Zero Fighter

Rating:
Summary: an addition to my earlier review ...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Lighting the Way
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: a book with many flaws, but still interesting
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: an addition to my earlier review ...
Review: 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.