I am one who appreciates history, especially those stories of events that were not presented in class room text books. One of my favorite classes was History because I had a teacher too liked to use tidbits of history not normally presented in the classroom.

Vladimir R. Kotelnikov too must have had an appreciation for such stories as he shares the story about the Air War Over Khalkhin Gol. This corner of the world was where the Russians and Japanese fought in Manchuria in the mid 1930′s.  An incident which the Russians called The Nomonhan Incident. The story is a collection of accounts from the Russian perspective of this war.

What captured my attention to read this book was as I skimmed the pages upon receiving it were images of the Douglas DC-3 which play a major and vital role in this conflict. Transport aircraft don’t usually get much of the glory, but they did and still do play an important role in gaining superiority of every battlefield or conflict. This is the 75th anniversary of the DC-3/C-47 so I just had to read the book!

The book is packed with photographs, profiles and information about the aircraft used during this conflict…both Russian and Japanese. The photographs included in this book tell even more than the text. Its a double winner in my opinion!

Considering the time, aircraft that were used were just one step away from those used during WWI. The early designs from aircraft companies such as Polikaropov, Tupolev, Mitsubishi, Nakajima and Fiat were state of the art at the time, but long since forgotten as those which were used to defeat Germany and Japan during WWII. An era when the US was flying such aircraft as the F3F and P-36. Great Britian was still operating biplanes such as the Gladiator and the Hurricane was just being introduced.

This book serves not only as portal into a little known part of history, especially in aerial warfare, but also as a great resource for scale modelers who have an interest in early Russian and Japanese combat aircraft. If you are one of those, then you’ll most definitely want to add this book to your library! I too now will consider building some of the aircraft found in this book. I also have added respect for the pilots and the aircraft of this period as well.

This book is published by SAM Publications.

Thanks to SAM Publications for providing this review sample.