The long road to Tokyo: Japanese aggression in China, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific, with special attention to books about the Rape of Nanking, Japanese fighter planes and pilots, the Burma campaign, and the Hiroshima bomb

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JAPAN AT WAR, 1931-1945

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The 77th Sentai translated

Several years ago, the redoubtable Richard Dunn wrote a series of essays on the 77th Sentai fighter unit that was the AVG's most usual opponent in the battle of Burma. That series has now been translated and published in book form in Japan. Those are cherry blossoms, if I'm not mistaken, the symbol of a "special attack" that involved throwing away one's youth to die for the emperor.

Zhukkov and Nomonhan

For twenty years, the only book about the border war between Japan and the Soviet Union was Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939. Here's a shorter,cheaper, and more up-to-date history of that crucial but almost forgotten war: Stuart Goldman's Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II. Nomonhan shaped the course of the Pacific War, by convincing Japan that it was safer to push into Southeast Asia than to risk another encounter with the Red Army--and the European war as well, by persuading Stalin to safeguard his western border through through an alliance with Hitler, and also by elevating Georgy Zhukov to command of the Red Army. I was inspired by this book to acquire another new book, Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov. That should keep me busy for a while. -- Dan Ford

Japan's long war:

The Hiroshima files:

The Japanese Army Air Force files:

Why's a Zero?

Kamikaze, cannibals, & other mysteries:

Books & stuff: