Imperial Japanese Naval Aviator 1937–45

The transition in the IJN from a system geared to producing a highly select group of airmen to a mass recruitment system not only came too late, but also came too abruptly.
The Imperial Navy’s cadre of pre-Pacific War veterans that had attacked Pearl Harbor and conquered Southeast Asia with such stunning speed and awesome displays of aerial skill was, for all its prowess, a fragile force lacking in depth. Attrition thinned its ranks in the great carrier battles of 1942 and in the grinding combat over Guadalcanal in the latter half of that year. The numbers of pre-Pacific War veterans grew fewer still during the attrition battles fought over the Solomon Islands and New Guinea during 1943, and their replacements arrived in front-line units with increasingly less experience and skill.
Then in the great showdown with the US Pacific Fleet in the Philippine Sea in June 1944 the products of the greatly expanded wartime training programs were shown to be woefully inferior to their American counterparts.
Committed to battle before their training was complete even by the diluted Japanese standards then prevailing, and confronted by an enemy armed with superior fighters manned by more experienced pilots, and warships with formidable anti-aircraft defences and effective radar, the once proud airmen of the IJN were shot down in droves with little to show for their sacrifice. Thereafter, descent into desperation led ultimately to the suicide sorties of the Special Attack Corps.