What A Difference

I am reading a great book called Flyboys. It is about nine American airmen shot down over the Pacific during World War II. It's a really neat book, and provides quite a bit of background on what led Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. I wanted to share a brief paragraph depicting just one difference between industrialized America and not-so industrialized Japan:

"For the Allied air forces it was a priceless advantage that Western economies were firmly in the era of the internal combustion machine. World War II military aircraft would be complex, expensive, and of vital importance. These warplanes would require many tinkerers to serve as pilots, air crews, and maintenance workers. Floyd working under the hood of his thirty-five dollar investment or a farm kid fixing the family tractor would later help America win the air war. Japan, by contrast, was much less mechanized, exposing many fewer of its young men to machinery. It was a bad omen when on March 23, 1939, the originial Zero prototype [the airplane that struck Pearl Harbor] was disassembled, loaded into ox-carts, and moved over poor roads to the large naval air base at Kagamigahara prior to its initial flight." Flyboys, page 81.

I found that rather humorous. To think, the Japanese were able to build such a plane, but they had to take it apart and haul it via oxen because they didn't have trucks to carry it.

Anyway, in other news, I like Classic 50s Happy Hour, it is HOT outside, I am a regular Emeril Lagasse, I wouldn't want to face Condi Rice in a dark alley, and I don't have classes to get ready for in August!