Specialty Press

War Prizes - The Album

by  Phil Butler

Reviewed By  Mike Howard, IPMS# 30741

MSRP: $34.95 ISBN: 1857802446 For anyone interested in aircraft with non-standard markings, this book will provide a vast array of World War II Axis aircraft reference materials. The cover states that it is "A Pictorial Compendium of Axis Aircraft Operated by the Allies During and After the Second World War" and it fills this bill nicely. As noted in the intro, this volume is a follow-up of the authors (Phil Butler) early 1994 release "War Prizes". With 128 pages and over 350 photos, you'll find yourself looking back many times to capture all of the variety included. Text in kept to a minimum with only a two page intro at the front and then several pages of statistics and aircraft numbers/fates in the closing pages. There are two main divisions within the publication: German and Japanese aircraft. Period black and white photos make up the majority of the illustrations and each has a generally well detailed caption describing the photo. German and Axis aircraft are featured in the first portion of the book with many unique markings that, I believe, modelers with a flair for the eclectic, will find of great interest. One of my favorites from this grouping is the He-177 with British roundels and invasions stripes shown on the right. Following the German aircraft is a section with various types of Japanese planes both in indigenous and captured markings. This portion of the book is smaller and has a lesser variety than the previous grouping, but includes some great shots of some lesser know planes such as the Ki-102 "Randy". Shown here is another of my favorite shots, this one showing an A5M "Claude" with Russian markings captured on the Russian/Manchurian border sometime in 1939. The final 20 or so pages have some nice color shots of relics and restorations of all types of Axis aircraft. Many of these planes can be found today in various museums around the world. The locations of these are noted in the captions along with some additional details relating to the particular aircraft history. Mixed in with these color pages are statistics of the captured planes and, where known, the ultimate fate of the airframes. Overall this is a nice collection of unique and different aircraft and markings that would be great to see replicated in scale. Thanks to Specialty Press and IPMS USA for the review sample. Here's a link for ordering this fine volume (www.specialtypress.com).

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