By 1941, they had succeeded-spectacularly so. While the Japanese were always happy to learn from gaijin, they sought to achieve self-sufficiency as soon as possible. Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for War and Air, was confident Britain and Japan would never go to war-“I do not believe there is the slightest chance of it in our lifetime,” he exclaimed in 1924-so what was the harm? British aircraft designers helped Mitsubishi design its initial carrier aircraft. British naval architects helped Japan complete its first aircraft carrier, the Hosho, in 1922. British pilots formed the first faculty of the newly established Japanese naval aviation school at Lake Kasumigaura. A British naval mission arrived in 1920 complete with over one hundred demonstration aircraft in a bid to boost the British aviation industry. To catch up, it turned to its traditional mentors: for the army, the French for the navy, the British. But because Japan did not see much combat in World War I, it had fallen behind the other powers by 1918. The Imperial Japanese Navy began experimenting with aviation as early as the British and Americans.
