Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF) under the impetus of participation in the Great War, as did all other major power air forces In 1915 the Army Flying Corps was founded It reached a size of two battalions by 1918 The Army founded a formal and permanent air bureau in 1919, which then developed into the postwar JAAF The JAAF saw more combat flying in Siberia from 1920 to 1922 than it had during World War I Imperial General Headquarters looked to air power as an equalizer against larger armies, and as a critical means of maintaining lines of supply and affording close support to Army ground forces Japan produced its first military aircraft in 1916 It expanded overall aircraft production greatly over the next five years as several zaibatsu entered the industry The JAAF itself expanded with renewed funding in the late 1920s and 1930s, reaching 54 squadrons by 1937 The JAAF was given equal status within the Imperial General Headquarters with other Army branches Engaged in deep rivalry with its IJN air counterpart, far beyond anything normal in other armed forces, much technical work was duplicated within Japan’s limited aircraft industry and scientific community Because the JAAF was controlled by ground force commanders it concentrated in the prewar period on acquisition of a force of medium bombers, dive bombers, and attack fighters, but eschewed strategic bombers JAAF maintenance, repair, resupply of parts, and overall support was inadequate even to the war in China from 1937 Its support systems were wholly unsuited to the air war fought in the Pacific from 1941 In addition, once Japan’s mostly imitative aircraft industry was cut off from the main technical innovations of western powers, it proved incapable of keeping pace with rapid technological change The early lead the Japanese enjoyed in aircraft design was therefore lost This problem was compounded by wartime shortages in matériel caused by enemy blockade, a backward or at least undeveloped industrial sector, shortages of skilled labor, and extraordinary interservice rivalry with the IJN naval air arm There was also a shortage of trained pilots: the JAAF began the Pacific War with just 3,500 pilots, although these were better trained than those of any other major power except Germany But it refused to relieve combat crew, keeping them at the front until they were killed or wounded The JAAF compounded progressive loss of crew skill by failing to adequately expand its training program New pilots were entering combat with as few as 60 hours experience by 1944 In the final year of the war they did not have even those many hours in a cockpit, while even rookie pilots opposing them averaged 250 hours flying time Most squadrons of the JAAF were deployed in Manchuria and northern China from 1937, both for combat operations and in readiness against possible war with the Soviet Union The Japanese–Soviet nonaggression pact of April 13, 1941, freed about 700 planes for redeployment to Southeast Asia Most JAAF squadrons remained in China and Manchuria nonetheless The fundamental problem for the Japanese was that their aircraft industry could not compete with that of the United States, even though Americans devoted just 15 percent of their resources to prosecuting the Pacific War Only 40,000 aircraft were built in Japan for the Army and Navy combined by the end of the war, and most of those were light “Zero” fighters built after mid-1942 Such planes proved inadequate for homeland defense against American high-altitude bombers and vastly improved long-range fighters The 608