Wings for the Rising Sun: A Brief Survey of Japan's Aviation History

The history of Japanese aviation offers countless tales of heroic achievements and dismal failures; of boundless enthusiasm and sheer terror; of brilliant ideas and fatally flawed strategies. Jürgen Melzer will tell some of them to draw an outline of Japan’s aviation history. He will start with the early strut-and-wire contraptions and go all the way to the launch of Japan’s first jet and rocket aircraft during the final stage of the Pacific War.

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This event is a part of YCAPS' "Getting to Know Japan Series".

Speaker:

Dr. Jürgen Melzer is a historian of modern Japan specializing in the history of Japanese aviation. He teaches at Sophia University in Tokyo, and he is the author of Wings for the Rising Sun: A Transnational History of Japanese Aviation that was published by Harvard University Press in 2020.

Dr. Melzer worked for fifteen years as an airline pilot for Lufthansa before pursuing the study of Japanese language and history, first at the University of London and then at Harvard and Princeton.

Dr. Melzer’s current research focuses on Japan’s recruitment and training of flight crews before and during the Pacific War. He investigates how massive recruiting campaigns and new training concepts turned out thousands of pilots that would become the backbone of the country’s air arm.

Format: This event will be recorded and published in our web archive. Questions are encouraged during the live event.

Registration: Required Link

Moderator: Amani Kidd, Program Director of Getting to Know Japan

Webinar Cost: Free of charge