Casemate Publishing is distributing the 51 installment of the “Europe At War” series. This book is devoted to the P-40 aircraft in the Soviet Far North (Murmansk to Kirkenes area) while in service with the Soviet Navy Aviation.

Finding details of western aircraft while in service with the Soviets is hard to come by. This book - together with the rest of the series devoted to the Kittyhawks in Soviet service- fills in a gap in historical documentation.

The author utilizes both Soviet sources and German sources and combine them to provide a comprehensive and well-balanced narrative of the events during 1944 in northern Scandinavia. By that year, the Kittyhawks in Soviet Service were being used in a fighter-bomber role rather than air-to-air, as covered in Volume 1.

The book describes the activities of Soviet Naval Aviation for the period June to October 1944. The book reads like a combat diary of the 78^th IAP for that period, as most missions are included and described in detail, in some cases with firsthand narratives being quoted.

The book has extensive operational maps describing the ingress/egress of the different flights on all the pre-planned attacks on German convoys or harbors.

It is very interesting to read about the tactics used by the Soviet Aviation as often the P-40s will approach the target covered by P-39s and after dropping their bombs will remain in the area - as fighters - providing cover to the Il-2s that were part of a second wave and will then be joined by the A-20s covered by La-5 and finally level bombers (il-4 or A-20 used as level bombers) will approach the targets and making a bombing run.

During this period, the Kittyhawks were modified by the soviets to carry FAB-100 and FAB-250 bombs and would use them in skipping-bombing missions against German convoys approaching or departing Kirkenes.

The book includes some rare (B&W) pictures of the Kittyhawks in Soviet service (including a few pictures that show red stars on top of the wings!) and a handful of color profiles of P-40s, P-39 and A-20s in service with the Soviet Northern Fleet.

Highly recommended.

I would like to thank Helion and Company, Casemate Publishing and IPMS/USA for the review sample.