One of the more maligned aircraft of WWII has to have been the Brewster Buffalo. Designed as a naval fighter, it was the first really modern monoplane carrier fighter. It had a good engine, retractable landing gear, and was a delight to fly. Its main vice was that the landing gear wasn't as strong as it could have been, and like all pre-war aircraft, it wasn't built with enough armor to protect the crew and fuel. When that was added, the aircraft lost performance.

The major users of the type were the US, British Commonwealth, Netherlands and Finland. The first three listed were mostly fighting against the Japanese and while some had success, the truth is that the Japanese had better trained pilots as well as superior fighters. The results were to be expected in that the Buffalo did not fare too well in the far east and Pacific theaters.

The same was not the case with Finland. Those pilots had remarkable success against the Russians using the Buffalo and were able to create a number of high scoring aces flying the Brewster product. Here, the opposite to the Pacific experience was true. The Finns had the greater motivation and a higher level of training that most of their Soviet counterparts. In terms of the aircraft against which they flew, the Soviets had equal or somewhat lesser equipment. 

In this Osprey title, two of the more knowledgeable experts on the subject have come together to provide a combat history of the Buffalo. I'm sure that most readers will be somewhat surprised to find that even against the Japanese, there were pilots that became aces flying the F2A. It was not always a one-sided affair, and several Commonwealth pilots had reasonable success during the early days of the Pacific war. Of course in Finland, the Buffalo was used to its best advantage and literally dozens of pilots achieved ace status or added to their score with the F2A.

This book covers it all, starting with its use by Finland during WW2, then moving on to Malaya, Burma and its final US use at Midway. Included in this are super period photos of the men and planes as well as the expected center section of full color profiles by Chris Davey and a couple of color photographs. There is also the usual table of pilots of various nations that achieved ace or near ace status flying the aircraft. In all, it makes for a great read and a super reference book. It is one that I have no trouble highly recommending to you.

February 2010

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