Customer Reviews

49th Fighter Group: Aces of the Pacific (Aviation Elite Units)

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Osprey Publishing has done a series of small books like this on Elite aviation units. The 49th Fighter Group certainly qualifies as an elite unit. Less than a month after Pearl Harbour they were sent to the South Pacific flying P-40's in the defense of Darwin, Australia. They fought up the island hopping campaign until the wars end in 1945 when they were preparing to move to Okinawa for the invasion of Japan itself. Beginning at the end of 1942 the P-40's were gradually replaced with P-38's and P-47's. The most famous Ace of the 49th was Richard Bong - 40 victories. By the end of the war, the 49th as a whole had scored 668 aerial victories.

About half story and half photographs, the book is profusely illustrated with wartime photographs of the aircraft, people and the places where the 49th operated. The written story of the 49th is by William Hess, the official historian of the American Fighter Aces Association.

This is a great book. Most of the time, we read stories about the fighter groups and aces when they are flying the latest aircraft in 1944-1945. This time, the story is about a fighter group that fought in the early untold stories of 1942 and 1943 with inferior aircraft. Mr. Hess gives a superb account of the 49th Fighter Group's air battles over the Darwin area and New Guinea airspace. Unlike most books, this one gives the 7th and 8th squadrons of the 49th Fighter Group a chance to tell their stories of their victories while flying the P-40 until September 1944. The book also tells about the 9th fighter squadron flying the P-40 until it was re-equipped with P-38. What is amazing is how the 7th and 8th squadrons managed to score as much as the 9th squadron considering the fact the 9th was flying P-38 for nearly 2 years compare to the 7th and 8th who were stuck flying the P-40 for the same time period.