Mitsubishi Zero: Japan's Legendary Fighter

by Peter C. Smith

The Mitsubishi Zero is one of the great legendary fighter aircraft ever to have graced the skies. Symbolic of the might of Imperial Japan, she represented a peak of developmental prowess in the field of aviation during the early years of the Second World War. Engineered with manoeuvrability in mind, this light-weight, stripped-back aircraft had a performance that left her opponents totally outclassed. The dogfights she engaged in with the Chinese, British, Dutch and American warplanes in the 1941-42 period are the stuff of aviation legend. The Zero fighter had four major assets - agility, long-range, experienced and war-blooded pilots and, most importantly of all, a total inability of the Allies, particularly in the Pacific Theatre of operations, to believe that Japan could produce such a machine. Despite a whole series of eyewitness reports from China, where she had swept the skies clean of all opposition, western minds were closed, and remained so until the brutal facts imposed themselves on their biased mindsets. All aircraft designs are a compromise of course, and the Zero had faults as well as strengths, two of which were to finally doom her; one was her lack of armour protection and the other was the inability of the Japanese to match the overwhelming production strength and innovation of Allied aircraft construction. Even so, she remained a potent threat until the end of the war, not least in her final role, that of a Kamikaze aircraft, in which she created as much havoc on the sea as she had done earlier in the air.Peter C. Smith takes the reader on a journey from inspired inception to the blazing termination of this unique aircraft, the first Naval fighter to be superior to land-based aircraft. It describes in detail the many victories that punctuated the early days of its operational career as well as the desperate dying days of the Second World War which witnessed her final demise. Smith also lists the preserved Zero aircraft on display today. This is a fast-paced and fascinating history of a fighter aircraft like no other.

333 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Born Peter Charles Smith in North Elmham, Norfolk, in 1940, eldest son of Ernest & Eileen. Educated at Hamonds School, Swaffham. Married Patricia nee Ireson 1963. Two children, son Paul David and daughter Dawn Tracey.

Editor Balfour Books, Cambridge; Cape Sun, London; World War II Investigator, London.

After living in London, Kent and Cambridge now resides in a north-Bedfordshire village with his wife and Annie the Black Labby.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A balanced, well-researched work into the Mitsubishi Zero – Peter Smith has crafted a characteristically interesting book on the subject, from its design and inception to its testing and then its operational history, from the early battles in China to kamikaze attacks off Okinawa. It’s not a detailed technical examination of the aircraft, but provides enough technical information to provide a very good feel for its capabilities. The operational information is the bulk of the book, and an enjoyable bulk at that. There’s no bibliography, but there is a solid notes section with plenty of references there for further reading.

It’s not perfect – on some of the broader strategic issues Smith can be overly harsh on the British position (but only rarely to the point of misleading the reader, such as the discussion on the Washington Naval Treaty, which neglected the economic realities Britain faced at the time). There are also some occasions when lists of pilots are given in the text, and might have been more easy to digest in a table.

However, the biggest failure is poor editing – in the introduction it talks of Rear Admiral Tom Philips as Vice Chief of Naval Staff in April 1942, what it really means is Phillips (two Ls) and in April 1941 (Phillips was lost with Prince of Wales in December 1941). Similarly, the presentation of Japanese names is usually in the ‘westernised’ form (with the family name second), but on at least one occasion the family name comes first. On another occasion, Australian Lockheed Hudson squadrons are called hikotai (not a standard Australian term for their squadrons!).

This last one underlines the wonderfully balanced view of the book. It’s written from the perspective of both sides, and Smith has a broad base of knowledge to provide a balanced view of US, Japanese, British, Dutch and Australian performance where the Mitsubishi Zero comes into account. Had it not been for the quality of editing, it would have been an easy five stars. Given the large number of books available on the Zero, there may be better informed and edited options (although there are also undoubtedly less well-informed options as well).

[Gnuehc Ecnerwal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book contains an abundance of detailed information about the role played by the A6M Zero Fighter during World War II. However, that information was poorly presented.

One of the problems is that there are many misspelled Romaji (Japanese words written in English letters) terms... It took a lot of Googling and cross-checking to figure out what the original correct terms were.

Secondly, there were frequently blocks of text that relate the number of each aircraft type (often many) that participated in each specific battle, especially those battles in the Pacific islands. Some of these long paragraphs even contain a full list of the name and rank of each pilot in the sortie. Such long lists of factual items could have been much better represented in a table format, instead of plain text.

Finally, parts of the book 'appeared' to be just transcribed verbatim from another source. Readers may find the writing style changing abruptly from one chapter to another.

This book would benefit greatly by having an editor cleaning up the spelling and stylistic problems.

[Martin Chlebek · Rating 1 out of 5]

It might have been a great book full of interesting information... If you could trust them! This book is full of errors and easily recognizable omissions - like F4F Hellcat (instead of F6F), D6N (instead of B6N), F4F-3 (instead of F4F-4 that were present in the late 1942 Gaudalcanal campaing), a flight of "eight Kyushu J7W Shidens" (when only two of them were build and there is no combat record for any single one of them) and last but not least weird Japanese names and units (Shōkaku is once listed as Shōkakū, next time as Shōkakü - not once, but multiple times; unit names translations also doesn't fit...). How could you trust this? (even when the rest of the work/facts may be correct...)