Carl Molesworth

Molesworth is something of a specialist in the Curtiss P-40 and the pilots that flew them so this is a life and times of a unit that was the first significant U.S. fighter unit that served against the Germans and was famous for, if nothing else, the so-called "Palm Sunday Massacre." This is where elements of the group decimated a mass formation of German transport aircraft trying to evacuate German personnel from the wreckage of Hitler's North African adventure. I still rather like this series more than Osprey's companion "Aircraft of the Aces" but one can understand that there was too much overlap to justify two series.… (mer)

This is the first history of the U.S. Army Air Corps unit that incorporated Gen. Claire Chennault's famous "Flying Tigers." During the dark days immediately after Pearl Harbor, most news from the Asian front was bad--with the exception of reports about the Flying Tigers and their successors, the 23rd Fighter Group. Day after day in the deadly skies over China, the 23rd's shark-mouthed P-40s outfought the Japanese. No single American fighter group in World War II performed more varied missions, was more successful, or was more central to the war effort in its theater of operations. By the end of the war, the 23rd had tallied nearly six hundred aerial victories and destroyed nearly four hundred more Japanese aircraft on the ground. Carl Molesworth's Sharks Over China is based on his interviews with the group's survivors and contains numerous rare photographs.… (mer)