March of 2016 marks the 80^th birthday of the Spitfire design. Like its American counterpart the P-51, the Spitfire is the most numerous survivor of its country’s WWII fighters both on display and flying! As the years go by we lose more and more of those who were there and flew these machines in the last great global conflict. Soon they all will have passed into history. Their machines though will live on to tell the story.

Each of the Spitfires discussed in this book has a service history. Whether found behind a hangar, unearthed or recovered from crash sites on land and in the sea, they have been lovingly rebuilt. Some seemingly from only a few remaining usable parts.

We are given a beautiful, large book equally at home in the library or on the coffee table! We are given the histories of these survivors. This is accompanied by both photos of the restored aircraft as well as photos of said aircraft in service.

The chapters are laid out in variant order. Chapter one covers the very earliest marks of Spitfire. Chapter two is on the Mark V. Chapter three the Mark VIII. Chapter four is on Spitfire Mark IX MH434. Chapter five covers the photo reconnaissance versions including the Mark XI and XIX. Chapter six is on those powered by Packard Merlin engines, with Chapter seven covering the Griffon engine Spitfires. Chapter eight is on the Seafires and their navel service. The final two chapters are filled with gorgeous color photography of each aircraft discussed within the book’s pages as well as period photos of various marks some of which may be familiar to the reader others not so much.

The book concludes with a brief history and the specifications of each Spitfire Mark covered in this book.

I really enjoyed this book and there is a good bit of information and hundreds of gorgeous pictures in its pages! The Spitfire is an iconic aircraft with beautiful and graceful lines. This book captures that in all its glory! The Spitfire is well represented in model form with kits available in scales from 1/144 to 1/24. The kits and makers are too numerous to mention here, but Airfix has been issuing new kits of many marks of the Spitfire these last couple of years. I can recommend this book to modelers, aviation historians and those looking for a nice tome for their coffee table. The photographs alone are worth the price of admission! All will like it and find useful information within its covers.

Our thanks to Osprey Publications for the review copy and my thanks to IPMS/USA for the review opportunity.