SAMOURAÏ sur Porte-avions - Tome II.

First published in 2006 and quickly sold out, the first edition of "Carrier-borne Samurai" has been unavailable for some time and, in our opinion, has long deserved a new edition. Which the author now provides in two new largely augmented and revisited tomes. While based on the original 2006 book, this new edition benefits from the study of many new sources and numerous documents, both Japanese and American, which were not available for the first edition. Thanks to the American archives, many photographs and still images from film footage taken during the fighting have been added; for example in September 1944 several Japanese propaganda films were shot with the aim of ‘raising the morale’ of the increasingly hard pressed frontline seamen and naval aviators. The Imperial Navy’s 653. Kokutai featured heavily, with both the fighter and strike Hikotai appearing in front of the cameras. Period shots of carrier aircraft around this time are exceedingly rare hence the interest and value of these stills which are presented over several pages – note captions are in English. In addition this second edition now contains more than 100 color profiles of the Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. The aircraft carriers themselves have not been forgotten and their ‘fact sheets’ have likewise been largely revised. We invite you to check out this second edition, published this time in two volumes!

Summary of Volume II:

Part 4: May-June 1942: the turning point
9. The Battle of the Coral Sea
10. Midway, the Turning Point of War
11. Attack in the Far North: Groups Embarked in Operation AL
Part 5: the slow agony
12. Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz and Rabaul
- 94 - The Second Battle of the Solomon Sea
- 106 - The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands
Operation I (I-Go Sakusen)
- 178 - 13. Delayed reorganization and disaster at sea in the Philippines
- 224 - 14. The end of the ship-borne groups
Part 6: Other aircraft carriers and on-board groups
- 272 - 15 Escort carriers
- 282 - 16. Aircraft carrier in the Imperial Army
Annexes - Aircraft carriers
- 290 - general information on aircraft carriers
- 295 - Take-off and Landing - How did the Japanese
- 300 - The names of Japanese aircraft carriers
- 301 - Fact sheets
- 384 - Sources & references
(Translated by Neil Page.)