M4 SHERMAN
WALK AROUND NO. 1

by Jim Mesko
Color by Don Greer & Richard Hudson
Squadron Signal Publications
MSRP: $15.00

Reviewed by Ray Mehlberger

This is Squadron's first shot at a WALK AROUND book about armor. Previous WALK AROUND books have been about aircraft only. Picking the Sherman as the first one is a great marketing idea. It is my favorite U.S. tank, and I am sure it is for others also.

Photos in this book are courtesy of; the U.S. Army, the National Archives, the Patton Museum, and pictures taken in the Henry Vanetta Museum. There are additional pictures of restored vehicles belonging to Jacques Littlefield also.

Support for this book was supplied by Richard Hunnicutt. I believe he is the same Hunnicutt that put out his own book on the Sherman, that sells for over $100.00, and has been the BIBLE in the past for Sherman enthusiasts.

The front cover of the book is by Don Greer and shows an early M4A1 landing on the Normandy Beachhead on July 6th, 1944. The rear cover of the book is not signed by the artist. I think this one may have been done by the other illustrator credited in the book, Richard Hudson. It shows an M4A3E8 of the 72nd Tank Battalion in Korea, in May of 1952.

The book is 79 pages long. There are 141 color photos, and 137 black and white ones.

The color and black and white photos alternate through the book. The first two pages will be black and white, the next two color....and it goes like that throughout the whole book.

Text is relegated to the captions under the photos...there are no real 'PURELY READING' pages...so this is essentially a picture book. What a picture book it is!!!

In addition to all the great photos, which show every inch of the various Sherman types anatomy, there are six scrap drawings, 12 color profiles, and two three-view line drawings.

The three-views are of the M4A1 (75) Sherman, and the M4A3E8 (76) with HVSS.

Interior shots are shown and photos of the different engines are included too. There are close up shots of parts of the Sherman I did not know existed. The different types of drive sprockets, road wheels, and track links are exhaustively shown.

I highly recommend this book to the Sherman modelers out there. I hope the series of WALK AROUNDS on armor continues with Squadron. They could do the Pz.Kpw. IV as a next one, for all us German tank nuts next!

Thanks to Squadron for the review sample.