It's interesting how we as arm chair aviators have the luxury of looking back and going through the "What if" scenarios that follow every battle. One of things that I think is often forgotten is that prior to WWII the airplane wasn't considered a major weapon in warfare. Pearl Harbour was the first battle in which military aircraft made a major attack on a naval fleet with minimal losses. Prior to this the naval doctrine of the strength of a nation lay behind the strength of her battleships dominated. Even after Pearl Harbor, the issue of dominance of the air seems to have been lost as both Percival and Mac Arthur were hindered in their efforts of the defence of Malaya/Singapore in the former and the Phillipines in the latter due to inadequate control of the air and thus the battlefields despite better equipped armies.
Secondly, perhaps the reason why the Pacific is often overlooked relative to the Atlantic is that the main emphasis and thus higher priority during WWII was focussed in Europe which is perhaps one of the reasons England was more willing to give up HK and its SE Asian possessions. A not unreasonable focus given the fact that they had lost much of their vehicles and weaponry at Dunkirk and were threatened by invasion.
Third, racial prejudice led many strategists in the US and Europe to underestimate the resourcefulness and skills of the Japanese during WWII. It's no secret that the pervailing opinion of the British were that the Japanese were short, weak, near sighted individuals who lacked the skill and discipline to wage a successful battle. The Japanese victories in Manchuria and China were attributed to one asian fighting another and the success against the Russian fleet were luck on the Japanese parts. If anything, the war in the Pacific reiterated the old adage of never to underestimate your enemy.
Perhaps one reason Japanese aces aren't so familiar to us is that most people like to have heroes in which we can identify some quality admirable to us. Since most of the books we read are in English much has been written about the war in Europe which directly touched the lives of many with roots and cultural ties to that continent. Japan however is a totally different culture that is very foreign to most English speaking peoples. There are comparably fewer books available in English regarding that war and thus we have a harder time understanding and identifying with them. Thus the relative lack of familiarity with Japanese Aces or for that matter any view of WWII from the Japanese perspective.
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