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Zero Over Berlin
1940. Hitler wants to rain death on London but he doesn't have the aircraft. Classified info about a new long-range plane -- the Japanese "Type Zero" -- intrigues Nazi generals who ask their Far Eastern ally for a few prototypes to study. But how to get the planes from Japan to Germany? Unable to fly safely over the Soviet Union or the vast British Empire, maverick Japanese pilots just might make it if they can refuel at the few secret pockets of resistance en route.
Zero Over Berlin is an amazing adventure of dogfights and narrow escapes, geopolitical intrigue (from the other side), and military covert-ops that never were. From Japan's celebrated answer to Tom clancy and Jack Higgins- Joh Sasaki.
Zero Over Berlin is an amazing adventure of dogfights and narrow escapes, geopolitical intrigue (from the other side), and military covert-ops that never were. From Japan's celebrated answer to Tom clancy and Jack Higgins- Joh Sasaki.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
2 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Joh Sasaki
132 books5 followersJoh SASAKI (佐々木 譲) - sometimes appears as Jō SASAKI - is the pen name of writer Yujiru SASAKI.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 18, 2011
If there was one thing this book had taught me right after I finished off the last page, it taught me the basics about the history of wars- we only see the bigger picture and not the pockets that conjure it up. While Zero Over Berlin is a straight-laced, passive speculative fiction, it is nonetheless an exhilirating book that mustn't be ignored.
I found the book as a bargain in a Powerbooks bookstore and knowing that it was a Vertical release (and Vertical releases can be quite lackluster in some title yet the batch of prints they could issue to a book meant only one edition and I had intense interest with Japanese literature) I picked it up without any hesitation. The book since had floundering interest in me and thankfully, I finished it today.
It tells the story of how a Japanese journalist's visit to Germany coughed up interesting and thought-provoking details about a Mitsubishi Zero plane, its aerial pursuits and how it engaged in battle, and how the German army asked for the Japanese government to bring one to their airfield. While this premise might bring you to a conclusion that: "Hey, photographs and blueprints would've been better; that would've spared them a hell lot of trouble" you dispense of it by thinking "Oh well, the Third Reich may have wanted a live plane to reverse engineer.
And so, the book recounts the imagined history of two pilots- Ando, black sheep fighter pilot yet unmistakably had skills that outperform other fighter pilots in their regiment and his closest friend Inui. With Ando's exploits being the subject of much talk in the army, it took a bit long before the message was received by Ohnuki and Yamawaki- two top-tier officials in the Japanese army who were tasked to find the suitable pilot to deliver the planes. The novel recounts of the ways how the change of wind in the army and the looming war in the horizon has changed the views of its operators, yet Ando and Inui snapped up the task; it beats up shooting planes in China.
Translation woes can be spotted on from time to time but they're minimal at best. The language used in the book isn't very colorful and don't expect much figures of speech to cloud your way. What this book is rich at is conspiracies, dealings that may or may never had happened and fighter planes in general. However the references to fighter planes have to be taken into serious light becuase of their extensive reference in the book. There's only a little action to spare in the book and much of it is a shift of viewpoints from Ando and Inui, Yamawaki and Ohnuki, Shibata, their operative in India and others who have scant contributions to the storyline. The repeated lines whenever Ando and Inui lands in a new location brings that yawn into you- repeated help for independence, until they're forced to give their hand for an attack.
What strikes me about the book were the personalities and the histories of the characters. You can feel Ando cringe at how people could think killing people mid-air would be so dignified, and his deadpan approach with his lover-to-be. Yet time and time again, we see very human characters who were forced to swallow a bigger responsibility for their nation at hand, to put their love of flying and strafing to good use by exterminating enemy forces.
The book is never revisionist. At the very end, the treatment of the whole deal was surmised in one, whole paragraph. As opposed to the whole book and how characters risked their lives to put the carriage, you would think that this bigger picture history paints on never looks at the spots or blemishes. I'd recommend it as a Young Adult read if only it had a more colorful translation.
I found the book as a bargain in a Powerbooks bookstore and knowing that it was a Vertical release (and Vertical releases can be quite lackluster in some title yet the batch of prints they could issue to a book meant only one edition and I had intense interest with Japanese literature) I picked it up without any hesitation. The book since had floundering interest in me and thankfully, I finished it today.
It tells the story of how a Japanese journalist's visit to Germany coughed up interesting and thought-provoking details about a Mitsubishi Zero plane, its aerial pursuits and how it engaged in battle, and how the German army asked for the Japanese government to bring one to their airfield. While this premise might bring you to a conclusion that: "Hey, photographs and blueprints would've been better; that would've spared them a hell lot of trouble" you dispense of it by thinking "Oh well, the Third Reich may have wanted a live plane to reverse engineer.
And so, the book recounts the imagined history of two pilots- Ando, black sheep fighter pilot yet unmistakably had skills that outperform other fighter pilots in their regiment and his closest friend Inui. With Ando's exploits being the subject of much talk in the army, it took a bit long before the message was received by Ohnuki and Yamawaki- two top-tier officials in the Japanese army who were tasked to find the suitable pilot to deliver the planes. The novel recounts of the ways how the change of wind in the army and the looming war in the horizon has changed the views of its operators, yet Ando and Inui snapped up the task; it beats up shooting planes in China.
Translation woes can be spotted on from time to time but they're minimal at best. The language used in the book isn't very colorful and don't expect much figures of speech to cloud your way. What this book is rich at is conspiracies, dealings that may or may never had happened and fighter planes in general. However the references to fighter planes have to be taken into serious light becuase of their extensive reference in the book. There's only a little action to spare in the book and much of it is a shift of viewpoints from Ando and Inui, Yamawaki and Ohnuki, Shibata, their operative in India and others who have scant contributions to the storyline. The repeated lines whenever Ando and Inui lands in a new location brings that yawn into you- repeated help for independence, until they're forced to give their hand for an attack.
What strikes me about the book were the personalities and the histories of the characters. You can feel Ando cringe at how people could think killing people mid-air would be so dignified, and his deadpan approach with his lover-to-be. Yet time and time again, we see very human characters who were forced to swallow a bigger responsibility for their nation at hand, to put their love of flying and strafing to good use by exterminating enemy forces.
The book is never revisionist. At the very end, the treatment of the whole deal was surmised in one, whole paragraph. As opposed to the whole book and how characters risked their lives to put the carriage, you would think that this bigger picture history paints on never looks at the spots or blemishes. I'd recommend it as a Young Adult read if only it had a more colorful translation.
March 17, 2011
The atrocities of Imperial Japan are well documented, and modern Japanese have lived with this historical stigma for over 70 years now. With that in mind, I couldn't help but feel this novel was a bit of cultural fantasy fulfillment. Herein are the adventures of an honorable pilot who personified the finest ancient warrior traditions, and refused to participate in the butchery of his peers. He is a throwback; a samurai of majestic caliber. He is a WWII Japanese soldier that a modern reader can identify with.
The author goes to great lengths to make this clear to us; this guy is the GOOD GUY. Perhaps I am reading too much into that, or perhaps some subtleties or subtext were lost in translation. At the surface, it is a suspenseful adventure yarn, about the aforementioned pilot and his loyal and equally honorable companion, who are assigned the dangerous task of flying a pair of zeros to Germany via allied-controlled India and the Middle East. Intrigue! Betrayal! Dogfights! The story is solid, the characters are well fleshed out, and the novel offers some unique insight into the Japanese wartime perspective without descending into either apologia or revisionism.
As an outsider who refuses to be corrupted by the evil around him, Lt. Ando follows in a proud literary tradition. He's Nostromo who never fell. He's damn near perfect. If you can get past any cynicism you might be inclined to develop about the author's motivation in creating such a hero, then you'll enjoy this story.
The author goes to great lengths to make this clear to us; this guy is the GOOD GUY. Perhaps I am reading too much into that, or perhaps some subtleties or subtext were lost in translation. At the surface, it is a suspenseful adventure yarn, about the aforementioned pilot and his loyal and equally honorable companion, who are assigned the dangerous task of flying a pair of zeros to Germany via allied-controlled India and the Middle East. Intrigue! Betrayal! Dogfights! The story is solid, the characters are well fleshed out, and the novel offers some unique insight into the Japanese wartime perspective without descending into either apologia or revisionism.
As an outsider who refuses to be corrupted by the evil around him, Lt. Ando follows in a proud literary tradition. He's Nostromo who never fell. He's damn near perfect. If you can get past any cynicism you might be inclined to develop about the author's motivation in creating such a hero, then you'll enjoy this story.
Read
August 3, 2011Great WWII aviation adventure (fiction) told from the Axis perspective. A wealth of geo-political descriptions during 1940, stretching from Japan, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, U.S., U.K, USSR and Germany. Excellent translation, evoking empathy for the main character even though he was on the "wrong" side from a westerner's point of view. Vertical Press is a great resource for translated Japanese literature. This is supposedly one part of a trilogy and I hope to see the rest in print.
October 11, 2018
Fun book to read and easy.
November 12, 2024
3.5. Lots of historical details, some incorrect but possibly due to translation. A good story, different to read something from this point of view.
August 11, 2009
A World War Two historical novel which blends fact and fiction to provide an interesting view from the Japanese side. The books tells the story of flying two Mitsubishi Zero fighter planes to Germany in the year before Pearl Harbor. This is a flight plan on an astonishing scale (4000 km.) which also involves flying over British controlled India and Iraq.
September 14, 2014
A fun piece of speculative fiction - it's amazing to think of the efforts it would take to fly a plane across half the world and energy territory. In the end it also debunks one of the myths of just how advanced the Japanese Zero plane really was. Also interesting to look at a Second World War story from the perspective of the Japanese - with a very neutral and non nationalistic tone.
July 9, 2009
Interesting book. Liked the Japanese/German perspectives on WWII. Plus, just the logistics of flying, without modern instrumentation, from Japan to Berlin is mind boggling.
March 7, 2012
Different point of view is right - what if Germany had developed a fighter early enough in the war like the Japanese Zero?
Want to read
November 11, 2019Synopsis: in 1940, Hitler wanted to rain death on London but he didn't have the aircraft. He wanted to test a Japanese one; can he get it to Berlin?
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews