Pages 24 -25 : “The United States was openly astonished with the quality of Japanese equipment. It had committed the unforgiveable sin of underestimating --- severely --- the caliber of Japanese designers, industry and men.
The United States entered the war convinced that nothing could stand up against American fighters. American pilots believed this to be so. That they nurtured this belief is astounding. Long before the air attack against Pearl Harbor the Japanese had flown the Zero in combat over the Chinese mainland. Intelligence reports were rushed to the United States.
No one believed them.
Aeronautical experts who studied the reports of the new Japanese “mystery fighter” snorted in disbelief. When they read the secret reports of speed, maneuverability, firepower and range they rejected as “arrant nonsense” the claims that the Japanese had become a grim threat in the air.
Their conclusion was that such a fighter was literally an aerodynamic impossibility. That particular conclusion inevitably led to another, and thus the Americans’ obsolete aircraft fell like flies before the agile, swift Zero.
….The Zero… could not only outperform any fighter against which it was matched, but could do so over extreme range --- a range so great, in fact, that few air strategists believed the aircraft capable of such performance. Missions of 1,400 miles [[2,253 kilometers]] by the Zero fighter were commonplace at a time when the idea of Allied fighters flying from England to Berlin and back again was considered a fanciful dream.
