Acknowledgements

This book would not be what it is without the assistance and support of a good number of individuals and I would like to recognise them here.

First and foremost, Jay Slater and his team at Ian Allan Publishing. It was Jay who reached out to me and first proposed this book and through him it became a reality.

To the artists whose work you will see in this publication: Peter Allen, Kelcey Faulkner, Muneo Hosaka, Gino Marcomini, Ted Nomura, Ronnie Olsthoorn and Daniel Uhr. Through their hard work, the aircraft within these pages come to life in spectacular fash­ion. To Tim Hortman who graciously pro­vided his photographs of the Kyushu J7W1 Shinden, Nakajima Ki-115 Ко Tsurugi and the Nakajima Kitsuka currently in store at the National Air and Space Museum and which are no longer available to the public.

During the information gathering phase of the book, research support and material was provided by several individuals. Their assis­tance helped to confirm or deny data, pro­vided a sounding board for theories, offered comments on the information or brought new information to the table. These folks are Shorzoe Abe, David Aiken, Paul Deweer,

Tadeusz Januszewski, James Long, Robert C. Mikesh, Nicholas Millman, Ronnie Olsthoorn, Masafumi Sawa and Akio Takahashi. As some of the works used in researching the book were in Japanese, Ryuki Arceno, Nanae Konno, Lara Law and Tekla Munobe pro­vided translations. For those works in Polish, Michal Sporzyriski was the key translator.

Last but certainly not least, my parents, Edwin and Margaret, for their support and encouragement. Also to Gail Lashley for always making sure I had my nose to the grindstone.