Military Model Scene

Title: The Second World War Illustrated: The Fifth Year
Author: Jack Holroyd
Publisher: Pen & Sword
ISBN: 978-1-39906-304-3

We have reached the fifth year of the war in this new book from Pen & Sword, covering the period of autumn 1943 to autumn 1944. A 320-page soft-cover book packed with archive photos.
There are 8 chapters, each one with a fine collection of pictures, with the addition of helpful maps and the inclusion of many individual portraits showing us the faces of key commanders, from all sides. It starts off in Italy, with the campaign from the landings at Salerno to the liberation of Rome and moves on directly to Normandy, from the D-Day landings through to the liberation of Paris. Then in July of 1944, the assassination attempt on Hitler, Operation Valkyrie. That is turn is followed with Hitler's Revenge Weapons, the V1 and V2 development and Peenemunde before switching to the American advances in the South Pacific, as Japanese fortunes were turning. It includes the invasion of Tarawa Atoll. Staying in the Far East, there is inclusion of the Japanese in Burma, including Kohima and Imphal. Next is another switch, to the Eastern Front, and the German loss of Army Group Centre before rounding off this volume with featuring the Allied bombing offensive against not only Berlin itself, but also the industrial targets of oil and the ball bearing factories.
Photo collections like this are popular, though the particular thing I like about this series is that it puts events that happened around the same time side by side. Very often we focus on a particular topic and miss what was happening elsewhere at the same time. Just as a basic example, thinking of all the effort required to stage the Normandy invasion on 6th June 1944, but missing that just one day before, on 5th June, Rome was being liberated in Italy. While some of the photos in the book are quite well known, most were new to me, and all with useful captioning. The breadth of subjects within this one makes for some interesting context, and the modeller in me feels there is plenty of inspiration in here for modellers looking for extra detail and some potential diorama ideas.
Thanks to Pen & Sword for the review copy.

Robin