Military Model Scene

Title: The Netherlands East Indies Campaign 1941-42
Author: Marc Lohnstein
Publisher: Osprey
ISBN: 978-1-4728-4352-4

The sub-title tells you more, 'Japan's Quest for Oil', this is the topic for Osprey's Campaign series number 364. A 96-page soft-cover book in the usual style of this series.
The story is split over 7 sections, starting with the Origins of the Campaign, dealing with the idea of Japanese expansion in the Pacific region, and particularly their need/desire to secure fuel supplies for their military machine. Then a Chronology before the basic details of the Opposing Commanders of the Japanese and Allied sides. Then the detail and orders of battle for the Japanese and the RNEI (Royal Netherlands East Indies) armed forces. This in turn is followed by a look at the Opposing Plans of each side, before it gets into the description of the events of the campaign, the successful conquest of the Dutch East Indies, securing the oil and threatening the north coast of Australia. It considers each one of the sequence of operations which gradually conquered the various islands of the group, some large, some small. All of these are well illustrated with maps, colour artwork, archive photos and data tables. Everything is rounded off with a final section considering the Aftermath.
While I had a very basic knowledge of this element of the early war in the Pacific, I learnt a lot from this book. We see a lot on the later successes of the Allies in their reconquest of the Pacific, perhaps less on these early Japanese successes. One of the bonuses of this book for modellers I feel are the archive images, some of which illustrate some of the relatively unknown armoured vehicles, tanks and troop carriers, used by the Dutch forces. A number of them are available in model form from companies such as Den Bels and if you've seen them and wondered about them, this will give some valuable background to these lesser known machines. Add this to another Osprey book covering the air campaign, this makes for a great companion to it.
Thanks to Osprey for our review copy.

Robin