Comparison between american and japanese army in world war 2 - Research Paper Example

It is worth noting that in the beginning of the war, with Japan bombing Pearl Harbor, Japan can be considered as having air force capabilities that were considerable in 1941, even as the United States was in a state of trying to accelerate its air force program through a rapid buildup in capabilities. What prompted this hasty buildup was Germanys invasion of Poland two years before the Pearl Harbor invasion, with Hitler signaling its ambition to take on Europe by force. At the time of the Polish invasion the American Air Forces consisted of less than two thousand aircraft and just 26,000 people.

The US War Department signaled its own intent to radically beef up its air force capabilities with the establishment of the AAF, or the Army Air Forces, making it equal in stature to the ground forces of the US Army (Craven and Cate; Weinberg; US Air Force; Weider History Group). After 1941, it became clear to the US that the war could not be won without the necessary radical expansion of its air force capabilities, and the manic buildup process resulted in the United States eventually producing the largest air force fleet in the world, eventually overcoming the air forces of the Germans and the Japanese.

The capabilities of the US Air Forces at the height of that buildup ran through a wide array of tactical functions and uses, from reconnaissance to bombing to attacking, personnel training, and transporting. At its height, the US Air Forces had an inventory of more than 80,000 aircraft with different capabilities and uses, while its personnel count reached more than 2.4 million people. A sampling of the inventory of aircraft used in the war effort included the B29 Superfortress, the B17 Flying Fortress, the C47 Skytrain, and the P51 Mustang (Coakley; Adams 1994; US Air Force).

The final year of the war saw the complete overpowering of the counterpart US air forces of the Japanese, capped by