problems DB 603 production schedules and production types were constantly changing. The large-scale production of the DB 603 E began only during the later part of 1944, not at the beginning of 1944 as Hermann claims on the page 184. According to Mankau and Petrick it was planned to begin the large scale DB 603 E production at the beginning of 1944  but already in October 1943 Daimler Benz had informed Generalluftzeugmeister Milch that the beginning of the production was to be delayed to April and in January 1944 it was known that the beginning of the production was postponed into June 1944 and that the initial lot was only sufficient to cover Do 335 and He 177 aircraft and so the Me 410 and He 219 would have to continue using the DB 603 A. And then in May 1944 the expectations were that in June there would be 200 DB 603 AAs available (DB 603A with the 603 G supercharger) and the AA would be the production model during the summer and the first Me 410s powered by DB 603 E would begin roll off the assembly line in September. So IMHO the claim that DB 603 E powered Fw 190 would have been possible year earlier than historically happened isn’t realistic. And the performance of Jumo 213 A and DB 603 A were almost identical and one should also remember, that there were not enough DB 603 As around before very late of 1943, numerous Dornier Do 217 M and N airframes waited for months their power plants and one reason given to the low production rate of He 219 was the lack of DB 603s. With hindsight we know that the high production rate of Me 410 was a mistake but the leaders of the Luftwaffe saw it as a very important plane and so its high priority was a given fact to the production planners. Only after Me 410 production ceased there were DB 603s available to Fw 190 versions.

I have the recollection that contrary to the claim in the caption on the page 191 Soviets didn’t use Fw 190 D-9s against Germans, even though the naval aviation of the Red Baltic Fleet took into service some captured ones.
 
Colour profiles are not at the level one uses to see at this age of digitalization. They look more like water colour works. Some show their object as having light grey fuselage base colour, when Deboeck et al Focke-Wulf Fw 190D Camouflage and Markings Part I shows the same plane having RLM 76 light blue base colour. Some are given a different Werk Nummer when compared the ones given in  Deboeck et al book. A few colour profiles are close to those in Deboeck et al book, e.g., the only known Fw 190D-13 “Yellow 10” of Stab/JG 26 but again, while Deboeck et al gives the base colour of the sides of the fuselage as RLM 76 light blue, in Hermann’s book it is given as light grey. Also photos could be sharper, even in fairly inexpensive softback Osprey the Aircraft of Aces identical photos are reproduced better.

While the book is not as good as I expected it is still a good book on Fw 190Ds. My worst complains are on “what if” subjects and even these got me dig deeper into history of the He 219, which has always interested me. The main focus of the book is handled well. It gives very good information on its subject. There isn’t much on the operational use but that wasn’t what I was looking for from this book. I was looking for information on the technical aspects of the plane and I got that.


A.I.2.(g) Report No. 2360 German Aero-Engine Development 22 June 1945
Air Publication 2458C – P.N. Pilot’s Notes for Tempest V Sabre IIA Engine July 1944 (St. Annes-on Sea: AIR
    DATA PUBICATIONS)
http://www.gyges.dk/He219%20manual.pdf

Aders, Gebhard, History of the German night fighter force 1917-1945 (Somerton: Crécy Books, 1992).
Bowyer, Michael J. F., Interceptor Fighters for the Royal Air Force (Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens, 1984).
Brown, Eric, Heinkel’s Nocturnal Predator, Air International Volume 9 Number 1 July 1975.
Deboeck, Marc, Larger, Eric, Poruba, Tomás̆, Focke-Wulf Fw 190D Camouflage & Markings Part I and II
    (Hradec Králové: JaPo, 2005 and 2007).
Dressel, Joachim and  Griehl, Manfred, The Luftwaffe Album: Fighters and bombers of the German air force
    1933 – 1945 (London: Arms and Armour, 2000)
Green, William and Swanborough, Gordon, Heinkel’s Nocturnal Predator…the He 219, Air Enthusiast Forty
    September - December 1989.
Griehl, Manfred, Do 217̶̅―317—417 An operational history (Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1991).
Griehl, Manfred, Dressel, Joachim, Flugzeug Profile Nr. 10 He 219 (Illertissen: Flugzeug Publikation).
Hentschel, Georg, Die geheimen Konferenzen des Generalluftzeugmeisters. Ausgewählte und kommentierte
    Dokumente zur Geschichte der deutschen Luftrüstung und Luftkrieges 1942 – 1944 (Bernard &
    Graefe Verlag 1989).
Jackson, Robert, Hawker Tempest and Sea Fury (London: Blandford Press, 1989).
Mankau, Heinz & Petrick, Peter, Messerschmitt Bf 110/Me 210/Me 410 An Illustrated History (Atglen, PA:
    Schiffer Publishing, 2003).
Morgan, Eric B.  and Shacklady, Edward, Spitfire: The History (Stamford: Key Publishing, Fifth impression
    (revised), 2000).
Price, Alfred, The Spitfire Story (London: Cassell & Co, Revised Second Edition, 2002).


http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/fw190-a8-25oct44.jpg
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/fw190d9-climbchart-flugmechanik-24-3-45.jpg
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-XIV-ads.jpg
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/JF319-climb.jpg
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit14climbchart.jpg

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/tempest/tempest-v-ads-sabre-IIb.jpg
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/tempest/tempest-v-rdt1a-level.jpg
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/tempest/tempest-v-rdt1a-climb.jpg
http://www.hawkertempest.se/index.php/thetempest/2014-05-12-18-28-30/markv
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/tempest/tempest-V.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/tempest/tempest-II-cfe.html
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-21.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/150grade/150-grade-fuel.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/150grade/engines-cleared-for-150.jpg
http://www.meiermotors.com/index.php/aircraft/klassische-motoren/mercedes-benz-db603e
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/collections/machines/power-engines/combustion-engines/internal-combustion-engines/aircraft-engines/aircraft-engine-db-603-e-1944/

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=169401;article=3306;title=German%20Night%20Fighter%20War%201939-1945;pagemark=20 ejection seats / He219 A-7
       Regrettably already for years defunct German Night Fighter War 1939 – 1945 site
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=51 HE-219 and DB 603G Engines
http://www.luftwaffe-experten.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11277 Details for He219A-2 WNr.290126?
      You must sign in for access to this site.
http://www.luftwaffe-experten.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=1689 Details on Heinkel He219A-7
       WNr.310193 You must sign in for access to this site.

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=1462  Fw 190 C and Me 410 DB 603s
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=51&page=2  He 219 and the DB 603G
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/engines/db-605-db-603-a-7886.html DB 605 X DB 603

I was a bit disappointed with the article on the technical evolution of the Beaufighter, because it claimed that the max. speeds and especially the service ceilings of the Beaufighter Mk. If, IIf and TF.X were exactly the same. There wasn’t much difference in max. speeds but service ceilings were different. That made me put the publication aside for a couple years. But when I continued the reading I found out that it is fairly good after all. It covers admirably the many roles in which Beaufighter was utilized and there are many interesting black and white photos. The articles are:

Close Shave on an encounter between a Beaufighter from 235 
   Squadron and a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 from1./JG 5 off the coast of 
   Norway on March 3 1943 by Andrew Thomas. Nicely checked also
   against German records.
Aces a table of the Beaufighter aces by Andrew Thomas.
Adapt, Improve, Excel, the evolution of the Beaufighter by M L 
   Wynch. The article also deals very briefly with Buckingham,
   Buckmaster and Brigand. There are 3-view drawings of
   Beaufighter If, II and TF.X plus several interesting b/w photos. 
    IMHO the most glaring shortcoming in this article is that it doesn’t reveal that the leading idea of using the
    most of the structures/components of Beaufort in Beaufighter didn’t work out. During the development of
    the prototypes the different demands of a fighter to a torpedo bomber necessitated alternations and so
    the idea of community between Beaufort and Beaufighter became only an unfilled dream.
Power, on the power plants used on the Beaufighters. Some good detail photos here.
Beaufighter Squadron Directory by Andrew Thomas. The photos here includes a rare colour photo of a 235
    Squadron Beaufighter Ic.
Malta’s Auxiliaries on the 600 Squadron brief deployment on the island by Robin J Brooks.
A London ‘Beau’, a colour 3-view of Beaufighter VIf X7887 of 600 Squadron in black night fighter camo by
    Pete West with a brief service history.
Rare Birds, the Beaufighter survivors.
Whispering Death on operational history of Australian Beaufighters by Jim Grant.
Under Other Flags on Overseas Use and Post-War Exports by Doug Hall.
Punch on the armament options of Beaufighter with a table of the armament options of Beaufighter Mk.
    VIf, Mk. X and Mk. 21 and good detail photos of different armaments.
A Bob’s Worth on 1944 booklet Beaufighter – The Account of the Part Played by the Aircraft in Defence and
    Offence by Jonathan Garraway.
Strike Wing on the North Coates Strike Wing 1942 – 1943 by Graham Pitchfork. Operations and tactics used,
    also something on the leading personalities. Some stunning photos taking during attacks but these are
    well known.
Deserts and Seas on the Beaufighter operations of 252 Squadron by Jonathan Garraway. There are some
    interesting tables in the article; one gives the aircraft types and versions used by 252 Squadron with the
    timeframes of the use, the second the bases used and the third is ‘Losses of First Squadron Mk.Ics 1941’.
Stars and Stripes on USAAF 417th NFS Beaufighter night fighters by Warren E Thompson. An interesting
    article with lot of references from combat reports. But the last statement that there was very little, if any,
    dissatisfaction with the aircraft seems to be an understatement, because according to Pape & Harrison, at
    least some Americans complained loudly about Beaufighter, not least because it was a tail dragger. 
    There were also complains that it was a bit slow making catching of Ju 88 difficult. Some Americans even
    claimed that the Beau was rather useless as a night fighter.
Night Owls on Beaufighters in their main duty, alongside that of a strike fighter, namely as British and
    Commonwealth night fighter by Andrew Thomas. And of course the combat accounts given cover besides
    the air defence of Great Britain and Northern Ireland also the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations and the
    CBI area. I would have liked if the place of Roy Butler’s Do 24 claim on 26 September 1944 had been given
    more unambiguously. Now I had to check the place of the claim from Aces High for confirmation that the
    victim was probably 1M+RR mentioned in de Jong’s book. The few actions which I compared against
    Thomas’ Beaufighter Aces of World War 2 are the same in both publications.
Tugging at sleeves not only on the TT.10 but also the post-war operations of the TF.X by Doug Hall. This is
    an interesting article. Target tugs were important but often forgotten planes. Also the few post-war
    Beaufighter TF.X operations, not only during the initial part of the Malaya Emergency but also earlier ones
    on Java and in Burma, are given brief notices.


http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/beaufighter/x7542.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/beaufighter/el290.html
http://www.wwiivehicles.com/great-britain/aircraft/fighter/bristol-beaufighter-fighter.asp

Bingham, Victor, Bristol Beaufighter (Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, 1994).
Bowyer, Michael J. F., Interceptor Fighters for the Royal Air Force (Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens, 1984).
Green, William, Famous Fighters of the Second World War (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1969).
Gunston, Bill, Classic aircraft. Fighters (Optimum Books, 1978).
Jong, Peter de, Dornier Do 24 Units Combat Aircraft •110 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2015).
Pape, Garry R. & Harrison Ronald C., Queen of the Midnight Skies: The History of America’s Air Force Night
    Fighters (West Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1992).
Shores, Christopher and Williams, Clive, Aces High (London: Grub Street, 1994).
Thomas, Andrew, Beaufighter Aces of World War 2. Osprey Aircraft of the Aces • 65 (Oxford: Osprey
       Publishing, 2005)

Marco Mattioli’s SAVOIA-MARCHETTI S.79 SPARVIERO TORPEDO-BOMBER UNITS Osprey Combat Aircraft • 106 (2014) 96 pages.

One of the better Osprey books, based on what the Italian torpedo planes really achieved, not on what they claimed.

The first poor results with level bomber attacks against Allied ships forced Italians to form its first experimental torpedo-bomber unit on 25 July 1940, about 1½ month after Italy’s entry to the WWII. The first torpedo attack was made on 15 August 1940. So to my surprise the Italians were definitely a late comer to the torpedo-bomber field. The fact that the Luftwaffe sent its first landplane torpedo-bomber crews to Italy to get torpedo training and the fact that Italians had several successes with torpedo bombers during the WWII had made me to believe that Italians had longer experience with torpedo-bombers.

I was surprised how few planes made most of the early Italian attacks, usually only two or three planes participating. E.g. in December 1941 three Sparvieri attacked a Royal Navy formation of three Anti-Aircraft cruisers and eight destroyers. Not surprisingly they achieved nothing in good visibility. But sometimes those attacks by a couple S-79s were successful. The small formation size was a big contrast to e.g. IJNAF twin-engine torpedo planes attacks, e.g. against the Force Z (consisted of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse and four destroyers) on 10 December 1941. In the spring of 1942 there were the first bigger formation attacks, 9 – 12 planes attacking same time early in 1942 and up to 41 against the Pedestal convoy in August 1942. In early November 1942, a couple days before the opening of the Operation Torch, Italians concentrating 75 S.79 and 25 S.84 torpedo bombers on Sicily and Sardinia. That didn’t mean massive torpedo attacks against the invasion fleets, the biggest S.79 attack consisted 14 torpedo-bombers and usually formations consisted of under 10 planes. They didn’t achieve much, the Allies only lost the sloop HMS Ibis. The effective defense of Allies forced Italians to initiate night attacks, and after they lost from 27 March to 10 April 1943 ten aircrews out of 25 engaged in daytime actions and had sunk only the 9,545-ton freighter Empire Rowan in return, Italians abandoned daytime torpedo attacks altogether.

When the Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943, the S.79 torpedo-bomber force numbered 99 aircraft, of which 41 were airworthy. Their only success was a hit on the fleet carrier HMS Indomitable.

On the page 23 there is an odd claim that a head-on torpedo attack would force the target ship to slow down. In fact the standard evasion maneuver was to turn towards attacking torpedo planes and so to give the smallest target to them. And anyway it takes time to slow down a ship. The attack described seems to have been a variation of the standard “anvil” attack in which one torpedo plane/group of torpedo planes approaches 45deg right off the bow and another 45deg left off the bow. If the target ship turns towards one attacker/group of attackers it gives to the other one clean broadside drop.

I was surprised how effective Blenheim fighters were against Savoia-Marchetti S.79s (meaning that they accomplished something) and how ineffective Beaufighters were (many times they managed only to damage S.79s, I had expected that a fighter armed with four 20mm cannons and six machine guns would have been more effective against rather archaic looking mixed construction three motor) during the early part of the war.

S.79 torpedo-bombers got their last success before Italy’s armistice was achieved on the night of 7 September 1943 when the 1625-ton British LST-417 was torpedoed and forced to run aground on the shore near Termini Imerese on Sicily.

While I have been aware on the German actions against Italian fleet after the Italy’s armistice on 8 September 1943 their actions against Italian planes trying to fly to Allied-controlled areas were new to me. Out of 34 Sparvieri which had set off for Allied-control territory, two were shot down by Bf 109G pilots of JG 77 who also forced three other S.79s to turn back. One crew flew north voluntarily.

 After armistice on 8 September 1943

Those Sparvieri which ended under Allied control were principally used as transport and liaison duties. Italians who chose to continue fight alongside Germany joined the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI), in northern Italy, which was created towards the end of September 1943.  Between the autumn and winter of that year RSI organized its own air force, the Aeronautica Repubblicana, later redesignated the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR). The first mission against Allies’ Anzio beachhead was flown on the night of 10 March 1943 by six S.79s but it was unsuccessful and one Sparviero was lost. The only success of the ANR Sparvieri occurred on 4 August 1944 when during the attack of three Greece based Sparvieri the 7100- British freighter Samsylarna was torpedoed north of Benghazi and forced to run aground. The last mission of the ANR Sparvieri torpedo bombers was flown on late 5 January 1945 by two Sparvieri crews. Through 1944-45 ANR Sparvieri succeeded in damaging just one freighter for the loss of about 100 airmen. 11 actions were fought, during which 50 torpedoes were dropped.

During the war Sparviero was the most effective antishipping weapon Italy had, the Sparviero units sunk 21 ships (nine warships and 12 freighters) and damaged 17 others (11 warships and six merchantmen).

There are some quotes from Italian combat reports and memoirs on some actions. The big plus is that while Italians’ claims are mentioned they are checked against Allied records and it is clearly mentioned what claims can be verified from Allied reports, same thoroughness is seen in several other Osprey books of this series, e.g. Osamu Tagaya’s Mitsubishi Type 1 Rikko ʽBetty’ Units of World War 2. There are many interesting photos, even some dramatic action photos, but most of the photographs are small. And of course the colour profiles, many of them very interesting as one can predict when Italian planes are in question. There are also 12 unit badges in colour. There are four appendices: S.79 torpedo-bomber units (giving basic facts of the units’ histories), S.79 warships kills 1940-43, S.79 merchant ship kills 1941-44 and S.79 Gold Medal for Military Valour recipients.

Altogether an excellent addition to one’s library.