I thought ‘Ki-43 Aces’ was very good and very informative. I was impressed with Mr. Ichimura’s frankness and was interested to see how he cross-referenced Japanese claims with Allied records and vice versa. His discussion of both the successes and failures of the units involved is a model of impartiality which I think many historians find hard to achieve. Though he clearly emphasized the aces, I thought he did a good job providing a history of the Oscar’s operational service during the war. The section on Oscar units in Burma seemed the most thorough – with more detail and more first-hand information from Oscar pilots and crews. One criticism: he uses the Pinyin and Wade-Giles Chinese place names interchangeably, which can be a little confusing. For example, he refers to Guilin by the Wade-Giles romanization (Kweilin) but Chongqing by the Pinyin romanization. Overall, however, it was one of the best Osprey books I’ve read (it reads very professionally, while others feel half-fast) and I’m glad Hiroshi Ichimura is adding to the literature on an under-exposed subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought ‘Ki-43 Aces’ was very good and very informative. I was impressed with Mr. Ichimura’s frankness and was interested to see how he cross-referenced Japanese claims with Allied records and vice versa. His discussion of both the successes and failures of the units involved is a model of impartiality which I think many historians…<\/p>\n