by Henry Sakaida
Osprey, 1998
ISBN: 1-85532-727-9
112 pages
Photographs
Ace List
Color Plates
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Imperial Japanese Naval Aces 1937-45
Author Henry Sakaida, also author of The Seige of Rabaul, is the author of this book on Japanese Naval Aces. Also, Sakaido is the author of Japanese Army Air Force Aces, in this same aces series.
Japan, like German, produced some of the most imfamous and highest scoring aces of WWII. The legacy of Japanese Navy Aces, and the images they conjour are almost larger than life - incredible pliots who truly dominated the skies in their sleek A6M Zero in the first year of the Pacific war.
As the war dragged on, the Navy's expert pilots were reduced by wounds, fatalities and the fact that Japan, unlike the Americans, did not rotate their best pilot out of combat to train novice pilots. Despite spectacular late war Navy aircraft, like the Shiden, the tide of war could not be turned agiast formations of B-29's and attacking P-51 and F6F fighters.
The book begins with overview chapter of the different theaters of war the IJN produced aces in. Included are China, Early months of Pacific War, Midway, New Guinea, Rabaul and the Solomons, Central Pacific to the Philippines, and home defense. Profiles of the following aces are included, with their confirmed victory tallies along side their names unofficial tallies in italics:
| Mochifumi Nango (8) Kiyoto Koga (13) Kanichi Kashimura (12) Matsuo Hagiri (13) Tetsuzo Iwamoto (80) Watari Handa (13) Toshio Kuroiwa (13) Iyozoh Fujita (7) Satoshi Yoshino (15) Saburo Sakai (64) Sadao Uehara (13) Sadamu Komachi (40) Gitaro Miyazaki (13) Toshiaki Honda (5) Masuaki Endo (14) |
Junichi Sasai (27) Toshio Ota (34) Hiroyoshi Nishizawa (36) Enji Kakimoto (5) Kenji Okabe (50+) Kiyomi Katsuki (16) Kenji Yanagiya Hiroshi Okano (19) Sekizen Shibayama (13) Takeo Okumura (50+) Masaaki Shimakawa (8) Shigetoshi Kudo (9) Hideo Watanabe (16) Ryoji Ohara (48) |
Zenjiro Miyano Chitoshi Isozaki (12+) Isamu Miyazaki (13) Ayao Shirane (9) Minoru Honda (17+) Takeo Tanimizu (32) Sadaaki Akamatsu (30+) Yukio Endo (8) Shoichi Sugita (70+) Katsue Kato (9+) Naoshi Kanno (48) Kaneyoshi Muto (28+) Yutaka Morioka (5) Shiro Kurotori (6) |
Kiyomi Katsuki (16), who achieved 7 in a floatplane, and was one of only two floatplane aces of WWII! He achived one of his victories in a FM1 Pete attacking a B-17. Also he flew the Rufe, floatplane version of the Zero.
Each ace profile concludes with a few sentances about their postwar lives, or death in service. The fates of these remarkable aces is just as facinating and often sad, like Sadaaki Akamatsu (30+) who flew 8,000 hours in combat but was never wounded. After the war, his alchoholism ruined his health and career, and he died in 1980 of pnemonia a broken and dejected man.
Overall, this is an excellent summary of some very obscure, and more famous Japanese Naval Aces. In most cases, it is the only material where you will see certain names in print in English, and easily available via Amazon.com. Unfortunatly, there are a few historical errors, one being in the Saburo Sakai bio, which states that he flew the mission against B-32 on August 17 (two days afer surrender announcment).
Read interview with Henry Sakaida
