Kagero continues to expand its line of Monographs, this installment being devoted to the F4U Corsair. It is the second volume covering the Corsair and this book in particular covers from the “-1D” to the “-7” marks. Earlier versions of the Corsair are covered in volume I.

The book is profusely illustrated with black and white pictures of all the above marks, mostly in US Navy service. There are a handful of pictures in French and Honduran service and references to its service in New Zealand, Salvadoran and Argentinean and Royal Navy Service.

The narrative (both English and Polish) has a good balance of description of historical missions, opinions of the pilots that flew the aircraft and technical details. There is good coverage of the service in WW2 - with US Navy, Marines, Royal Navy and Royal New Zealand Air Forces - plus the Korean War. It also covers details of specific missions flown by Corsairs during the 1969 “Soccer War”, in which Corsairs were flown by both sides and some detail of the service in Indochina, with the French Aeronavale.

The book refers to decals in the cover and some of the profiles are marked as included in the decal sheet, but no decals were provided for this review.

I must say that I truly enjoyed reading this monograph book. It provides plenty of technical information and historical information while it is done in a way that is easy to absorb and to locate afterwards (ie when you are looking for a reference). The pictures also provide great value for modelers as some of them are historical, i.e. they provide details on the airplane markings or locations and others are staged pictures, clearly taken for documentation of specific weapons loading or details on the airframe.

Highly recommended.

I would like to thank Kagero and IPMS/USA for the review sample.