The B-25 Mitchell is one of those iconic US WWII bombers, probably as much for the early war Doolittle raid as for any other reason. The plane was easy to fly, easy to maintain and very rugged. Face it, North American Aviation built nothing but winners during WWII and it is not surprising that pretty much every type they built lasted well past WWII and into the the 1950s with the US military.

The Mitchell was one of those planes and it served in every area of the war except Northern Europe with the USAAF during the war. What I found so interesting about the B-25 is that while it served everywhere, it did not serve in the numbers that I had originally thought. While there were dozens of bomb groups of B-17s and B-24s, this was not the case with the B-25. In fact, there were only 13 Bomb Groups and one in a Composite wing in the entire USAAF. Not all of those were active at the same time, so really, it was not as widely operated as we might have otherwise thought.

The two Air Forces that used the plane the most were the Fifth Air Force in the Pacific and the 9th/12th Air Forces in the Mediterranean. When the 9th Air Force went to Northern Europe, it left behind its B-25 Groups to the 12th. All of these various Air Forces used the B-25 in one Group or another until the end of hostilities.

This is basically a picture book. There is an introductory historical section that covers the general operation of the Mitchell in the different theaters of operation. Then the book goes into the photos. These are divided up into the Pacific, CBI, and Mediterranean theaters.

The photos are well chosen and those of us who have been around a while will recognize quite a few of them. They are all in black and white aside from a few on the front and back covers. The author makes the horrible error of having images that go across the 'trench' in the middle of the book. About the only saving grace is that the binding is such that you do not miss much in the way of the image in this process. A nice addition are several large foldout pages that have full color profiles of some of the more interestingly marked B-25s. This is in addition to a few pages of profiles in landscape format.

It makes for a very nice book of what we used to call the 'coffee table' variety. A book one can pick up at any time and enjoy going through to look at the photos. It is a nice addition to any library and one that I very much enjoyed reading. I am sure that you will as well.

February 2013

Review book courtesy of the fine folks at www.casematepublishing.com Visit them for more excellent books.

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