China's Air War with Japan Volume 1: Sino-Japanese Air Battles, 1937-1945

[edwest2]

Scheduled for November.

https://www.helion.co.uk/military-hi...-1937-1945.php

Usual disclaimer,
Ed

[edwest2]

Moved to 21 August on Amazon U.S.

[edwest2]

Moved to 31 March on Amazon U.S.

[Jim Oxley]

The Asia@War series is good, if a little light.

A really good, in-depth book on the subject is Hakan Gustavsson's "Sino-Japanese Air War 1937-1945. The Longest Struggle".

[Edward]

I would also highly recommend Raymond Cheung's 2015 book, Aces of the Republic of China Air Force, (listed below) as it provides a great deal of information that is otherwise not available in English language sources.

Sino-Japanese Air War 1937-1945: The Longest Struggle
(Fonthill Media Ltd - 2016)
by Hakan Gustavsson
224 pages w/ 29 b&w photos - hardback (6.15" x 9.25") & ebook
$40 US

"The Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945 was the longest struggle of the Second World War. It started with the Japanese aggression in July 1937 and soon accelerated into a full-scale war with the Chinese Kuomintang government. The Chinese Air Force was to suffer large losses during the whole conflict with Japan. During the first weeks of the war the Chinese lost almost all of their medium bombers. This was a pattern that would be repeated again and again. Not getting much help from the outside world, the Kuomintang government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, soon closed a un-holy treaty with the communistic Soviet Union to receive armament including a large number of aircraft and Soviet volunteers to fly some of them. This difficult relation with the Soviet Union lasted until 1941, when the USA became the main supplier of armament to China, which included the short-lived but famous US voluntary group called the Flying Tigers. Everything was to change with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but the struggle was to continue until the end of the war in August 1945."

The author
"Hakan Gustavsson is a Swedish aviation researcher and writer specializing in the early air war of the Second World War and especially the use of biplane fighters. He runs one of internet's oldest and largest sites (surfcity.kund.dalnet.se) featuring biographies of pilots that flew biplane fighters during the conflict. He has been in contact with numerous veterans, and their families, over the past two decades, unearthing first-hand accounts and other invaluable material relating to their often forgotten wartime exploits."

https://www.casematepublishers.com/9...war-1937-1945/

Aces of the Republic of China Air Force
(Osprey Publishing 2015)
by Raymond Cheung. Illustrated by Mark Postlethwaite
96 pages w/ 80 b&w photos and color profiles - paperback

"A unique, detailed account of the aces that flew in the bitter air fighting during the protracted eight-year war against Japan and the subsequent civil war against the Chinese Communists

The ace pilots of the Republic of China Air Force have long been shrouded in mystery and obscurity, as their retreat to Taiwan in 1949 and blanket martial law made records of the RoCAF all but impossible to access. Now, for the first time, the colourful story of these aces can finally be told. Using the latest research based on released archival information and full-colour illustrations, this book charts the history of the top scoring pilots of the RoCAF from the beginning of the gruelling, eight-year Sino-Japanese War to the conclusion of the Civil War against the Chinese Communists.

Beginning as a ragged and very disparate group of planes and pilots drawn from various provincial air forces, the RoCAF gradually became standardised and was brought under American tutelage. Altogether it produced 17 aces who scored kills whilst flying a startling variety of aircraft, from biplanes to F-86 Sabres."

Table of Contents
Background to the RoCAF
Early phases of the Sino-Japanese War
Retreat inland
Retreat further inland
Outbreak of World War 2
Latter part of World War 2 & epilogue
Appendices

The Author
"Raymond Cheung served as a correspondent for a number of well-known defence journals in the United Kingdom, writing mainly on naval matters. However, his ‘first love’ is research in the history of the Chinese air Force during the Sino-Japanese War 1937-45. In pursuit of this research, he has visited the archives of the Republic of China Air Force (RoCAF) and the Japanese Defence Department on numerous occasions. Some of this research has been published in Chinese publications. This will be his first work on the subject in English."

https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/...9781472805621/

China's Air War with Japan Volume 1 : Sino-Japanese Air Battles, 1937-1945
Series : Asia@War
(Helion Publishing - Autumn[?] 2026)
by Benjamin Lai and Gu Jian
90 pages w/ 100 b&w photos, 10 colour photos, 8 pages of colour plates, 11 maps - paperback (11.7" x 8.2")

"Examines the conflict between the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) and the Japanese Air Service (Japanese Army Air Force and Japanese Naval Air Force) in the Chinese theatre during the Second World War.

Relative to their opponent, the ROCAF was backwardly equipped, poorly trained, and passive at the beginning of the war; by 1940, when Japanese Zero fighters were put into service, the ROCAF was basically expelled from the air. With the assistance of the Allies, especially the United States, the ROCAF gradually regained its strength from 1943 onwards. By the war's end, the Chinese-American Composite Wing (CACW) and ROCAF had gained control of the airspace on the Chinese battlefield.

This book describes the Sino-Japanese war in the air during the Second World War, primarily from the Chinese side, though with examination of sources from both sides."

The Authors
"Benjamin Lai was born in Hong Kong and educated in the UK, a former British Army Officer. He has focused on military history, covering military and history topics, albeit with a Chinese or Asian bias." He is the author of When Brothers Fight: Chinese Eyewitness Accounts of the Sino-Soviet Border Battles, 1969 (Helion 2023).

"Gu Jian is a China-based writer who has published over ten books in China covering military history, finance, art, travel, and I.T.. His focus within military history is upon the Second World War, ancient Chinese wars, the military history of Ancient Greece and Rome, and the Korean War. Aside from writing, Gu is a senior manager in banking and he holds an MBA."

https://www.helion.co.uk/military-hi...-1937-1945.php