This book is the seventh book in Ginter’s Naval Fighters series and looks at the 23 Marine Corps units that flew the A-4C/L Skyhawk. The book opens with a brief discussion of the development of the A-4C as an all-weather version of the Skyhawk and some of the structural changes that were made to accomplish this. While the A-4C was intended as an interim design, 638 aircraft constructed.

The bulk of the book consists of brief squadron histories of the USMC units that operated the A-4C, many of which can trace their origins to Marine fighter squadrons of World War II and Korea. The unit histories also include brief descriptions of aircraft losses for the unit. Each history also includes an illustration of the unit’s patch or patches and multiple photographs of the unit’s aircraft in various settings showing variations of the unit’s markings over the years. Some of the photographs are staged publicity shots, but most of the photographs are not and show Marine Skyhawks in normal operations including carrier operations. Several of the photographs show some of the various weapons loads carried by the A-4C.

I enjoyed the book as I was not aware that so many Marine units flew the A-4C. The crisply printed photographs and the informative captions provide a lot of incentive to build a Marine Scooter, so now it is off to raid the kit stash to see if I have one!

Recommended! Thank you to Ginter Books for the review sample and to IPMS-USA for letting me review it.