Unlike most of the other major powers in World War II, the Japanese did not have an independent air force. Instead both the Army and Navy had their own forces, and these have been modelled in several other sets before this one, including the WWII Pilot Figure Set also from Hasegawa. The Naval Air Force was naturally primarily concerned with supporting the operations of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which during the years of the China War were fairly minimal. However with the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 this task became enormous, as Japan sought to conquer and then defend a vast empire. The small and highly-trained IJN Air Force had to expand to manage this new challenge, but this occurred too slowly, and the decision to keep most of the experienced flyers in theatre to support the war effort meant they soon lost a high proportion of their best crews. Replacements were quickly trained and rushed to the front, but were not of the same quality, and this, coupled with increasing difficulties in providing serviceable aircraft, meant the impact of the Japanese Naval Air Force declined markedly as the war developed, while the American flyers grew in experience and numbers.
