On December 7, 1941 a powerful force of Japanese carrier aircraft struck at Pearl Harbor, the American naval base in the Hawaiian Islands, and in a devastating surprise attack destroyed or damaged a large part of the U.S. fleet. On the other side of the International Date Line, on December 8, but in fact at the same time, the Japanese army invaded Malaya, while land-based naval aircraft raided American airfields in the Philippines. Japan had entered the second World War with a bang! The western Allies were made painfully aware that the previously derided Japanese technology had turned out war planes which were in many ways superior to anything they possessed. Japan had also produced a powerful fleet, built around the fast aircraft carrier, and Japanese personnel were both highly trained and experienced with fours years of warfare in China. The Americans were unprepared, the British Empire forces were already fully committed against the Germans and Italians in Europe and the Middle East. Such forces that were available were poorly-equipped and had little proper training for the immediate battles to come. The brightest star in the Japanese arsenal was the Navy's Mitsubishi Zero fighter, and this aircraft along with the Army's Nakajima fighters, quickly cut a swath through the Brewster Buffalos, Seversky P-35s, Curtiss Hawks and P-40s of the defending British, Australian, New Zealand, Dutch and American air forces. Reinforcements of British Hurricanes and later-model American P-40s were rushed out, but could do little, and in rapid succession Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines fell to the Japanese invaders. --Excerpts from History of Aviation by John W.R. Taylor and Kenneth Munson, 1972