Adding to their growing catalogue of unit books comes this one on the 421 Night Fighter Squadron. This was the first Pacific unit to fly the P-61 Black Widow and operated from Northern New Guinea, initially flying some war weary P-38s until they got equally weary P-70s and finally their P-61s.

The purpose of this and other Pacific night fighter units was to shoot down the many nocturnal bombers that the Japanese sent over. Since daylight bombing was pretty much out of the question for the Japanese, they resorted to night raids, most of which were quite successful. This is mainly due to the lack of dedicated Allied night fighting units. Even when the 421st and other units were able to reach operational status, their success was really quite limited, especially when compared to the successes that the Germans and British were having in Europe. In fact, one could make a case that the effort and money expended into the P-61 and its subsequent units would have been better spent elsewhere. However, one really does not know about things until they have been tried.

As with all other Kagero books, this one is a dual Polish/English publication and quite well written. The author covers the development of the P-61 and then goes into the rather fractured history of the 421st. This unit was sent overseas expecting to have planes ready for it, but these did not materialize for many months after reaching the theater of operations. Instead they had to fly clapped out P-38 in weather recce missions and when it did get night fighters, those were not the expected P-61s but the makeshift P-70s, that were barely able to keep up with Japanese planes. When the P-61s did arrive, they were misused by command and had little success in their chosen role. In fact, during their near two years of operation, they succeeded in destroying only 13 aircraft. Other units had similar or lower scores to show for all their effort.

Kagero offers a freebie in every book it sells and this one is a book mark with an Olive Drab color chip. Though the 421st had minimal success with their aircraft, their story is both interesting and well told. As such, this is a book that I highly recommend.

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