Continuing with the updates to the series comes this edition on the Brewster Model 239, an aircraft most of us know as the Buffalo. This is the first of two volumes on the type as it was a very important part of the Finnish Air Force inventory during the early years of the Continuation War.

As many of you probably know, the Buffalo was the US Navy's first all metal monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear. Built by a company that had no aviation experience and so was unable to meet the contract timetable, the Buffalo did provide Naval Aviators the experience needed for the upcoming conflict in the Pacific. By the time this conflict was upon us, the Buffalo was woefully outclassed by the outstanding A6M2 and their battle-hardened pilots.

However, back in 1940, the Finns were in need of fighters and so arranged for much of the Navy's F2A-1 production to be diverted to Finland. Naturally, these arrived late in the Winter War so only a few sorties were able to be flown. They were, however, ready for the Continuation War, by which time their aluminum paint had been over-sprayed with camouflage.

This revised edition covers units LLv (later LeLv) 22 & 24 through 1940, 1941, and 1942. It is fortunate for us all that the Finnish Air Force made sure that these aircraft and pilots were well photographed. I doubt if any other country has such a complete record of their military, especially when one considers the number of photographs vs the number of subjects. What's more, these images are generally very crisp and clear, which is a real boon to modern historians and researchers.

The authors have taken many of these images and put them into these history book. They are mostly photographs, but include a decent history background as well. In this case, the write up as well as the image captions are in both Finnish and English, something I know that I appreciate.

What really struck me while going over the images, was that many of these aircraft were rather hastily painted to such a degree that you could easily see the underlying aluminum around the serial numbers and other markings. This paint also wore rather badly so that after a time, it made for some rather interesting and somewhat ratty schemes!

Overall, this is just as superb a book as the others in the series. Those who have any interest at all in the type or the Finnish AF really should add this one to their shelves. It is highly recommended.

September 2005

Review book courtesy of  Kari Stenman Publishing, where you can order your copy of this and several other superb books on the Finnish AF.

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