During WWII in Europe, a lot of effort was put into a major bombing campaign by both the British and American air forces. Naturally, the British were the first start one up. As time went on the size of the British raids increased. However, they soon discovered that flying during the daylight resulted in unsustainable losses. So they switched to night time raids.

When the US started their campaign, they realized that the results of British night bombing were very poor. So the USAAF decided to go with daylight raids. It is not surprising that these raids were not only a bit more accurate, but also resulted in the loss of aircraft due to the lack of long range escort fighters. They even realized that the best way for the bombers to defend was to have them in tightly grouped 'boxes' so that a maximum number of defensive guns could be put into use.

However, it was not easy to get bomber groups into these somewhat complex formations. It was important to keep radio traffic to an absolute minimum so that the Germans would not realize that a formation was building. Two methods were devised to help build up the formations. One was to use war weary bombers that were painted in garish schemes to allow the rest of the group to easily see them and make forming up easier. There was also the use of often unarmed war weary fighters to help wayward bombers head back into formation. These were the formation monitors. Most of the Assembly ships were B-24s and most of the monitors were razorback P-47s.

This book covers these specialized aircraft. It is mostly a photo book and there are an impressive number of period color photos. Of course there are also pages full of full color four views of these incredible aircraft. A short background history is provided before the specific aircraft are covered. Each entry has as many images as could be found by the authors, which is why this is such an image intensive book. A must have publication for camouflage and markings enthusiasts as well as those interested in the 8th Air Force during WWII. Highly recommended.

June 2026

Copyright ModelingMadness.com. All rights reserved. No reproduction in part or in whole without express permission.