Imperial Japanese Navy student pilots 1935; Wikimedia Commons
During the 1930s, in a country with a strong militaristic tradition, most Japanese enthusiastically approved of their nation’s growing power. Imperial Japan invested heavily in its Army and Navy throughout the era.
By 1940, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the most powerful fleet in the Pacific Ocean and the Imperial Japanese Army had fifty well-equipped and highly trained divisions.
At the onset of the Pacific War in December 1941, the IJN had ten front-line aircraft carriers – the most powerful aircraft carrier force in the world. Perhaps, more importantly, its 1500 highly trained pilots had logged many hours of combat since the onset of the China Incident in 1937.
By contrast, although its ships were large, fast and powerful, the United States Pacific Fleet in 1941 consisted of only three aircraft carriers. Unlike their IJN opponents, the American pilots had no battle experience and often had difficulty coordinating bomber and fighter attacks launched from the same carrier.