Japan s Air Power

The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. In the mounting fury of world conflict, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greatest sea.

The drama of the people whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific War. Here, as another public service, is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come.

Japan's air power to blue-penced our most powerful jet-fight of planes were sent to Japan by submarine. That is your answer.

That's what a captured Nazi Colonel says about Japanese air power. It would be childish for you to assume, Mr. Haynes, that because you're Americans and are long-a-meeting strong opposition in the air over Japan, that you have destroyed a Japanese air force.

You think Colonel Friedrich that the Japanese still have a strong air force? And that they will bring it out when the Allied invasion comes. Mr. Haynes, I'm a prisoner, not a plotit. American flyers coming back from sweeps over Japan tell of waning opposition.

We roamed all over the target without spotting one Japanese plane. We couldn't find any Japanese planes, so we shot up six airfields around Tokyo in one day. We circled for an hour over three airfields and didn't see one Japanese plane.

And yet, Mr. Suzuki says something very significant. Airplanes are the key to victory. Then where are the Japanese air forces, Colonel? Your Americans will know soon enough. Well, you ought to know, Colonel. You visited Japan in the winter and spring of 1944, didn't you?