RAF Fighter Pilots Over Burma (Images of War)

Photos from a wide range of squadrons,some of the dangers they faced, the heat,the dust, the lack of base facilities were all apparent. In the last few months of this Burma struggle over 100 pilots left on a mission just didn’t,t return. Lost in the jungle.A scary part of war. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed this book as I had been assigned to the Burmese Airforce in the early 1960’s as a factory Tech Rep. I was in Burma for two years. It was so interesting to read about places I have flown into or was familiar with as they were in WW-2. Wish I could have read this book before my assignment to Burma.

I confess to bias. My father flew with the RAF in the Burma campaign. He told us precious little of that time and there’s not much information elsewhere. This book fills a large gap in the available literature and at last gave me a realistic picture of what actually happened. Lots of pictures, and very well explained.

I have the trilogy that author Franks' has done in this sometimes neglected theatre; 'Hurricanes(Spitfires) over the Arakan' and 'The Air Battle of Imphal' as well as 'Bloody Shambles' (both Volumes) and 'Air War for Burma' by Mr. Shores(and others)-This complements those so well!He also makes corrections(whether he realizes it or not), i.e., 22 March 1944-'Curly' Clement evaded capture and execution that his two fellow pilots suffered after mistakenly landing on an air strip overrun by the Japanese.Author Franks gives a good general description of the situation with an economy of words-The photos buttress this. Very Nicely Done, Sir!

Good source of images and ideas for modelers, however the aircraft selection is broad so you only get a small number of images of a particular aircraft type. Good for the money, but other sources would be useful for model building projects.

These books are mainly photos with captions, and most are worth having. I've only been disappointed by two other volumes, but won't go into those here. The South East Asia Command (SEAC) of the Royal Air Force has always fascinated me, and this volume, presented chronologically, did not disappoint. Recommended.

A good insight into the little known part of the Pacific campaign

A decent pocket history of the Burma campaign, and how the RAF supported the various campaigns within it. Does a pretty good job at naming the pilots and aircraft shown and what happened to them (though oddly I don't recall it meantioning Alan Peart's solo battle against an entire Japanese squadron).One thing to note compared to other volumes in this series is that as well as being in last place for military equipment the Burma theater seems to have been last place for cameras too, so the photos provided are not as clear as you might have seen in other books, and for a book called 'RAF Pilots over Burma' there's actually very few pictures of aircraft in flight/gun camera shots, most being images of pilots and parked up planes - still interesting photos I haven't seen before though.

"RAF Fighter Pilots over Burma" ist eine umfassende Bilddokumentation über den Einsatz britischer Jagd- und Jagdbomberverbände während der Zeit des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Burma und Indien. Es liefert zudem kurze Abrisse zu allen wichtigen Kampagnen der RAF in diesem Operationsgebiet von der Verteidigung Singapores, den Rückzugsgefechten in Burma bis hin zu den Kämpfen im Arakan, bei Imphal und schließlich dem Sieg über die Kaiserlich Japanische Armee in Burma. Es werden außerdem vollständige Übersichten der beteiligten Fighter Squadrons gezeigt, wobei im vorliegenden Buch überwiegend mit verschiedenen Versionen der Hurricane und Spitfire ausgerüstete Verbände zu sehen sind.Das Buch glänzt zumindest teilweise mit bisher unveröffentlichtem Fotomaterial und - was ich als besonders interessant empfinde - gibt auch einmal Einblicke in das ganz alltägliche Frontleben der RAF-Angehörigen unter offensichtlich alles andere als komfortabel zu nennenden Bedingungen.Leider entspricht die Druckqualität bzw. die Qualität des Reproduktionsverfahrens gänzlich nicht den Erwartungen an eine zeitgemäße Bilddokumentation. Hier hatte ich auf eine Wiedergabequalität gehofft, wie sie etwa in David Hobbs' "The British Pacific Fleet" auf sehr hohem Niveau erreicht worden ist. Letzteres Werk beweist anschaulich, dass auch mit eigentlich historischen Fotos eine sehr gute Bildqualität machbar ist. In "RAF Fighter Pilots over Burma" hingegen gelingt dies leider nicht annähernd.Dennoch, trotz dieses Mangels bei der handwerklichen Umsetzung ist es auf jeden Fall zu begrüßen, dass zu diesem "vergessenen Kapitel" der Britischen Jagdfliegerei eine neue Literaturquelle zur Verfügung steht.

This book in general was very disapointing in away to other titles that I have in this series.

Excellent book by this great writer