Continuing in the superb Monograph series is this one on the F6F Hellcat. As is so typical of Kagero books, this one starts off with a page out of history and describes events in the Pacific War with  VF-11 'Sundowners'. We then move in to the development of the Hellcat and then the meat of the book, the operational history of the type until the end of WWII.

There is also a section on the operation of the F6F by the Fleet Air Arm. The author is immediately blunt about his feelings about the FAA's operations during WWII and they are not very positive. It does make for some rather interesting reading, however.

Once the historical section is finished, there is one on the camouflage and markings of the Hellcat. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of space dedicated to the subject, but it is most complete. Kagero is always known for its detailed plans section and this one is no exception. Modelers will be using this part of the book quite a bit. Included is a page that shows the difference between the different variants. Then there are some color period photos as well as several pages of close up pictures taken of various museum aircraft.  This is followed by several pages of superbly drawn profiles.

The decal sheet in this one covers five different aircraft in both 1/72 and 1/48 scale and one in 1/32 scale. They are printed by Techmod so you know what to expect in terms of detail. As with all these book decals, you are given only the unique markings with the others to be provided in the kit.

This book is in both English and Polish. I found the English translation to be, for the most part, well done. There were a few parts that sounded a bit odd when read, but nothing that took away from the book. I did find, however, that the photographs did not seem to be keyed to the write up. It almost seemed as if they were randomly put in the book. I ran into this same situation with the F4U book. The captions were an improvement over the Corsair book, but still there were spelling and syntax errors with them. As I mentioned earlier, it is as if the person choosing the images and the one writing the book were two different people. One other thing of note is that though there are photos and drawings of the F6F-5K drone and of post war Hellcats, there was nothing at all written about them. No mention of using Hellcat drones to destroy bridges during the Korean war or their use in bomb tests in the late 1940s.

Despite these omissions this is a most interesting book and does provide a lot of detail and information for the both the casual reader and especially for the modeler. Those who love the Hellcat will want to have this one.

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