Kagero P-47 Thunderbolt with the USAAF - European Theatre of Operation

[Dave J]

P-47 Thunderbolt with the USAAF - European Theatre of Operation

Kagero
SMI Library #05
ISBN – 9788362878505
Cataloge # 19005
Available directly from Kagero, and Kagero stockists.

 

 

Kagero's SMI Library series is a photo album publication that spotlight's a particular aircraft or machine during a certain time period or during an operation theatre. The fifth volume of the SMI Library is dedicated to the USAAF P-47 Thunderbolts that served in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) of World War Two.

 

 

P-47 Thunderbolt with the USAAF – European Theatre of Operations book is a softcover A4 size title with a total of eighty four pages. On the first thirteen pages is a general introduction and a quick history lession on Thunderbolts variants, deployment and operational service during the European Theatre. The text is written in English and Polish, so technically you are only getting six and half pages of text... So if you are looking for an in depth history and examination on the P-47 Thunderbolt, then this isn't the book you... You should be checking out Kagero's "Monograph" series, volumes 17, 20, 24 and 28 for your requirements.

 

 

The main body of the book is centred around 93 greyscale and 12 colour photographs of the P-47 Thunderbolt during the second world war, with English and Polish captions for each photograph. All the photographs are clear and in excellent focus. Each photo is a good size too, the smallest photo is roughly about a quarter of the page to the whole page, but the majority of the photos are half a page. The photos consist of many closes up of Noseart's, armament and airframe sections, which will be a good resource for modellers and artists. The standout photos from the book to me, are the ones that are taken from a Thunderbolt gun camera which shows photos of a damaged Bf109 and Fw 190 being shot down, an attack run on a convey with an exploding truck and a P-47 flying right through a ball of fire.

 

 

Towards the end of the book you get 12 colour photographs that have been well published in the past, but it's still nice to have them all located together for quick reference.

 

Also included is a useful spreadsheet of the 8th and 9th Air Force units equipped with Thunderbolts. These are divided into Fighter Groups, Fighter Squadrons of each Group and code letters for each squadron.

 

 

 

On the final pages of the USAAF P-47 Thunderbolts that served in the European Theatre of Operations book, are four P-47 Thunderbolts are four beautiful colour profiles painted by Janusz Światloń, which includes two Razorback and two Bubbletop variants, which are –

 

- Belle of Belmont, P-47D-22-RE, s/n #42-26293, coded 'UN-L' and flown by Lt. Armand A. Laflam of 63rd FS / 56th FG,

 

 

 

- Miss Fire / Rosie Geth II, P-47D-25-RE, s/n #42-26628, coded 'LM-C' and flown by Capt. Frederick J. Christensen Jr. of 62nd FS / 56th FG,

 

 

- Kansas Tornado II, P-47D-22-RE, s/n #42-26249, coded '2Z-D' and flown by Lt. Howard J. Curran of 510th FS / 405th FG,

 

 

- Jeanie, P-47D-28-RE, s/n #44-20209, coded '7U-W' of the 23rd FS / 36th FG.

 

One thing I love about most about Kagero, is that they include decals for aircraft that have been covered in the title, in this case the four Thunderbolts that are list above. The decal sheet, which is beautifully printed by Cartograf. The decal sheet covers all three major scales of 1:32, 1:48, and 1:72. The Decal Sheet is high quality as you would expect from Cartograf, there is no printing misalignments, the colours are excellent and bold and very thin carrier film.

 

 

 

 

So what do we think?
If your love is for Big Jug's of the P-47 kind... Then this book is for you! Fantastic decal schemes are included, tons of clear reference photos... I am in Jug heaven! Are you?

 

Highly Recommended

 

Our sincere thanks to Kagero for the review samples used here. To purchase this directly, click the links in the review article.