War Prizes

Book excerpt: First published in 1994 and in print virtually ever since, War Prizes was an illustrated history of the German, Italian, and Japanese aircraft brought to Allied countries after World War II for testing and evaluation. Wide ranges of airplanes were covered in the book including civil aircraft and sailplanes as well as military types. The only drawback with War Prizes was that because it was providing a detailed narrative of the testing and evaluation programs, the space that could be devoted to the photographs was limited. War Prizes: The Album illustrates in much greater depth the aircraft types featured in the original volume. It has photographs of each type in the markings of the Allied countries that operated them. One aspect of the subject that will have notably better coverage in this book is that of Axis aircraft which found their way into Russian hands. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a lot more material has become available. The majority of the photos that appear in this book were not published in the earlier book.