I bought this book to assist me in the building of an F-86F fighter-bomber model and was completely drawn into the subject. It is amazing to think that F-86s were in theater since late 1950, but it  was only in the last  6 months of the war that the fighter bomber version began to appear in squadron strength. What is even more amazing is that many of these units switched from the prop driven P-51 to the turbine driven F-86 without any real disruption of the war effort and with minimal problems. 

To get past the usual stats of the book, it is in the standard Osprey format, is card cover and has 128 pages. It is also full color, which is a real plus, especially for modelers. All of the images are superb, being sharp and clear. Very few of them cover the 'ditch' between pages.

The book has 5 chapters:

• A background of fighter bomber ops in Korea

• The process of converting to the F-86F

• Combat operations using the Sabre

• A section called "Facts, Figures, and more War Stories"

• Postwar activities in Korea

There is also an appendix section which is basically a cutaway of the F-86 and a table of performance and dimension statistics.

The book covers each of the five fighter-bomber wings that were Sabre operators. What I found of interest is that all five wings are still active in the USAF today as are all the fighter interceptor wings that operated the F-86 in Korea. Guess that this is because Korea was the first real chance for the new US Air Force to function in a full scale war, so these units are high on the 'to keep' list when it comes to disbanding wings.

Overall, this really is a superb book and it was enough to get me to grab some of the other books in the series. Apparently there will be one on all the major USAF combat types that operated in Korea, a great idea and I look forward to reading other volumes.

Highly recommended, especially if you are modeling the type.

Review copy courtesy of  your wiser, but poorer editor.

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