P-47 Thunderbolt with the USAAF in the MTO, Asia and Pacific Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Kagero is a prolific publisher of great military historical references, especially in World War II military aviation. This latest release is from their SMI library and this provides an interesting look at Thunderbolt operations in the Mediterranean, China/Burma/India (CBI), and Pacific theaters. As with past titles in this series, this title is a photo essay with some great period black and white as well as rare color photos of this aircraft operating in these theaters.

The photos are captioned in English and Polish and provide some interesting insights into combat operations. One of my favorite sequences show dozens of Thunderbolts loaded aboard light aircraft carriers being shuttled into theater. Early in the war, these aircraft were partially disassembled and protected against salt air exposure. Later in the war, they look ready to fly and in fact delivered by launching them via catapult off the deck to be ferried ashore. On one such delivery, USS Manila Bay was attacked by Val dive bombers and four P-47s were launched to protect the ship. When the area was clear, the Thunderbolts recovered at Saipan.

While most of the photos iare black and white, there are three pages of period color photos, and four nice color profiles. If this were the end of the topic, this would be a very handy reference for finding an interesting subject to build. This isn't the end at all.

Also included with this title is a large sheet of decals for three of those four color profiles with markings in 1/32, 1/48, and 1/72 scale. The subjects include:

• P-47D, 42-29091, 310 FS/58 FG, 42, 1944, 'Passionate Patsy'
• P-47D, 44-20886, 65 FS/57 FG, -, Corsica, 1944, 'Schmaltzie'/'Mercedes'
• P-47N, 44-87996, 333 FS/318 FG, 08, le Shima, 1945, 'Cheek Baby'

My sincere thanks to Kagero for this review sample!