Aviation Art

These paintings are by Harold H. Booth (R.C.A.F.) and from a book called Book of Modern Warplanes. The book was published by Garden City Publishing and is copyright 1942.

The American planes in this book feature the old style insignia with the red circle in the star. The red circle was omitted in 1941 due to the fact it might be confused with the Japanese rising sun insignia. The author notes this in the text. I mention this because I'm curious exactly when this book was produced. I'm thinking it was after the United States entered the war but not very long after. I can't pin down the date of the change of the insignia other than "1941."

There are descriptive paragraphs (presumably by Booth) to accompany each illustration that talk about the plane's development and armament. Information abot the Axis planes is sketchy and the armament of the F4U Corsair is described as "secret."

This book belonged to my Mom and I remember enjoying it and trying to copy the drawings when I was a little kid. I rescued it at some point when my parents were cleaning out a bookcase.




P-38 Lightning




P-39 Aircobra




B-26 Marauder




B-17 Flying Fortress




A-20 Havoc




F4U Corsair




SB2C Helldiver




SBD1 Dauntless




PBM-1 Mariner




Spitfire




P-40 Kittyhawk




Bristol Beaufighter




Westland Whirlwind




AT6 Harvard




Fairey Battle




Handley-Page Hampden




S25 Short Sunderland




Lockheed Hudson




Polikarpov I-16




1-18 (I've not been able to find out what this is. Maybe the Yak-1. The Americans did not know much about Russian aircraft at this point).




Focke Wulf 190




Henschel Hs 126




Zero Type 00




Kawasaki 97 (I'm thinking this might actually be the Nakajima B5N "Kate" torpedo bomber).




Macchi MC-202