ICM continues to pump out high quality model kits for us eager, plastic hungry modelers around the world! This is the second release of the Bristol Beaufort and represents the Mk.1A with tropical filters. These filters mounted on top of the engine pods and were used in hotter/dustier Mediterranean and North African environments. The downfall was the larger filters increased drag and reduced the cruising speed by about ten mph. The Mk.1A was an improvement over the Mk.1 incorporating a new machine gun turret and an ASV radar for torpedo bombers to search for surface targets. The Beaufort and her crews were relatively forgotten and unsung heroes of the Second World War.

This is one book in a line of military aircraft books from Pen and Sword in the Flight Craft series #27 Boeing B17. Now there have probably been hundreds of books published on the Boeing B17, many of which I have read. This is the first one I have read that incorporates design and development, camouflage and markings, in service and in action, B17 variants, with modeling the B17 and showcase models. This book seems to be aimed at the modeler who wants to incorporate more detail into his modeling.

The first half of the book gives a useful overview of the real thing with the design and development, to in-service and in-action, and detail of some B17 special variants. The book takes you from the first Model 299 through the B17G and all variants. The camouflage and marking section has 24 illustrated color profiles that show how varied the paint schemes and markings were of B17s, including the aircraft captured by the Germans and Japanese.

“There were lots of ways to get killed in the Southwest Pacific and weather was one of our worst hazards.” – Lightning Pilot Leroy Ross.

Author Michael John Claringbould begins his book with the following first paragraph of the Preface,

“The day of Sunday 16 April 1944 marks the biggest non-combat loss the USAAF incurred in any theater in World War II. After a delayed morning departure more than three hundred Fifth Air Force aircraft departed to attack Japanese airfields and installations at Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea. Not one aircraft was lost to enemy action, but over three dozen were lost to a vicious weather front. The date quickly became known as Black Sunday within the Fifth Air Force.”