Japan - Sino-Japanese Conflict

page generated: September 1, 2000

compiled by Allan Magnus

References:

1. Imperial Japanese Navy Aces 1937-45, Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 22, Henry Sakaida, Osprey Pub. Ltd., London 1998
2. Japanese Army Air Force Aces 1937-45, Osprey Aircraft of the Aces #13, Henry Sakaida, Osprey Publishing, London 1997
3. IJAAF Aces List on Compuserve, James L. Perry, Oct. 1996
4. Eagles of the Rising Sun, Keishiro Nagao et al, Aeromaster Decals SP72-04, Miami, Florida 1995
5. Famous Aircraft of the World No.27: Type 96 Fighter (A5M), Ichiro Mitsui (ed.), Bunrindo Co.Ltd., Tokyo, Japan March 1991
6. Air Aces, Christopher Shores, Presidio Press, Novato, California 1983
7. Japanese Army Fighters Pt.1, William Green & Gordon Swanborough, McDonald & Jane's 1977
8. Japanese Army Fighters Pt.2, William Green & Gordon Swanborough, McDonald & Jane's 1977
9. Fighter Aces, Raymond Toliver & Trevor Constable, Macmillan 1965

Japanese Aces:
  Unlike their western bretheren, Japanese aviators did not leave much of 
a paper trail regarding their aerial combat claims. Most western nations 
had set up some form of "official" recognition, whether it be as part of
the record keeping for the unit, or with an official bureau to register 
claims.
  In the China and Nomonhan Wars, and the early part of World War Two, various
units did record individual claims, but this was largely discontinued in the
later years of World War Two, usually with official directives prohibiting 
the practice of recognizing individual claims.
  But, like fighter pilots elsewhere, many pilots did keep personal scores in 
such things like diaries and logs.
  Thus, when it comes to creating a list of Japanese aces, information 
regarding victories is incomplete, and in many cases speculative and based on
personal versus official records.
  Many scholars have recognized the problem with trying to validate claims, and
many have compensated by adjusting total claims to lower values by using a 
percentage, which is often very arbitrary, and sometimes can be as much as 50
percent.
  Therefore the following list must be taken for what it represents, a set of 
claims that contain a combination of pseudo-official and personal claims, often
representing a mixture of confirmed, unconfirmed, probables and damaged claims.