First of all, let me dispense with the background info on the book.

The size of the book is B5 (250x174 mm) with laminated soft covers, 144 pages printed on glossy art paper. The main text is Finnish with an extensive English summary presented in a form of a war diary. Photo captions are fully bi-lingual for 250 top quality pictures supplemented by 32 color profiles and four pages of scale drawings of the aircraft.

Now with that out of the way, LeR 1 was one of several overall commands. Sort of like a wing or group.  These commands were established so as to ensure proper reconnaissance for specific sectors of the front lines. Ask any battle commander and they will tell you that reconnaissance is probably the most important input to helping make battle plans. The area of operation was around the Olonets Peninsula and consisted of several units. Among them were LeLv 10, 12, 14, 16, and 32; each of these having responsibility for various sections of the overall area of operations. To put it into a type of unit that you may already be aware of, they are basically Army Co-Operation units; the type of thing that the Mustang I was used for by the RAF.

Though LeR 1 was established in mid 1942, the book covers earlier operations of the involved units. One thing you can say about the Finnish AF during this time, is that they used what was available and used it better than just about anyone else. The aircraft types were many and include Fokker C.X, Fokker C.V, Blackburn Ripon, Gloster Gladiator, Westland Lysander, Curtiss Hawk 75A, Fokker D.XXI, Hawker Hurricane, Lavochkin LaGG-3, Myrsky and Messerschmitt Bf 109G.

As mentioned, the book is in Finnish, but all the photos have English captions and there is a large English summary at the back of the book. The photos are excellent and include several in color. The profiles are also superbly done and combined with the photos are a real boon to modelers.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the Finnish AF during the war years and who wants a superb reference for their next model.

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

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