Following closely on the heels of the earlier Ju-188 book, this one completes the family with coverage of the Ju-288, Ju-388 and Ju-488 bombers.

The Ju-288 was the aircraft that the Ju-188 was built to replace. Designed as part of the Luftwaffe's Bomber B program, none of the planes in that contest were able to reach production status. Mostly because of either a lack of proper engines or because of unrealistic technical requirements.

Thanks to the fact that the US arrived at the Dessau plant first and absconded with all their technical and historical archives, Junkers aircraft of the period are the easiest to properly document. As a result, there is a lot of information available on the Ju-288 program, including a lot of photographs of the aircraft themselves and the appropriate tech manuals. This makes this book's coverage of the Ju-288 superior to any other that may have been available before.

However, for me, the real draw of this volume is the Ju-388 coverage. To me this has to be one of the coolest twin engine aircraft developed during the war. It is also quite typical of the situation in Germany at the time that of the 70 or so aircraft built, only a handful actually were in Luftwaffe service and it is unknown if any at all actually saw any operational usage. This was more due to the lack of fuel for missions than anything else. The full range of Ju-388 variants; bomber, fighter and reconnaissance aircraft are all covered with detailed information on the different variants.

The final aircraft is the four engined Ju-488, an aircraft which did not reach prototype stage due to a number of problems, the biggest of which was that it was being built in France and the factory was overrun by the Allies.

As with the previous volume, this one has a modeling section. Fortunately those models shown are well-built and while the selections are limited to 1/72, it is a worthwhile addition.

I know that I really liked the book and if your interest is in Luftwaffe bombers in general or the Ju-288/388 in particular this is a volume that is a must have.

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