Osprey Publishing continues to expand the Aircraft of the Aces series with the installment of P-38 Lighting Aces 1942-43.

This book is well researched and has plenty of black and white pictures, including several images of aircrafts with very decorative nose-art or ‘teeth’ in the engine cowlings. All of the depicted aircraft have the Olive Drab over Neutral Gray camouflage scheme.

The book is divided in the following sections:

• Introduction
• Lockheed’s Hot Rod
• Get Yamamoto!
• New Guinea – The fighter pilot’s war
• Twin-Tailed Dragons of the CBI
• Mediterranean Action
• The Mighty Eight

Each section is virtually an independent monograph and the book could be read in any order.

In each chapter the author combined both historical and tactical situation in each front with some narrative of specific aerial battles, most of it coming from squadron reports. The first chapters cover the Pacific/CBI fronts, where the long range of the P-38 become extremely valuable, while the second half of the book deals with the P-38 facing the Luftwaffe, where it did not perform as well.

In addition to the narrative and the B&W pictures, there are 30 beautiful color profiles, including side-view of the nose/pilot gondola (with the wing not depicted) for better clarity of any relevant nose-art.

This book is not a modelling-reference book, but a nice and interesting reading of the P-38 performance during the first years of the war, when they turned the tide against the Axis forces.

Most modelers are also history aficionados, so I would recommend this book to aviation history aficionados and modelers alike.

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