Review by Cmdr. Peter B. Mersky, USNR (Ret.)
No. 116 in this publisher’s long-lived Naval Fighters series, and heavily illustrated with photos and manual diagrams—as well as the usual end-of-book discussion of plastic scale models of this iconic Boeing fighter that served an equally long career with the Army as the P-12 series—this book is arguably one of the best in the series. Combining familiar and unfamiliar images with an equally authoritative text and captions, it is both an excellent introduction and a great reference of this biplane fighter that played great service to the aviators of the Navy, Marines and Army. Those pilots would soon find themselves fighting in the Pacific and Europe in the cockpits as well as in senior leadership positions during World War II.
Basically, it might be said that without it, the winning history of war might have been different in outcome. Thus, this little biplane should be considered one of the most useful early tools the Allies had in their arsenal.
The author served on active duty as a helicopter pilot and also contributed to various programs that saw him progress to captain before he retired in 2015.
The author covers the F4Bs early career, flying throughout the 1930s, even seeing occasional combat in China and South America, as well as establishing itself in the between-wars naval service in fleet squadrons and then in intermediate training squadrons. The F4B was not that well-known or shown in movies of the time, but was very much a behind-the-scenes first high-performance (for the time) fighter that combined contemporary speed with very favorable maneuverability. The aircraft couldn’t help but instill confidence in a generation of aviators that would stand them in good stead when what eventually developed into WWII truly all over the world and the then-young fighter pilots were ready to fight the likes of the Zero, Bf. 109 and FW-190. It’s all here in this new look at Boeing’s attractive and highly capable biplane.
