Customer Reviews

Mustang and Thunderbolt Aces of the Pacific and CBI (Osprey Aircraft of the Aces No 26)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Once again Osprey Books delivers in their series of books on Fighter Aces and the planes that they flew. This book covers a much overlooked area of aviation history dealing with P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs in the CBI and the Pacific Theaters. The First hand accounts from the pilots in the book are also excellent. This book gives these gentlemen their due. It is a great book and I recommend it highly. I look forward to more books by John Stanaway. How about doing one on the P-40 Aces of the Pacific and the CBI.

This is a great book about unknown P-51 aces of the CBI. The only reason why I don't give it 5 star is that they had some color plates of P-51s that were flown by people who did not achieve acedom in the CBI and other theaters of war.

When you think of the Pacific theatre, you think of lots of water, Navy and Marine planes, ships and bad hand-to-hand fighting on the islands. But there were also ETO planes that fought in the Pacific. The Thunderbolt make it's existence known against the Japanese in 1943 (the P-51 was soon to follow).
The Thunderbolt was not liked too much by it's pilots, who formerly flew the P-38 Lightning. The `Jug' lacked efficient range to escort bombers to Japanese bases. The `Jug' also lacked maneuverability against the Ki-43's and A6M's. But the P-47 had an advantage of deadly firepower of 8 50.cal machine guns and ruggedness. The P-47 was used well against the weak points of all the Japanese fighters-their lack of amour/self sealing fuel tanks.
The P-51 was firstly used in Burma against the deadly Japanese fighters. `Oscars' and `Zeroes' ruled the skies over Asia from the beginning of the war to the later years. The only thing that opposed them was outdated P-40 Warhawks. The P-51B Mustang was a new breed of fighter (It's design originally was to be a better model of the P-40, but was changed to a whole new airframe. So the P-51's `father' was surprisingly the P-40!), with 4 50.cal machine guns and superb maneuverability, the P-51 was a great choice to oppose the Japanese in the CBI theatre.

A book that has been out of print for a while, so I immediately jumped on the chance to buy it at $30.00, (I saw the book was $20.00 a few days later!!) this book has been the most expensive one I've bought of an Osprey book-and it's worth it!! The information on the aces are very well laid-out. John Stanaway has delivered a wonderful book. The color plates of P-51's, P-47's and pilots who flew them.
Neel Kearby, Oscar Perdomo, Charles Older, Edward McComas and a LOT of other not-known aces. I enjoyed all 87 pages. Pictures of both aces and planes from Burma to New Guinea. In short, great book! (Buy soon or the price will go up to $60 bucks again!!)