Fighter Command 1939-45

by Ian Carter

Following on from his companion volume on Bomber Command, the author has assembled this year-by-year pictorial record which draws upon the comprehensive archive held by the Imperial War Museum.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published May 13, 2002

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of photographs from the Imperial War Museum, with some narration and context by the author. While not a military hardware geek, I did have plastic models of most of these planes as a boy. What fascinates me now, though, is the faces and stories of the pilots in these photographs. Many look so young and carefree, and yet the photo caption so often reads "was shot down and killed" only weeks after the picture was taken. Also of interest is the large number of nationalities represented in these photos -- Polish, Czech, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian, American, Canadian, Australian, South African, New Zealand pilots all flew for the RAF during the war.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2002, Fighter Command 1939-45 is a selection of 150 photos of the RAF drawn from the IWM archives. Perhaps 10 or more of the pics date from pre-war years, but the main crop does belong in the period stated. Many of the pics have been taken by official government photographers, which often has the advantage that the pics are great quality and are well framed by the photographer, but also carries the drawback the some pics are very well known and may have appeared in countless publications.