Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service

1-194240

This book describes in considerable detail the people, events ships and aircraft that shaped the Air Service from its origins in the late 19th century to its demise in 1945. The formative years began when a British Naval Mission was established in Japan in 1867 to advise on the development of balloons for naval purposes. After the first successful flights of fixed-wing aircraft in the USA and Europe, the Japanese navy sent several officers to train in Europe as pilots and imported a steady stream of new models to evaluate.

During WWI, Japan became allied with the UK and played a significant part in keeping the German fleets of ships and submarines at bay in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. However, in the international naval treaties that followed, they felt betrayed since the number of capital ships, battleships, and cruisers that they were allowed was below those of the USA and the UK.

Aircraft carriers were not included, so a program of carrier building was started and continued until WWII. At the same time they developed an aircraft industry and at the beginning of war their airplanes were comparable, and in some instances superior, to those of the British and Americans.

6 x 9.5 inches, 68 photos and charts.