Customer Reviews

Picture History of World War II American Aircraft Production (Dover Books on Transportation)

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This book shows the various stages up to and including the scrapping of thousands of these airplanes after the war. The US waged a war of attrition against both Japan and Germany and the 300,000 airplanes and 500,000 produced and trained was the key part of it since both enemies did not have an effective countermeasure against it because of the sheer numbers involved.

It shows how both oceans protected our productive resources and how we were able to assemble these fantastic airplane factories which usually had around 50,000 on a well know airfield producing up to 60 airplanes a day.

As a pilot and airplane enthusiast its really interesting how they assembled these aircraft which were the most complex to date in so little time in numbers never done again and probably never to be repeated in modern warfare. Its also interesting to see how women manned most of these positions on a temporary basis and then returned to become home keepers. There is even a section on how they shipped them overseas and I have seen a video on http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/ which showed how they assembled a P-47 using nothing but the crate, hand tools and 20 men after transport in a liberty ship across the pond.

Many of these factories still exist today and can be seen on google maps which adds yet another facet to this era including remnants of old airports next to the plant even if closed today.

Overall a great read for enthusiasts like me.

This book contains a peek at the factory floors of the major American aircraft manufacturers of the second world war. Through the liberal use of good quality black and white photographs from the era, we see various aircraft (both famous and not so famous) at various stages of production.

What would have made this book better? I would like to have seen how each individual plane shaped up as it went down the production line. Nevertheless, it still can be a valuable resource for modellers, or those just plain interested in World War II planes.

This is indeed and very excellent and important book. First and foremost, it is far more than a picture history. Yes, it is that, but it is far more. I did not expect it to have much text so I certainly did not expect it to have substantial and excellent text! This pictures are great and diverse and the prose, as I have said is excellent. I never tire of seeing the photographs of the huge factories with huge bombers crowed in. Yes, I expected to see many of those photos--and, of course, I was not disappointed. I suppose that I was most pleased to see great photographs of gliders and barrage balloons being manufactured! Those are really nice. The 258 photos are all very nicely captioned with most captions including very interesting and valuable information. Mr. Stoff tops off the great body of the book with five appendixes. true, they are short, but they are good. Appendix B, Aircraft production by year )304,887 overall) and my favorite Appendix E--Surviving aircraft. To my great surprise, he lists 31 PBYs as surviving in flying condition. I am amazed. Now I am looking to find where I can find a ride! The index is good and comprehensive, but I am not completely happy with the decision to divide the index by category instead of one larger integrated index.
If you have read this far, you will want to obtain a copy. I am probably going to buy some more to give as gifts.

A nice compilation of generally unpublished photos from various company and other archives. This book is in a larger format, approximately magazine size, than the similar publications from Arcadia. Unfortunately, the reproduction in this Dover book is not quite as good as similar Arcadia publications. Some photos are somewhat muddy; others have been copied from company publications and the screen detracts from the picture quality. Overall, though, an enjoyable collection and worth the price. The commentary tends to be sketchy in places but is generally well researched.

Got it for a gift for my dad, it was his war..... He LOVES this book!!!