In this video, we talk about the Kawanishi N1KJ planes, consisting of the N1K1J Shiden and the N1K2J Shiden Kai, Imperial Japanese landbased fighters that appeared late in the Pacific Theater of WW2. We first talk about the name the Americans gave the planes ("George"). We talk about the evolution of the design from its floatplane origins (the "Rex") to being a fighter that could sufficiently match up against American F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs, two of the best planes in the pacific.

We then talk about why the "George" didn't have a bigger impact on the war, why its production numbers were so low (relatively speaking), and why, despite it being better than Japan's Mitsubishi A6M Zero and possibly being one of the best fighters of WW2, the Zero still received the bulk of attention and production towards the end of the war.

Link to 343rd Kokutai book: https://archive.org/details/classicg...