Italian Aces of World War 2

Here is a really neat book about Regia Aeronautica aces of WWII. The two co-authors really had to research things and talk to pilots that are still alive to get this info. The government was so ashamed of their involvement in the war that a lot of the info on these pilots was either hushed up or destroyed. These two guys went to a hell of a lot of effort to produce this book as it says in the first few pages.

The contents of the book are:

• Introduction
• Italian Air War
• Main Fighter Units
• Aces and Victories
• Appendices

There are 95 black and white wartime photos in the book, of various fighter aircraft that the Italians flew during WWII and also pictures of the pilots themselves. There are 40 full color side profiles of these aircraft. Included are: The Fiat CR.42 biplane, Macchi C.200,
Macchi C.202, RE.2001, BF-109G, Fiat G.55 and the Macchi C.205.  These are each numbered and in the back of the book there are numbered paragraphs telling about each of these profiles.

The profiles have short captions below them too as well as scrap illustrations of the various squadron markings. The appendices have 16 1/72nd scale line drawings of these aircraft, plus a Fiat G.50 that wasn’t done in color. The book also has four data listings and an index.  Inside the back cover is a listing of other books published by Osprey and black and white cover arts of six of them.

This is really neat book of a rather obscure subject. It will be of great interest to historians and aircraft enthusiasts, as well as modelers. Highly recommended.

I purchased my copy at Barnes and Nobles book store.