Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941

This acclaimed sequel to the Peattie/Evans prizewinning work, Kaigun, illuminates the rise of Japanese naval aviation from its genesis in 1909 to its thunderbolt capability on the eve of the Pacific war. In the process of explaining the Navy's essential strengths and weaknesses, the book provides the most detailed account available in English of Japan's naval air campaign over China from 1937 to 1941. A final chapter analyzes the utter destruction of Japanese naval air power by 1944.

Mark R. Peattie was a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He wrote and cowrote seven books including Kaigun before his death in early 2014.