JAPANESE SPECIAL NAVAL LANDING FORCES
Osprey Publishing
(MAA 432)
With two recent movies about the fighting in the Pacific during WWII (“Flags of Our Fathers” & “Letters from Iwo Jima”) and the upcoming Pacific War "Band of Brothers" equivalent, interest in this theatre may be increased. One of the newer books available from Osprey, this book follows the general layout of all MAA books. It is 48 pages long, has over 40 black and white photos and has eight color plates showing off the uniforms of the Special Naval Landing Forces. Where this is a departure from the past is the inclusion of color photos of the uniforms, equipment and badges. There are over 20 color photos on six plates with both front and back and close up photos of the equipment used by these forces. With the decreased cost of color printing, there appears to be a trend to include color photos when available. I believe the first Osprey I saw that had a significant number of color photos was the Mau-Mau Warrior, Warrior 108 at Historicon 2006.
The book describes, in depth, the types of clothes the SNLF wore – there are seven pages describing the many different types of headgear worn! There are sections that describe officer and enlisted/petty officer uniforms, field equipment, weapons and rating patches/insignia. There is a beautiful full page color photo of the latter. The text also describes the units and the combat they saw from 1932 until the “last real sting inflicted” by SNLF in the Tarawa Campaign, 20-23 November 1943.
This book is not only for those with lots of standard Imperial Japanese Army and Navy figures who want to paint something different. The information and photos included make this book a great one to have if you are interested in Pacific Island fighting and the Japanese forces. I used the writing on a flag from one of the photos as the basis for a converted IJA figure of my own!
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/