- uitstekend naslagwerk over Japanse vliegtuigbouw voor en tijdens WO2
- This book represents the first serious attempt to detail for Western readers the evolution of Japanese military aviation. It has been no easy task, originating from a carefully prepared and meticulous manuscript in handwritten Japanese characters, which needed painstaking translation and careful editing to reveal in easily readable form its fascinating story.
- It is no exaggeration to state that despite Japan's long-term involvement in air warfare against China during the late 1930s, so-called military experts in the West still held to a belief that Japanese military aircraft were little better than inferior copies of obsolete foreign designs.
- Pearl Harbour was to bring a painful realisation of their lack of knowledge, an urgent need for a complete reappraisal of the enemy's potential, and vindication for the few individuals, championed by America's 'Billy' Mitchell, who had been able to envisage the desperation of Japan's militarist leaders.
Eiichiro Sekigawa not only gives a clear insight into the development of that country's aviation industry, but shows the political and economic reasons that, rightly or wrongly, led the nation to war against the West in 1941. This first volume brings the story to that point, some six months after Pearl Harbour, when Japan's 'Co-prosperity Sphere' had exploded across the face of the Pacific.