Secret Japanese Aircraft of WWII

There was a time when Japanese industry was stereotyped as producing cheap imitations of Western goods. "Made in Japan" remained a joke until the 1970s, rather like "Made in China" is today. It was no joke in World War II, when the Japanese developed some of the most innovative aircraft of the period.

Nor were these development mere imitations. The Nazis had managed to send plans for the superlative Me-262 to Japan in the later stage of the conflict, but the Japanese didn't copy the Me-262. They improved it.

From a strategic point of view, Japan has the misfortune of being and island country with virtually no resources, dependent on imports and a labor force coordinated from top to bottom.

I won't detail these later developments in Japanese aviation but I'll mention that some of them were literally unknown to Allied Air Intelligence until after the war. The Japanese were the first to deploy an effective combat autogyro for observation and anti-submarine work. The Allies had no idea of its existence and so never gave it one of those familiar family names -- Oscar, Betty, Nell, Tony, or the like. Lighter but equally lethal local adaptation of the Me-262 were already on the assembly lines, ready for use against B-29s.

It's probably fortunate, though horrible, that the war ended when it did, because an invasion later would have cost millions of lives. In post-war years, Japanese engineering made Japan the fourth country to put a rocket on the moon. Meanwhile we can sit back and enjoy our Sony.