Chris Dunning's latest book covers Regia Aeronautica's operational history from 1923-1945. Well done and well written it covers almost all aspects of the Italian Air Force from the mission to China in 1933-1937 and the occupation of Ethiopia in 1935-1936 until the Co-Belligerent Air Force and the A.N.R of 1943-1945. Each chapter is followed by a chapter on camouflage and markings done by well-known aviation artist Richard Caruana. The book also includes a chapter about the ace Ugo Drago (
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_drago.htm ). The book also has an appendix about the aircraft production which includes types produced, numbers and when they were produced; a very nice addition in a subject that's difficult to find information about.
However in my opinion the book is thin in the text with focus on images and profiles as if the scope is modelers and not the ones with (deep) interest in the Italian Air Force. As an example the marginal CAI operations is covered on roughly 4 pages of text while the remaining operations of the Regia Aeronautica in 1940-43 (North Africa, Malta, Albania/Greece, Russia and Italy) receives the same number of pages of text! The texts about the markings and camouflage (which a very well done) cover almost the same number of pages, i.e. the book is more a modelers guide than an operational history.
A slightly missed opportunity to produce THE book about the Regia Aeronautica given the expertise of the author but all-in-all a nice book, that's a must for anyone interested in the Italian Air Force due to the scarceness of books about this subject in English.
Rating 4/5
Available from:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Regia-Aeronautica-Chris-Dunning/dp/190653702X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273753780&sr=8-1
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