Customer Reviews

Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa: in Japanese Army Air Force RTAF-CAF-IPSF Service (Schiffer Military History Book)

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The Hayabusa was the Japanese army's equivalent of the famed Zero fighter, and was often mistaken for it in the early months of the war. (By the AVG Flying Tigers, among others.) This is a reprint of Dick Bueschel's 1970 paperback from Arco. Unfortunately it wasn't updated to include more recent knowledge, but it remains the best thing available in English on this remarkable (for 1941) aircraft.

Much the same applies to Bueschel's other titles in this series, and especially to the less-famous aircraft (pretty much everything except the Zero, which has been well-researched and written about in recent years).

Up till a few decades ago the Mitsubishi 'Zero' , though not the only, certainly was the best known Japanese WW2 fighter, so many allied pilots believed they fought 'Zeros' all over Asia, e.g. the 'Flying Tigers'. The JAAF however had it's own 'Zero': the Nakajima Ki.43 Hayabusa (allied code name 'Oscar').
This plane is the subject of three remarkebly similair books: this Osprey/Aircam no.13, the ARCO/Aircam no.15, and the Schiffer Books 'Nakajima Ki.43 Hayabusa I-III', the second volume in their series about Japanese aircraft. How come? The British book is the original, the ARCO/Aircam is the Americam edition of it and the Schiffer Books' version is the revised and updated edition of the original. Together with the 'Aircraft in Profile no.46' (to be found in 'Aircraft in Profile vol.2') and a Hayabusa book by Merriam Press they form pretty much everything that has been published about this plane in the English language. It is done in the usual Aircam-style: 50 pages crammed with black-and-white photographs, 8 pages of colour art and a text portion of 8 pages in his case.
A must for the modeller, lots of painting schemes can be done with this book at hand. If and when you're fluent in Polish you can buy two Polish publications about the Nakajima Ki-43 hayabusa as well (AJ-Press "Monografie Lotnicze" and Ace Publications "Pod-Lupa"). If your knowledge of languages extends to Japanese there is a wealth of other sources, amongst them three different editions of the Bunrin-do's Famous Aicraft of the World series.

The books in this series are probably the best single volume sources on these aircraft in English. As such they are almost indispensible. Unfortunately, they contain none of the excellent color profiles of the original Aircam volumes of which these are reprints. They are not even reprints; they are copies. These volumes even include the black-and-white

plan views that refer back to the color section, now useless, as there is no color section.

Moreover, the original Aircam volumes can often be had on Ebay, and at less cost. The books in this series could have been superb, as they are, merely disappointing.

Richard Bueschell wrote several books on Japanese Fighters in WW2 and this is one example of them. I bought this since there is so little else out there on Japanese WW2 Fighters that I am aware of anyway. It helps clarify some things about this Japanese Army plane. Approximately 6,000 were built (vs 15,000 of the Mustang), making it the most numerous of Japanese fighters. A pre-war design, it suffered the same problem as many other Japanese fighters - very light armament. Later versions had self sealing fuel tanks and armor for the pilot, but this plane was definately outclassed by later US fighters.

14 pages of narrative, a lot of B&W photos showing the "Oscar" (As US pilots called this plane) in different theaters. 2 pages of data. No line drawings that show different versions or development of the plane. No color plates to illustrate the various camoflague schemes used - this is very disappointing, as the Japanese used many schemes/colors that were very interesting. There is a page in B&W with grayed areas to show what colors you would use if building a model, but I think in a book this price they should provide color. Several pages of unit numbers, where/when deployed which I did not find useful or interesting.

All in all, it gets a reluctant nod since there is no other competition. If there were a something else available, I would recommend that over this book.