Summary of Dan King's The Last Zero Fighter

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview:

#1 I met Kaname Harada, who was 93 years old and still active, at his private kindergarten in Nagano prefecture. He was one of the few aviators who experienced the war from the beginning to the end, and he was the only surviving member who flew during the USS Panay incident near Nanking in 1937.

#2 Kaname Harada was born in 1916. He was the eldest of three children. His family farmed in the little town of Asakawamura in current-day Nagano city. He did well in school, was athletic, and tough. As a child, he was nursed on tales of his grandfather’s experience as the last generation of the samurai class.

#3 In 1931, Japan owned a large and prosperous venture in the continent of Asia called the South Manchurian Railway. The railway line was received from Imperial Russia as a form of war reparations following the war of 1905. The Japanese had brought in large numbers of employees and their families to work the railroad. The potential for growth was enormous, but the area was often unstable.

#4 In 1933, sixteen-year-old Harada joined the Navy to see the world. He was assigned to the destroyer Ushio as a lowly seaman third class, and he heard tales from the older sailors about their experiences fighting in the Chang River area during the 1932 Shanghai Incident.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669374688

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Dan King's The Last Zero Fighter

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I met Kaname Harada, who was 93 years old and still active, at his private kindergarten in Nagano prefecture. He was one of the few aviators who experienced the war from the beginning to the end, and he was the only surviving member who flew during the USS Panay incident near Nanking in 1937.

#2

Kaname Harada was born in 1916. He was the eldest of three children. His family farmed in the little town of Asakawamura in current-day Nagano city. He did well in school, was athletic, and tough. As a child, he was nursed on tales of his grandfather’s experience as the last generation of the samurai class.

#3

In 1931, Japan owned a large and prosperous venture in the continent of Asia called the South Manchurian Railway. The railway line was received from Imperial Russia as a form of war reparations following the war of 1905. The Japanese had brought in large numbers of employees and their families to work the railroad. The potential for growth was enormous, but the area was often unstable.

#4

In 1933, sixteen-year-old Harada joined the Navy to see the world. He was assigned to the destroyer Ushio as a lowly seaman third class, and he heard tales from the older sailors about their experiences fighting in the Chang River area during the 1932 Shanghai Incident.

#5

Harada was the only man still living who had received an Onshi imperial commemorative gift. The top graduates of the Naval Gunnery, Torpedo, and Accounting Schools all received an Onshi fountain pen.

#6

Harada was assigned to the 12th Air Group, but it was the fighter squadron leader, Lieutenant Ryōhei Ushioda, who was in charge of ensuring that the unit's mission of providing air-to-ground support for army combat operations went smoothly.

#7

The 12th Air Group was deployed to China in October 1937. They were assigned ground support missions, but their planes were not equipped with radios, so communication between aircraft was done through quick one-handed gestures.

#8

The pilots of the Nirenku received news that fellow Imperial Onshisilver-pocket-watch recipient Heiichirō Mase had gone missing in November 1937. It was later learned that he had been downed by Chinese AA fire at Shanghai, captured, and later executed by the Chinese.

#9

The Japanese Naval 12th Air Group was ordered to bomb two of Nanking's heavily defended gates, the Taiheimon and Kokamon Gates, which were stalling the advance. The stubborn targets were part of Nanking's ancient massive walls that surrounded the city.

#10

On the morning of December 9, Harada's friend from the Yokosuka Kaiheidan days, PO3/c Kanichi Kashimura, was in his Type 96 Claude with the 13th Air Group over Nanchang. The Japanese fighters led by Lt. Takuma encountered a formation of nine Curtis Hawk biplane fighters. The two groups raced headlong at each other, and as a result, Kashimura clipped one of the enemy fighters and it crashed.

#11

The American patrol gunboat USS Panay was stationed on the Yangtze River in China in 1937, and was used to protect American lives, property, and religious activities. In November 1937, the Japanese army attempted to sink the foreign vessels on the river.

#12

On December 12, the 12th Air Group was sent to attack the Chinese flotilla of foreign-marked ships trying to escape the city of Nanking. The Japanese Army had been fighting the Chinese for months, but never