“We must learn from Germany”: gliders and model airplanes as tools for Japan’s mass mobilization

Abstract

AbstractThis article explores the prominent role of Germany in the emergence of Japan’s glider and model-aircraft boom. It examines how the invitation of German specialists to Japan in 1935 started a “glider fever” that enabled the Japanese military to forge close bonds with the press and an air-minded public. In the following years Nazi Germany also provided the organizational blueprint for comprehensive aviation education that mobilized all aviation activities of Japanese...