James F. Lansdale was born in Orlando, raised in Winter Park, Florida, and graduated from Winter Park High School. I attended Rollins College, graduated from the University of Hartford with a BS, did graduate studies at Columbia University, and finally obtained an MS from Nova University. I married my college sweetheart and we have a son, two daughters, and two grandsons. I have been a college preparatory school science teacher since 1960 and the chair of the science department in three private schools, serving successively in Connecticut, Washington, DC, and Florida. I have been at my present school twenty-six years and look forward to retiring in order to spend more time on my writing projects!

My interests in military aviation go back to my childhood, my having built models from sticks and paper, solid wood scale, control-line flying models, and some plastics. Building models led me to the study of and interest in the history of the aces, combat aircraft, and foreign air forces. My special interests are the air combat of the Spanish Civil War and the history of the Imperial Japanese Air Forces 1937 - 1945. My specialized study and research of the IJA/NAF dates to 1956 and I have served as a co-researcher and consultant for various military aviation authors, historical aviation artists, and military aviation museums. Currently I am working with a team on the revision and, hopefully, the republishing of Don THORPE's Camouflage and Markings of the Japanese Air Forces volumes. My spare time is used for complying material for two anecdotal and annotated photographic histories. One writing project is the "Chindit Air Force: The First Air Commando Group In The Burma Campaign" and the other is "Fighters Under The Southern Cross: A History Of The Thirteenth Fighter Command In The Solomons Campaign." Maybe I'll finish them someday!