Military Model Scene

Title:  Pacific Adversaries Volume 2

Author: Michael John Claringbould

Publisher:  Avonmore Books

ISBN:  978-0-64806659-0-8

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The second volume in this series from Avonmore Books and Australian author Michael Claringbould. This one focuses on combat between the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force (JNAF) and the Allies in the area of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, an area the Japanese referred to as the 'South Seas'.
A soft-cover book of 107 pages, split into 15 chapters, so 15 separate stories. The main point about the book is that rather than just accepting a single information source, these are all researched comparing both Japanese and Allied records of events to check the accuracy of each account. They are backed up with archive photos and for each one, very good colour artwork profiles of the aircraft involved. The various stories cover a range of aircraft on both sides, such as the Zero, the Val, the Betty and the Kawanishi H6k4 Flying Boat for the Japanese and P-40, Hudson, P-38, Wildcat, B-25 and B-17 for the Allies. Added to the archive photos and artwork, there are some modern pictures showing some wreckage which still remains in the region to this day. A Zero in a swamp and Betty in the jungle, and a P-38 now sunk into another marsh. As well as fighting each other, downed pilots also faced native tribesmen in places, and examples of aircrew being beheaded are included.
These are fascinating stories of actual events in the region during WW2 and the author has devoted a great deal of time investigating and writing about his passion for the history. This will fascinate anyone interested in the history of air warfare in the Pacific Theatre of Operations, and some neat references for modellers as well.

 

Published by Avonmore Books and distributed by Casemate, who kindly provided my review copy.

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Robin