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Although this book was originally conceived as a guide to the uniforms of the Armed Forces of the Second World War, it is much more than that. Mollo looks at the structure of each nations armed forces, starting with the commander in chief and working down. In most cases this is supported by full colour illustrations of the insignias of rank used in each service. We are given information on the size of each service at key moments in the war, the organisation of those services, and of course the uniforms.
This book gets a big vote from me for one simple reason - many otherwise very detailed accounts of Second World War battles describe armies in terms of the number of divisions involved, without ever mentioning how big these divisions actually were (or at least were meant to be). Here we are given figures for the combat strength of each country's divisions.
This is a very valuable reference work which contains a vast amount of information, in an easy to use, well organised format. The breadth of coverage is very impressive, with interesting chapters on many of the minor combatant nations of the war. Oh, and the uniforms are well illustrated as well. Think of this book as fifty Osprey's in one volume!
Author: Andrew Mollo
Edition: Hard back
Pages: 312
Publisher: Crescent
Year: 1987