JAPAN AT WAR, 1931-1945
Ki-43 Oscar Aces of World War 2 (Hiroshi Ichimura)
Hiroshi Ichimura has done a
great service by recording the exploits of the most important
Japanese army fighter of the Pacific War. The Type 1 Fighter (the
Ki-43/Oscar of the book's title) was probably second in
importance only to the Japanese navy's Type Zero carrier fighter,
for which it was often mistaken, among Japanese warplanes in that
conflict. While the navy's Zero had proved itself in combat over
China in 1940 and 1941 before war exploded in the Pacific, the
Type 1 Fighter was just coming into operational service when the
war began. (Read the rest of Richard
Dunn's review)
In the Ruins of Empire:
The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia
(Ronald Spector)
Especially interesting for its account of Russia's opportunistic invasion of Manchuria after the U.S. effectively ended the war with the obliteration of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Russia looted billions of dollars in gold from Manchuria and took over a million Japanese captives, some 300,000 of whom were never heard from again. The western democracies have a somewhat naive view of war: that it ends when the enemy's capital is occupied. That seldom happens, and Spector explains how when the Americans and the British went home, other forces kept fighting in Asia, often to our later disadvantage.
Blue skies! -- Dan Ford
Japan's long war:
- Nomonhan (Japan v. Russia, 1939)
- Russian aircraft losses at Nomonhan
- Elusive target: Bombing Japan from China (Richard Dunn)
- Did U.S. leaders know that war was coming?
- A guest of the Japanese in the Dutch Indies (Arie Biemond)
- "New Guinea was my introduction to war" (anonymous)
- Ketsu-go (waiting for the Americans, summer 1945)
- Olympic vs. Ketsu-go (the invasion that didn't happen)
- Japan's Longest Day: how Japan surrendered
- The Last Raid: how the war ended, August 14-15
- The U.S. Navy arrives in Tokyo Bay, August 1945
- Did Japanese soldiers fight for the Vietminh?
The Hiroshima files:
- Why Truman dropped the bomb (Richard Frank)
- Little Boy vs Operation Olympic (an internet debate)
- How many died at Hiroshima?--counting the uncountable
- What was the yield of the Hiroshima bomb?
- Was there a third bomb? What was its target?
- Been down that lonely road: NASM confronts Enola Gay
- Hiroshima and the end of the war--a reading list
The Japanese Army Air Force files:
- Notes on the Japanese Army Air Force
- The decision to move south (Japan v. the West, 1941)
- Mr. Suzuki recalls the Flying Tigers (December 1941)
- Lucky Sevens? life and death of the 77th Sentai (Richard Dunn)
- Rising sun over Burma: JAAF vs. AVG
- JAAF deployments against Rangoon, December-March (maps)
- Japanese army aircraft met by the AVG
- Joe Baugher's Hayabusa files
- Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa ("Oscar") armament (Richard Dunn)
- About those Nakajima Ki-43 machineguns
- Regimental song of the 64th Sentai (video)
- Japanese army aces and their victory claims
- JAAF fighter pilots lost in China-Burma area, 1941-42
- Ki-45 Toryu (Dragon Slayer, aka Nick)
Why's a Zero?
- Why's a Zero? and a primer on the Japanese calendar
- Japanese warplane names and designations (Osamu Tagaya)
- Allied code-names in perspective (Richard Dunn)
- Sussing out the 'Chengdu Zero'
- Zeros over China, 1941-1942 (Ben Schapiro)
- Unraveling the Zero's performance data (Richard Dunn)
- 'Never dog fight the Zero' (the San Diego evaluations)
- A conversation with Saburo Sakai and a scrap of his scarf
- 'Winged Samurai': rethinking the Sakai myths
- An interview with another Zero pilot
Kamikaze, cannibals, & other mysteries:
- Bushido: the Japanese Field Service Code, 1941
- 'Be as one already dead' (Ruth Benedict)
- The soldier who cut up living prisoners (London Times)
- The butchered bodies of New Guinea (graphic photos)
- The Rape of Nanking: Japan in denial
- Meet Colonel Tsuji, genius and cannibal
- Outram Road Prison, Singapore
- Done to death: the prisoners of Rabaul
- The man who didn't shoot down Pappy Boyington
- Why the kamikaze volunteered (Yasuho Izawa)
- A Japanese army pilot trains to die
- 'Crashing bodily into a target is not easy' (the how-to manual)
- 'I will be waiting for you at Yasukuni Shrine'
- 'Annihilate them all' (the order to murder PWs)
Books & stuff:
- The A6M Zero Store (books & collectibles)
- Japan at War--book reviews on this site
- The webmaster's picks: 10 books worth reading
- Books about Japanese aircraft and aces
