Customer Reviews

Zero Fighter

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The first 5 pages of the book are the best. The contrast of a sophisticated new fighter plane being transported to the airfield for its maiden flight on two oxcarts is beautifully described. Unfortunately, the book goes downhill from there. The author seems too emotional about the A5M and A6M fighters. He describes them as the best and fastest fighters in the world. "Best" is arguable, but "fastest" is not. For instance, in 1939 the Messerschmitt Bf109E and Spitfire I were clearly faster than the A6M2 Zero was in 1940. The translation is awful. It seems to have been carried out in two stages by a Japanese and by a native English speaker. The latter was obviously unfamiliar with standard technical terms. For instance, he refers to "7.7 millimeter aperture" instead of "7.7 caliber" machine guns. A particularly funny error was the statement that the "German" F3F was the standard fighter in the U.S. Navy at some point; it was actually the Grumman F3F. On the political/historical side, I found it interesting that the author correctly pointed out that Japan was forced into an impossible situation in 1941 by the embargo of raw materials by Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States, and that this led to Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. However, the author glosses over the fact that the reason for the embargo was Japan's brutal aggression against China, a war that according to the author just ... "happened". He paints the Japanese government as eager to stop the war against China, and complains that no agreement could be reached with the Chinese because the Western powers were supplying weapons to them. I don't know if views such as these are common in Japan today. If they are, this would contribute to explain why so many Asian countries are unhappy with Japan's lack of acknowledgement of responsibilities in regard to WW2.

I have to admit to reading this entire treatise. This book reviews the history of the development of the WWII military aviation technology of Japan. There is much detailed credit and history of this sort recanted. When it comes to the exploits of the Zero, the author appears to go by the hyped up press releases of the Japanese of the time, and the usual reference to the allies attaches adjectives of "terrified", and "horrified", to the degree that it is obvious and insulting. Frequently, the translation is so course that it reads like a cheap VCR manual, but often it is clear that the writing was just poorly organized and disjointed.

The first 1/2 of the book is nice, talks about how the concept of the Zero began and the difficulties of the development. And this is penned by the man who designed the Zero from scratch so it's a very relevant and important book to those who are interested in this fighter.

However, it's not enough, because the Zero went though a lot of changes during the war, and none of that is talked about, not about the exploits of it during combat. The first half of the brings you up to when the Zero became the front line fighter, however the rest of the book is just a short summary of the Pacific War. If the author had shortened the book by half and titled it "The development of the Zero fighter from design to fruition", that would have been a much more accurate title. However, the book is still interesting since we generally don't get to read a lot of books from the other side.

The book Zero Fighter is about the hard work it took to build the Type 96 land-based torpedo bomber and the Zero fighter and the impact they made on the world. The book starts off telling the reader how the fighter planes were transported by oxcart from the construction yard to the airfield. This book made me realize the amount of researching and planning that goes into the creation of a plane. This book explains the steps Japan went through to try to take over the Pacific. I've learned things about World War II and some of the things that Japan had gone through to fight the U.S. It was hard to get into some parts of the book but, overall, I think it was a pretty good book. You should get it.

This book is mostly bad, with a bit of good. The good part is the story of the development of the Zero. This is new information, and I assume it is accurate. The bad part is the story of the combat operations of the Zero and the Pacific war in general. It is sketchy, one-sided, and not credible at all. I rarely write reviews, but I feel compelled to alert potential readers to the egregious faults in this book.

Chapter 15 says "At Midway, the navy had been badly beaten, but the Zero was not. It had again proven superior to the American fighters." The Zero was superior to the Wildcat in certain respects (maneuverability, top speed, rate of climb), but inferior in others (armor, self-sealing fuel tanks, pilot tactics and teamwork).

The Wildcat shot down 1327 Japanese aircraft and had a favorable 5.9 to 1 kill to loss ratio in 1942 (which increased to 6.9 to 1 for the entire war). Whether the Zero was superior as a fighter is open to debate. What is not open to debate is that the claimed superiority of the Zero did not prevent the sinking of four Japanese aircraft carriers by U.S. aircraft at Midway. If the Zero had truly offered air superiority, that outcome would not have been possible.

Chapter 16 covers Guadalcanal. It begins by saying, "The tragedy of the dominance of materials over humans began from this time." It goes on to say, "The gap between American economic strength and Japan's showed plainly at Guadalcanal. The Americans demonstrated an ability to supply themselves abundantly. It was as if a conveyor belt had been laid between the U.S. mainland and Guadalcanal."

This is quite misleading. It is well known that after landing, the U.S. Navy pulled away from Guadalcanal and was unable to resupply the Marines or defend them from shelling by the Japanese Navy. Marine combat operations in the early part of the battle were conducted under a desperate shortage of supplies. The implication that the Japanese defenders were defeated solely by an abundance of U.S. materials, and not by the courage of U.S. Marines and Soldiers, is false.

Yoshimura writes about the Japanese air raid on August 7 where, "They were outnumbered by several times, but even so, they managed to shoot down forty-six American planes. After that, they sallied to Guadalcanal almost every day." This is complete fantasy.

Here's what really happened. During the landing operations on August 7 and August 8, Japanese naval aircraft based at Rabaul, under the command of Sadayoshi Yamada, attacked the Allied amphibious forces several times, setting afire the U.S. transport George F. Elliot (which sank two days later) and heavily damaging the destroyer USS Jarvis. In the air attacks over the two days, the Japanese lost 36 aircraft, while the U.S. lost 19, both in combat and to accident, including 14 carrier fighters. The Japanese certainly mounted many air attacks on Guadalcanal, but they did not sally forth without concern, as they suffered severe losses on virtually every raid.

Yoshimura says of the P-38, "...the hopes the Americans had of the P-38 were disappointed. The Zero's astonishing maneuverability made it seem like a shooting star around the P-38s, and it shot them down easily. The Americans were shocked. Once more it was brought home to them how difficult and dangerous it was to challenge the zero." More fantasy.

The P-38 was the most successful USAAF fighter in the Pacific. It shot down over 1800 Japanese aircraft. The leading Aces of the Pacific - Dick Bong with 40 kills and Tommy McGuire with 38 kills - flew the P-38 exclusively, as did most of the USAAF's Pacific Aces. There were over 100 P-38 Aces in the Pacific theater. Given that record, the author's claim that it was easy to shoot down the P-38 is proven false.

In chapter 17, Yoshimura admits, "By the end of Guadalcanal, Japan had also lost since Pearl Harbor 893 aircraft, and 2632 skilled air crewmen." Those numbers are probably low. The reader is left wondering how all those losses could have been possible based on the author's claims of the Zero's absolute superiority in previous chapters.

Chapter 20 is particularly disturbing. Here are some quotes. "The heroic crash attack by aircraft, the kamikaze, the distinguishing features of the war between Japan and the United States, started that day." "To the young pilots ready to die this way, the crash attack became a day to day matter. No special thing about it arose. The tactic adopted by the navy quickly spread to the army pilots. Airplanes became a kind of bomb with a youth aboard. The Pacific Ocean became a grand suicidal palace for youth..." "Kamikaze attacks became a great menace to the American navy. The damage done to ships was great, and the terror even greater. Some men even became insane and kept on muttering `kamikaze, kamikaze.'"

Yoshimura seems quite enamored with the kamikaze attacks. How sad. It would appear that after 50 years the author has gained very little enlightenment from that terrible war.

The descriptions of Japanese suicidal bravery, and American cruelty, continue with Yoshimura's descriptions of the B-29 raids and the Okinawa campaign. More, "High school boys, holding bamboo lances, charged shouting at the American positions." The final page notes the suicide mission of Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki, and the ritual disembowelment of Vice Admiral Onishi. More reveling in the death cult of Imperial Japan.

Apparently this book was popular in Japan, selling over 300,000 copies. That's a discomforting thought. I hope it does not represent the viewpoint of the average Japanese citizen.

I would advise you NOT to waste your time reading this book. It is inaccurate, distorted, and not credible.

With the passing of a few years I am a little bit wiser (or at least I hope so). I said that the Japanese were ultimately guilty for provoking World War 2 in the Pacific through their attack on China, but this demands some further elaboration. Yes, the Japanese were guilty for their attack on China, no question in my mind about it. But they were no more guilty than the Europeans for their own attacks on China, or on Africa, or on the Indians in the Americas (and in India!), or than the Americans for their attacks on the Philippines or on Latin America. So how can we hypocrite Europeans/Americans be any more outraged at Japan's behavior in China than at our own countries' behaviors? Well, I guess we can attack apologists for Japanese behavior (such as Yoshimura) as long as we attack with equal zeal the apologists for our own countries' awful behaviors. And let's hope that we have fared better against each of our own national/cultural propaganda brainwash schemes than Yoshimura fared against his own.