When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, many people said that the Japanese aviators could not possibly be that good, so they must be using German pilots.
It took a few more Japanese victories to convince them.
Those claims were rooted in racism. Our military subjected our men to relentless propaganda to the effect that the Japs were monkeys, etc.
Now we know that Asians have a median IQ of 110. (Whites, 100.)