Generic Organization of Japanese Naval Aviation
Information for this appendix was drawn from the following sources: Lundstrom, First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat, 184; Hata and Izawa, Japanese Naval Aces, xiv; and consultation with Osamu Tagaya.
The generic administrative and operational organization of Japanese naval aviation on the eve of the Pacific War can be confusing for many reasons: organizational equivalents do not always exist in Western terminology (e.g., hikō buntai, a unit of personnel, has no equivalent in Western air services); the same Japanese term will have a different English translation depending upon whether the organization in question is sea-based or land-based (e.g., kōkū sentai); there are not always equivalents between sea-based and land-based units; and at the lowest levels, distinction has to be made between personnel units (e.g., hikō buntai) and aircraft units (e.g., daitai, chūtai, and shōtai).