Product Description

This acclaimed sequel to the Peattie/Evans prizewinning work, Kaigun, illuminates the rise of Japanese naval aviation from its genesis in 1909 to its thunderbolt capability on the eve of the Pacific war. In the process of explaining the navy s essential strengths and weaknesses, the book provides the most detailed account available in English of Japan s naval air campaign over China from 1937 to 1941. A final chapter analyzes the utter destruction of Japanese naval air power by 1944.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #284298 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-19
• Released on: 2007-03-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 392 pages

Review
"A must-have for any serious scholar of the Pacific War." --Air & Space Magazine

"Undoubtedly one of the most important books concerning World War II to appear in the last decade." --The Hook

About the Author
Mark R. Peattie is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University with a Ph.D. in Japanese history from Princeton University. He is the author or coauthor of seven books, including Kaigun.

Customer Reviews

The best book on the Japanese Naval airpower in English
I'll state right up front that I'm biased because I illustrated this work. On the flip, the reason I illustrated it was because I knew it would be a worthy sequel to Evans and Peattie's earlier "Kaigun", and I was not disappointed. Peattie has traced the development of the Imperial Navy's air arm from its infancy to its peak as perhaps the finest carrier force in the world at the outbreak of the Pacific War. Along the way, he illustrates both the strengths and fatal weaknesses that characterized Japanese naval airpower. A fascinating read. Perhaps not as long or detailed as "Kaigun," but that's understandable considering the smaller topic area. A great book.

harshly critical of the Imperial Japanese Navy
Peattie is highly critical of the tactics of the Imperial Japanese Navy's air force and its equipment. According to Peattie the Japanese dipsersed their carrier groups and that gave them lack of a concentrated punch against the American carriers. The Japanese fighter pilots also had a tendacy to fight independentally but not in groups and this left bombers undefended. The Japanese also did not invest enough money in either reconnaissance aircraft or training their crews which left the Japanese carriers without eyes. Peattie states that the Japanese made errors in the design of their carries since most of the planes were parked in the hangers and not on the take off and landing strip of the carriers like their American counterparts and this made it difficult for Japanese crews to rearm and refuel aircraft. Moreover Japnese carriers had insecure fuel lines that made them flamable when attacked. The planes that the Japanese Navy operated very highly vulnerable to enemey fighters since armor was sacrifice for speed. Finally the Japanese did not train enough pilots to replace their losses during the Pacific War. I reccomend this book to anyone whose interested in why the Japanese lost the Pacific War.

Correcting misperceptions, and adding new ones
The world, and especially Hawaii, was shocked on Dec. 7, 1941, by the number, modernity, skill and audacity of the Japanese navy's fliers.
But until the publication of Mark Peattie's "Sunburst," there has been no non-technical history in English of how the Imperial Japanese Navy created the air force that attacked Oahu.
Although Japan had to play catchup to the west in everything from law to manufacturing, aviation was the one aspect of the 20th century where the Japanese started even with the outside world.
The Japanese navy was the first to use airplanes in combat (against the Germans in China in 1914), and Lt. Chikuhei Nakajima wrote a visionary, if wrongheaded, manifesto on air power years before the better known (and equally wrongheaded) Billy Mitchell in the United States or Giulio Douhet in Italy.
In the 1930s, the Japanese navy was the first air force to use fighter planes to escort bombers on long-range missions (again in China).
And from December 1941 to March 1942, the world marveled at the apparently unstoppable power of the Japanese aviators at they dominated their enemies from Hawaii to Ceylon.
While giving full credit to the Japanese for what they did, again and again Peattie points to "fatal" weaknesses in their technology, personnel policies, resources, tactics and doctrine. Especially doctrine.
Peattie, who wrote an earlier study of Japanese naval strategy, too briefly contrasts the Japanese navy's "hit-and-run" doctrine with the round-the-clock operations mounted by the U.S. Navy against Japan, once it caught its breath.
Peattie also fails to mention that the Japanese navy, for all its success in sneak attacks and against second-line targets, never won a carrier battle.
By contrast, the much-despised (by the Japanese aviators and apparently also by Peattie) "gun club" of the Japanese surface navy won battle after battle against the Americans, even when outnumbered.
The overall incompetence of the Japanese war machine has been documented elsewhere. The Japanese made hardly any effort to protect their seaborne commerce, failed to set strategic goals, fought among themselves as vigorously as against their enemies and overextended in every direction.
In naval aviation, Peattie shows, the situation was as bad as in any other department.
The symbol of the apparent strength and real weakness of the Japanese war machine is the Zero fighter, and Peattie devotes much attention to it.
In myth, the Zero was a technically advanced weapon far beyond the capacity of the United States to match. In fact, the Zero was a bad compromise, obsolete on the drawing board. A pilot-killer, it was a war-losing weapon.
Peattie gives a good description of the doctrinal battles that led to the creation of a fast, light, maneuverable, underarmed and poorly protected interceptor.
The Zero would have been a liability in any navy but in one that deliberately chose to have a small corps of superbly trained pilots, rather than a lot of reasonably skilled ones, the tradeoffs were disastrous.
The fact that few Zero pilots survived the war has, for some reason, failed to tarnish the plane's reputation.
And the impact on public opinion of the brief but gaudy success period of the Japanese naval air arm has not lessened after 60 years. Peattie's balanced and authoritative "Sunburst" fills a gap in the historiography of the modern Pacific and corrects widespread misconceptions, while adding a few of its own.