Late Marque Spitfire Aces 1942-45 (Aircraft of the Aces)

3.25/5.0 starsI'd rate the graphic aspect of this book a 5/5, but the written, substantive content of the book no more than a 2.5/5. The problem is that it really does not give us enough information or details about the two topics of the book set forth in the title, "late marque Spitfires" and the "aces" who flew them. Overall, I'd rate this book as only "OK," not bad, not great. If you're an huge fan of the Spitfire, you won't go wrong buying this book and will want to have it in your collection, but you might be a bit disappointed in the cursory treatment of the subject matter.CONTENT:The book has chapters that detail the background of the post-Mark V Spitfire variants, including the RAF's need to compete with the FW-190, the development of the Merlin-powered Spitfires, the development of the Griffon-powered Spitfires, a chapter on the leading European Theater RAF aces, some random tales about the types of missions flown in these later Spitfires, a chapter about V1 buzz bomb busters, and a chapter on the Australian aces flying late-mark Spitfires. There are generally at least one to three photos per page. Then there is the highlight of the book, the beautiful and accurate color plates showing about four dozen various Spitfires from Marks VII to XIV.PROS:- The aforementioned color plates are beautifully rendered and show the planes of a number of noted aces mentioned in the book, including "Johnnie" Johnson, Neville Duke, and Donald Kingaby. There are also a half dozen or so color plates of the pilots themselves in flight gear.- Covers the biographies of a few of the leading aces, including some details about individual sorties and dogfights, in adequate fashion.- Provides a basic history of the development of the Merlin and Griffon-powered Spitfires.- Book is concise and does not drone on (but see Cons).CONS:- Book is concise. It features really cursory treatment of most the pilots themselves, except for maybe 3 or 4 of the highest-scoring aces who got a page to page-and-a-half of story about their careers including details on one or two missions. Otherwise with one of the lesser scoring aces, this mini-biography was limited to maybe two paragraphs or so per pilot. Furthermore, author Dr. Price seems more interested in the unit served in and promotions received of these pilots than in their actual accomplishments that led to them becoming aces - he meticulously details the pilots' ranks, squadrons, and wings, but with some pilots tell us nothing at all about any of their sorties and dogfights. Honestly, are there more than a few dozen people in the entire world (literally) who care much about every specific unit served in by every single pilot mentioned in this book? I don't think so - we want to get the turn-by-turn, gunfire burst-by-burst details of the aerial combats that occurred in sufficient frequency to earn these brave and skilled pilots the title of "ace."Now by the publication date of this book - 1995 - I am sure that a fair number of these pilots had passed on, but certainly not all of them. When Price first started researching this book (surely years before the publication date), most of the pilots would have been born around 70 to maybe 78 years earlier and certainly some of them were still alive and had intact memories, plus were still living in the UK, which is not a large country. It does not appear that any of the aces' biographies were based on personal interviews by the author, given their cursory nature, and I find that difficult to understand, given how easily Price could have spent 4 to 6 hours by car or train and reached most parts of the island. Indeed, most of the shorter biographies seem as if they were based exclusively on Price's review of the pilots' RAF personnel records, with him doing little other than jotting down dates of enlistment, promotion, rank, squadron, and wing. Given his own background as an RAF veteran and World War II scholar, it is difficult to imagine that Price would have had a hard time arranging for interviews with these surviving aces. Alternatively, given the more-than-modest level of interest in RAF fighter aces from 1940 onward, there have been quite a few biographies or books on the RAF during World War II that provide significantly more detailed biographies than Price presented in this book and Price could have done as academics have done countless times previously, and made use of the information in those other more detailed books and provided the source in a brief footnote.- Poorly set forth specifications for these 1942 and later variant Spitfires. In the initial chapter about the first Merlin Spitfires (Marks VII, VIII and IX), Price gives us some top speeds for the planes at various altitudes, but when discussing the Griffon-powered variants, he eschews any specific speeds and gives us some comparative speed increases, but not necessarily at the same altitudes. It would make better sense if he had simply done what most books on military aircraft do in their specifications sections and list Top Speed: X mph at best altitude of Y feet, and then maybe give us some other specific speeds at other specific altitudes.- No keyword index. Want to find out about a particular pilot? Start flipping pages and scanning for his name. Hopefully you'll spot it before you get more than halfway through the book.- Pacific Theater content was minimal. A lot of "the Spitfire was not particularly suited for the Pacific war because of its short range" and "by this stage in the war [generally 1945 by the time anything newer than a Mark V showed up in the distant Pacific], the Imperial Japanese Army air force was essentially destroyed so there were few targets."- There are some errors (or at least specification ambiguities) in the book. At one point, in discussing the various armament options, it mentioned that a particular wing type had two 20mm Hispano cannons and four .303 machine guns, which was unclear if it was per wing or per aircraft, but either option seems incorrect - the photos show that the variants had either a pair of 20mm cannons (one long-barreled, the other short), or two 20mm cannons and two .303 machine guns. That's shown on virtually every photo in the book and I don't recall seeing a single photo showing one cannon and two machine guns or two cannon and four machine guns on a single wing. Also, the relative/comparative speeds of various Spitfire variants were not uniform from the text to the appendix of the RAF's flight testing comparisons. At a later point, Price tells us that for chasing V1 flying bombs (generally done at low altitude), the Mark XIV Griffon-powered plane was faster than the clipped-tip (i.e. designed for lower altitude) Mark XII Spitfire, which also was powered by the Griffon - this makes little sense, as the clipped wingtip Mark XII should have been every bit as fast, if not faster, than the Mark XIV at the under-5,000 foot altitudes at which they typically intercepted V1's. There are also a few typos in the book, more so than one would expect from a professionally edited and published book (e.g. "The enemy aircraft crashed about miles miles SW of Vire" - p. 64).- Stylistic issues. OK, I'll acknowledge that this is rather nitpicky, it is extremely subjective, and there certainly will be those who have exactly the opposite reaction that I had to Alfred Price's style (but if that is the case, please don't tag this review with a "Not Helpful" but instead consider that I provided enough detail to be helpful to anyone and rearrange this point in your head to the "Pros" section), but I was not a fan of his writing. Price has a fairly common writing style one finds in British authors born in the first half of the 20th century or thereabouts, and it is a rather colloquial, chatty, story-telling sort of style. When done well by a truly gifted wordsmith, this style can be delightful to read (see e.g. J.R.R. Tolkein in The Hobbit and to a lesser extent, C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia) but it can be tedious when done poorly (see e.g. William Stevenson, author of A Man Called Intrepid, particularly in his follow-up book Intrepid's Last Case), with excessive name-dropping and focusing on minutia. With Price, he tends to assume we are all familiar with everything that he knows, so he will use an attention-grabbing adjective without explaining why it applies (e.g. claiming something is "controversial" without explaining why). I wish that Price had spent as much effort expanding the aces' biographies in this book as he assuredly expended in coming up with the chatty and pseudo-clever title of Chapter Three: "Ramrods, Rodeos, Roadsteads, Rhubarbs, and Circuses." But some may very much enjoy Price's style, so to each his/her own.CONCLUSION:Late Marque Spitfire Aces is more of a niche product than something that would have broader appeal to those generally interested in World War II (although I would think that many, if not most, most WWII buffs would list the Spitfire in their top-5 favorite fighters). Its strength is its photographs and more particularly, its color plates that show us the planes. The content on the book's subjects - the planes and aces themselves - is the book's weakness and really could be much more thorough. It's not a bad book, but I can't see giving it the 5/5-star ratings that the other more terse reviews have given it.

This book is an excellent reference for any Spitfire fan. Alfred Price is considered one of the best writers on the topic, and the book delivers in my opinion. Technical aspects of the Merlin 60 Series and Griffon engine Spitfires is discussed, as well as the E Type wing and gyro gun sight, the latter being most likely one of the biggest, but lesser known, game changers in the art of air to air combat.Those who flew the later marque Spits with great success are covered very well with short bios of some of the top late marque Spitfire aces. Units, and to some extent tactics, are discussed as well. There's also ample color profiles for the modeler and historian alike.While I give the book five stars, the last chapter is on Australian Aces and is by Stewart Wilson. While the Aussies certainly deserve their due, I was a little bit confused as the bulk of the pilots from Down Under achieved their success in prior marque variants. Nonetheless, it was still an interesting chapter to read. The book closes out with a few pages of comparison data of how the Mk IX and Mk XIV stacked up against the German opposition.Loaded with rather good quality black and white images throughout, it's a great read by one of the most respected authors on the type. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this edition very much by Alfred Price, as he covered a lot of ground on these later war Spitfires. The photos and illustrations are excellent and assisted me with my renovating my 40 year old childhood model-Monogram Spitfire IXc flown by Hugo Armstrong of the Biggin Hill Lancashire 611 Squadron in 1942-43, at 1/48th scale. The book is worth the investment, very informative, detailing the planes and the lives of the brave aces who flew them.

If you are a lover of the Spitfire, a WWII airplane buff, or just need to read about the heroics of pilots flying Britain's best airplane, all three title in this series need to be in your collection of books. You will not be disappointed: diagrams, colors and marking, personal exploits. Excellent and readable writing.

I ordered this for my father. It was exactly what he was looking for. Very informative and interesting.

Great!

Redoubtable writer Alfred Price writed a good book, which gives a general picture of the pilots who fought in this kind of airplane. The plates, as always, are very well drawned and explains, with his legends, a lot about the pilots. Good job.

Buy this book if it is still available. Great

Another great book in the series but not so many photographs in this one hence the four stars.

Das Buch vermittelt einen guten Überblick über die Einsätze und Einsatzdoktrin der späteren Bauserien der Spitfire.