Today we're showing three pieces of artwork from our January 2027 series books! Let us know in the comments which books you'd like to see featured in our February 2027 Artwork Reveal!

 

Baku 1918: Dunsterforce and the Race for Oil in World War I

By Louise Provan

Illustrated by Johnny Shumate

Art showing the battle of Baku, soldiers are advancing in the foreground alongside a tank. In the distance there are soldiers kneeling down behind a barricade, an explosion beyond.

THE BATTLE OF BAKU, 26–31 AUGUST 1918

On 26 August, the first attack came with the Ottomans advancing in waves and taking the strategically important high point of Mud Volcano  from the British. A new defensive line was quickly formed to the south of the original line. On 31 August, another attack forced the British to retreat from the areas of high ground known as Stafford Hill and Warwick Castle as well as the oilfields of Binagadi.

By now, Dunsterville realized that the local Armenian troops were of little help; they frequently deserted their posts and left gaps in the line, which could not be filled. The appearance of Bicherakov’s force of about 500 in early September helped, but by the time the final attack came on 14 September, Dunsterville’s allied force was outnumbered by the Ottomans by about ten to one. The Ottomans broke through at Baladjari to the north-west of the city and through the valley known as Wolf’s Gap to the west. The situation was now desperate and Dunsterville instructed his force to retreat back to Baku. The retreat was carried out in an orderly fashion and by the end of the day, the men of Dunsterforce were making their way back to safety in Enzeli.

 

US Navy Pacific Fleet 1942–43: Guadalcanal to the Solomons

By Mark Stille

Illustrated by Adam Tooby

cruisers at Empress Augusta Bay. The art focuses on one cruiser at sea with two more small in the background

Merrill’s cruisers at Empress Augusta Bay 

R. Adm. Merrill’s force at the battle of Empress Augusta Bay was built around four Cleveland-class light cruisers all carrying 12 6in/47 guns and fitted with Mark 3 fire control radar. In this scene, the cruisers head north in column. Montpelier leads Cleveland and Columbia; the last ship, Denver, is out of view. The four main turrets of the cruisers are elevated as they prepare to open fire on a target some 19,000yds distant. Montpelier has just fired a salvo using flashless powder. The initial target was light cruiser Sendai, since it was the closest and largest radar return. Sendai was hit by an unknown number of 6in shells that struck its boiler room and jammed its rudder. The crippled cruiser was later finished off by USN destroyer torpedoes. During the battle, the four USN cruisers fired 4,591 6in rounds and less than 20 hit, despite the fact their gunfire was radar assisted.

 

The Kuban 1943: The bloody struggle over the Caucasus

By William E. Hiestand

Illustrated by Adam Tooby

art showing six P-39 Airacobras planes engaging german forces. The aircraft that the is the focus of the art has flames coming from its tail

Assault on the Blue Line 

On May 5, the Red Army launched its first assault on the Seventeenth Army’s Blue Line, supported by 829 Soviet sorties. The heavily outnumbered Luftwaffe only inflicted eight losses, two of them credited to Guenther Rall. During the early afternoon, six P-39 Airacobras – called the Kobra by the VVS – from the 16th Guards Aviation Fighter Regiment led by Captain Aleksandr Pokryshkin flying to cover Red Army units, engaged four Ju 88s and one He 111, but twelve Bf 109s soon intervened. Pokryshkin claimed one Bf 109 shot down, shown in the battlescene in the lower right. The foreground shows Lieutenant Vadim Fadeyev, a very popular 20-victory ace, being hit. Fadeyev was listed as missing and made a posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union on May 24. Although the victory is often attributed to Rall, Fadeyev was likely shot down by Viktor Petermann of II./JG 52. 

The VVS regiments operating the P-39 during early 1943 had recently transitioned to the Lend-Lease aircraft and suffered heavy losses in the “Kuban Meatgrinder.”  Soviet pilots soon learned to exploit the excellent characteristics of the P-39 in the low-level dogfights characteristic of the Eastern Front, in particular its firepower, and the Kobra became their preferred Lend-Lease fighter.