Mitsubishi Zero books

[stepwilk]

There have been so many books written about the Zero, I'm wondering if anybody has recommendations for the most authoritative. So far, I've read Jiro Horikoshi's book about designing the airplane, Robert Jackson's "The Mitsubishi Zero," Jim Reardon's "Cracking the Zero Mystery" and Robert Mikesh's "Zero" and "Zero Fighter" (the latter with Watanabe's illustrations).

Any really good ones I've missed? I'm not interested in books that exhaustively detail squadrons and serial numbers and air-combat records, I want to deal with "The Myth of the Zero," its validity or urban-legend status.

[TheApostleGreen]

I always liked 'Zero!' co-authored by Martin Caidin. Can't say how authoritative it might be - Caidin was a funny duck; but his co-authors in this case were two Japanese vets if I recall correctly.

[Noyade]

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/5883/img439q.jpg (http://img515.imageshack.us/i/img439q.jpg/)

Caidin was a funny duckI have a battered copy from Christmas 1970. Always enjoyed Purnell's Weapons Books, particularly Zero, but I mentioned Caidin once on a WWII forum and there were howls of laughter. I asked a moderator what the joke was and he simply replied that Caidin's work had little credibility these days....??