The emergence of colorized photos has been controversial amongst historians and certainly modelers. The practice has come a long way and as the technology gets more advanced even better results will prove difficult for people to tell the difference.

The latest book from Key Books embraces the colorization process and I have to say the results are pretty good. Set in the Battle of Britain starting in July 1940 through the end of October, this paperback book brings to life the black and white photos from that era. Colorization was done by Ghermán Mihály, with the help of author Clive J. M. Ellis to ensure the colors were as accurate as possible based off of current color research. This colorization really gives you a feel for the actual events. A word of caution, this technology is only as good as the artist. Different interpretations of colors are possible, but it looks like Ghermán got it correct.

This softbound book contains over 200 colorized photos on 96 pages of high-quality stock with everything Bf-109, Bf-110, Ju-87, Ju-88, Do-17 and He-111s. As this is the fall of the Luftwaffe, all the aircraft are crashed. There are multiple views of each event including photos of the pilots in some cases. Some of the photos are well known but most are not. So, you get the added treat of new photos and views with the colorization. Each ‘case’ is presented with the combat report and the markings noted. There are some first-person accounts of the combat that brought down the Luftwaffe plane. There are no actual color callouts by RLM number but it is pretty easy to figure out.

The book is very easy to read and I enjoyed the whole project. The colorized photos may not be to everyone’s liking but I did think they were well done and they added to the story being told. I hope they do more volumes. As a modeler you will be motivated but remember that these are the best guess of the artist. That said I’ll definitely be buying more if they come out. At least at this stage of the war, the colors were pretty consistent. Late war colorization will be ‘interesting’. Nicely done.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Casemate and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can obtain yours by contacting Casemate at www.casematepublishers.com/ . I have seen this book at Barnes & Noble as well so it should be available at many book sellers.