Imperial Japanese Army Flying Schools 1912-1945 is a recent edition to the Schiffer Military History book line. This large hardbound book contains 248 pages and is packed with information that the historian and model builder will find useful.

The book starts with an introduction and special note to those reading the book. This is especially useful to those who may not be familiar with the nomenclature and terminology used with Japanese language and aviation terms.

The book’s chapters are listed as follows:

• Evolution of the Army Flying Schools
• Evolution of the Civil Flying Schools
• Recruitment and Training
• Training Equipment and Aircraft
• The Individual Army Flying Schools
• Colours and Markings of Army Flying School Aircraft
• The Individual Civil Flying Schools
• Colours and Markings of Civil Flying School Aircraft

Each chapter contains well written descriptive text as well as many vintage photographs. The photos in the book are high quality and I can say that I have not seen many of them before. The authors have uncovered some new materials and images from private collections. It is great to see new materials on a subject that isn’t often covered or even mentioned in the normal publications we often see. This book also contains organizational charts, lists of aircraft used, maps & locations of the training bases.

The true “meat” of this book are the “colours and markings” chapters. These also contain text and photos, but by far the largest part of this book are the full color art profiles. I have not counted them all but there must be over 400 of them in this book. They are beautifully printed and inspirational for the modeler. The only downside (if there is one) is that many of the profiles vary only in the individual tail markings or unit number carried on the aircraft. Every trainer type used is covered by at least one color profile, and photographs somewhere in this book. Everything is covered – from the early gliders up through the Ki-100’s used in 1945.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in aviation, or modeling Japanese aircraft. It is THE source of information on the subject.

Note that this is one of the Schiffer “Limited” publications, so when they are gone – they are gone! Another thing you should be aware of – because of agreements with Schiffer, sellers of this title are not allowed to advertise or sell this book for less than the retail price. That’s not to say you won’t be able to find one at a show down the road for less, but if you want one – buy it now before the collectors prices kick in. A quick online search shows the title is still available from Amazon and directly from the publisher – but because of its limited printing and availability, there are also sellers charging a premium for the title already.