Akutan Zero
Encyclopedia
A6M Zero
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was a long-range fighter aircraft operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service from 1940 to 1945. The A6M was designated as the , and also designated as the Mitsubishi A6M Rei-sen and Mitsubishi Navy 12-shi Carrier Fighter. The A6M was usually referred to by the...
Japanese fighter plane that crash-landed
Emergency landing
An emergency landing is a landing made by an aircraft in response to a crisis which either interferes with the operation of the aircraft or involves sudden medical emergencies necessitating diversion to the nearest airport.-Types of emergency landings:...
on Akutan Island
Akutan Island
Akutan Island is an island in the Fox Islands group of the eastern Aleutian Islands in the U.S. state of Alaska. The island is approximately 18 mi in length. It contains the Mount Akutan volcano, which had a major lava eruption in 1979...
, Alaska Territory
Alaska Territory
The Territory of Alaska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 24, 1912, until January 3, 1959, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Alaska...
, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It was captured intact by the Americans in July 1942 and became the first flyable Zero acquired by the United States during the war. It was repaired and flown by American test pilots. As a result of information gained from these tests, American tacticians were able to devise ways to defeat the Zero, which was the Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
's primary fighter plane throughout the war.
The Akutan Zero has been described as "a prize almost beyond value to the United States", and "probably one of the greatest prizes of the Pacific war
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
". Japanese historian Masatake Okumiya
Masatake Okumiya
was an historian and lieutenant general in the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.Okumiya graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and served as a naval aviator in the Imperial Japanese Navy. In 1937, he participated in the attack on the USS Panay...
stated that the acquisition of the Akutan Zero "was no less serious" than the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
, and that it "did much to hasten Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
's final defeat". On the other hand, John Lundstrom is among those who challenge "the contention that it took dissection of Koga's Zero to create tactics that beat the fabled airplane".
The Akutan Zero was destroyed in a training accident in 1945. Parts of it are preserved in several museums in the United States.
Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
began in 1937. Attacks by Chinese fighter planes on Japanese bombers caused the Japanese to develop the concept of fighter escorts
Escort fighter
The escort fighter was a World War II concept for a fighter aircraft designed to escort bombers to and from their targets.The perfect escort fighter had long range, a lengthy combat loiter time to protect the bombers, and enough internal fuel to return home...
. The limited range of the Mitsubishi A5M
Mitsubishi A5M
The Mitsubishi A5M, Japanese Navy designation was "Type 96 carrier-based fighter" was a Japanese carrier-based fighter aircraft. It was the world's first monoplane shipboard fighter and the direct ancestor of the famous Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero'...
"Claude" fighter used to escort the bombers caused the Japanese Navy Air staff to commission the Mitsubishi A6M Zero as a long-range land- and carrier-based fighter.
The Zero, which first flew in 1939, was exceedingly agile and lightweight, with maneuverability and range superior to any other fighter in the world at that time. The Zero was superior to any Allied fighter it would encounter for the first two years of the war. To achieve this, however, Japanese engineers had traded off durability. The Zero was very lightly built; it had no armor and no self-sealing fuel tank
Self-sealing fuel tank
In aviation, self-sealing fuel tank is a fuel tank technology in wide use since World War II that prevents fuel tanks primarily on aircraft from leaking fuel and igniting after being damaged by enemy fire....
s. According to American author Jim Rearden, "The Zero was probably the easiest fighter of any in World War II to bring down when hit ... The Japanese ... were not prepared to or weren't capable of building more advanced fighters in the numbers needed to cope with increasing numbers and quality of American fighters". As a result, the Zero was the primary Japanese Navy fighter throughout the war. During the war, the Japanese manufactured roughly 10,500 Zeros.
In 1940 Claire Lee Chennault
Claire Lee Chennault
Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault , was an American military aviator. A contentious officer, he was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fight-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the U.S. Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment...
, leader of the Flying Tigers
Flying Tigers
The 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942, famously nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was composed of pilots from the United States Army , Navy , and Marine Corps , recruited under presidential sanction and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The ground crew and headquarters...
, wrote a report on the Zero's performance. However, United States Department of War
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department , was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army...
analysts rejected it as "arrant nonsense" and concluded the performance attributed to the Zero was an aerodynamic impossibility. Early in the war, the Zero outclassed any Allied fighter it encountered. According to American flying ace
Flying ace
A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an "ace" has varied, but is usually considered to be five or more...
William N. Leonard
William N. Leonard
William Nicholas Leonard was an American World War II Flying ace and later a Rear admiral in the United States Navy....
, "In these early encounters and on our own we were learning the folly of dogfighting with [the Zero]".
During the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
, nine Zeros were shot down. From these wrecks, the Allies learned that the Zero lacked armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, but little else about its capabilities. The Zero's flight performance characteristics—crucial to devising tactics and machinery to combat it—remained a mystery.
Prior to recovery of the Akutan Zero, technical information from three other downed Zeros was available to the Allies. One Zero (serial number 5349), piloted by Hajime Toyoshima
Hajime Toyoshima
Sergeant was a Japanese airman in World War II. His A6M Zero was the first of that type to be recovered relatively intact on Allied territory when he crash landed on Melville Island, Northern Territory, Australia. Toyoshima was the first Japanese Prisoner of War to be captured in Australia...
, crashed on Melville Island in Australia following the bombing of Darwin. The Zero was heavily damaged, and Toyoshima became Australia's first Japanese prisoner of the Pacific war. Another Zero, piloted by Yoshimitsu Maeda, crashed near Cape Rodney, New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. The team sent to recover the plane erred when they chopped off the wings, severing the wing spars
Spar (aviation)
In a fixed-wing aircraft, the spar is often the main structural member of the wing, running spanwise at right angles to the fuselage. The spar carries flight loads and the weight of the wings whilst on the ground...
and rendering the hulk unflyable. The third came from China, where Gerhard Neumann
Gerhard Neumann
Gerhard Neumann was a German-American aviation engineer and executive for General Electric's aircraft engine division .-Childhood and education:...
was able to reconstruct a working Zero. He used a partly intact Zero (serial number 3372) that had landed in Chinese territory, repaired with salvaged pieces from other downed Zeros. However, bad conditions and the long delivery time from China prevented Neumann's Zero from reaching the United States for testing until after the recovery of the Akutan Zero.
Petty Officer Koga's final mission
In June 1942, as part of the Japanese Midway operationBattle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
, the Japanese attacked the Aleutian islands, off the south coast of Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. A Japanese task force led by Admiral Kakuji Kakuta
Kakuji Kakuta
, was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. He is noted for his role in commanding Japanese naval aviation units in the Pacific War.-Biography:...
bombed Dutch Harbor
Battle of Dutch Harbor
The Battle of Dutch Harbor took place on 3-4 June 1942, and was a minor air and naval battle of the Aleutian Islands Campaign of World War II between Imperial Japanese Navy and United States Army and Navy forces.-Overview:...
on Unalaska Island
Unalaska Island
Unalaska is an island in the Fox Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in the U.S. state of Alaska, at . The island has a land area of . The city of Unalaska, Alaska, covers part of the island and all of neighboring Amaknak Island where the Port of Dutch Harbor is located...
twice, once on June 3 and again the following day.
Tadayoshi Koga, a 19-year-old flight petty officer first class
Petty Officer First Class
Good conductvariation,12 years or moreof good conductPetty officerfirst classinsigniaU.S. Navy &U.S. Coast GuardPetty officer, first class is the sixth enlisted rank in the U.S. Navy and U.S...
, was launched from the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō
Japanese aircraft carrier Ryujo
Ryūjō was a light aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was laid down by Mitsubishi at Yokohama in 1929, launched in 1931 and commissioned on 9 May 1933. Her final design resulted in a top-heavy unstable vessel and within a year she was back at Kure Naval Yard for modification...
as part of the June 4 raid. Koga was part of a three-plane section; his wingmen
Wingman
A wingman is a pilot who supports another in a potentially dangerous flying environment. Wingman was originally a term referring to the plane flying beside and slightly behind the lead plane in an aircraft formation....
were Chief Petty Officer Makoto Endo and Petty Officer Tsuguo Shikada. Koga and his comrades attacked Dutch Harbor, shooting down an American PBY-5A Catalina flying boat
PBY Catalina
The Consolidated PBY Catalina was an American flying boat of the 1930s and 1940s produced by Consolidated Aircraft. It was one of the most widely used multi-role aircraft of World War II. PBYs served with every branch of the United States Armed Forces and in the air forces and navies of many other...
piloted by Bud Mitchell and strafing
Strafing
Strafing is the practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. This means, that although ground attack using automatic weapons fire is very often accompanied with bombing or rocket fire, the term "strafing" does not specifically include the...
its survivors in the water. In the process, Koga's plane (serial number 4593) was damaged by small arms fire.
Tsuguo Shikada, one of Koga's wingmen, published an account in 1984 in which he claimed the damage to Koga's plane occurred while his section was making an attack against two American Catalinas anchored in the bay. This account omits any mention of shooting down Mitchell's PBY. Both American and Japanese records contradict his claims; there were no PBYs in the bay that day. However, his claims do match American records from the attack against Dutch Harbor the previous day (June 3). Rearden noted, "It seems likely that in the near half-century after the event Shikada's memory confused the raids of June 3 and June 4 ... It also seems likely that in his interview, Shikada employed selective memory in not mentioning shooting down Mitchell's PBY and then machine gunning the crew on the water".
It is not known who fired the shot that brought down Koga's plane, though numerous individuals have claimed credit. Photographic evidence strongly suggests it was hit by ground fire. Members of the 206th Coast Artillery Regiment, which had both 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and .50 caliber machine guns in position defending Dutch Harbor, claimed credit, in addition to claims made by United States Navy ships that were present. Physical inspection of the plane revealed it was hit with small arms
Small arms
Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light...
fire—.50 caliber bullet holes and smaller, from both above and below.
The crash
The fatal shot severed the return oil line, and Koga's plane immediately began trailing oil. Koga reduced speed to prevent the engine's seizing for as long as possible.The three Zeros flew to Akutan Island, 25 miles east of Dutch Harbor, which had been designated for emergency landings. Waiting near the island was a Japanese submarine assigned to pick up downed pilots. At Akutan the three Zeros circled a grassy flat half a mile inland from Broad Bight. Shikada thought the ground was firm beneath the grass, but in his second pass he noticed water glistening. He suddenly realized Koga should make a belly landingBelly landingA belly landing or gear-up landing occurs when an aircraft lands without its landing gear fully extended and uses its underside, or belly, as its primary landing device...
. But by then Koga had lowered his landing gearLanding GearLanding Gear is Devin the Dude's fifth studio album. It was released on October 7, 2008. It was his first studio album since signing with the label Razor & Tie. It features a high-profile guest appearance from Snoop Dogg. As of October 30, 2008, the album has sold 18,906 copies.-Track...
and was almost down.
The plane's landing gear mired in the water and mud, causing the plane to flip upside down and skid to a stop. Although the aircraft survived the landing nearly intact, Petty Officer Koga died on impact, probably from a broken neck
Cervical fracture
A cervical fracture is commonly called a broken neck. There are seven cervical vertebrae in the human neck, and the fracture of any can be catastrophic. The most common causes are traffic accidents or diving into shallow water...
or a blow to the head. Koga's wingmen, circling above, had orders to destroy any Zeros that crash-landed in enemy territory, but as they did not know if Koga was still alive, they could not bring themselves to strafe his plane. They decided to leave without firing on it. The Japanese submarine stationed off Akutan Island to pick up pilots searched for Koga in vain before being driven off by the destroyer USS Williamson
USS Williamson (DD-244)
USS Williamson was a in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Commander William Price Williamson....
.
Recovery
The crash site, which was out of sight of standard flight lanes and not visible by ship, remained undetected and undisturbed for over a month. On July 10, an American PBY Catalina piloted by Lieutenant William "Bill" Thies spotted the wreckage. Thies's Catalina had been patrolling by dead reckoningDead reckoning
In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, and course...
and had gotten lost. On spotting the Shumagin Islands
Shumagin Islands
The Shumagin Islands are a group of 20 islands in the Aleutians East Borough south of the mainland of Alaska, USA, at54°54'–55°20' North 159°15'–160°45' West. The largest islands are Unga Island, Popof Island, Korovin Island, and Nagai Island. Other islands include Andronica, Big Koniuji, Little...
, he reoriented his plane and began to return to Dutch Harbor by the most direct course—over Akutan Island. The plane's captain, Albert Knack, spotted Koga's wreck. Thies's plane circled the crash site, noted its position on the map, and returned to Dutch Harbor to report it. Thies convinced his commanding officer, Paul Foley
Paul Foley (admiral)
Paul Foley was a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. About 1937, he married the artist Cornelia MacIntyre Foley . During World War II, while a commander commanding a PBY Catalina squadron in the Aleutians, Foley was involved in the recovery of the Akutan Zero.-External links:*...
, to let him return with a salvage team. The next day, the team flew out to inspect the wreck. Navy photographer's mate Arthur W. Bauman took pictures as they worked.
Thies's team extracted Koga's body from the plane by having Knack (the smallest crew member) crawl up inside the plane and cut his safety harness. They searched it for anything with intelligence value, and buried Koga in a shallow grave. Thies returned with his team to Dutch Harbor, where he reported the plane as salvageable. The next day (July 12) a salvage team under Lieutenant Robert Kirmse was dispatched to Akutan. This team gave Koga a Christian burial
Christian burial
A Christian burial is the burial of a deceased person with specifically Christian ecclesiastical rites; typically, in consecrated ground. Until recent times Christians generally objected to cremation, and practised inhumation almost exclusively, but this opposition has weakened, and now vanished...
in a nearby knoll and set about recovering the plane, but the lack of heavy equipment (which they had been unable to unload after the delivery ship lost two anchors) stymied their efforts. On July 15, a third recovery team was dispatched. This time, with proper heavy equipment, the team was able to free the Zero from the mud and haul it to a nearby barge, without further damaging it. The Zero was taken to Dutch Harbor, turned right-side up, and cleaned.
The Akutan Zero was loaded into the and transported to Seattle, arriving on August 1. From there, it was transported by barge to Naval Air Station North Island
Naval Air Station North Island
Naval Air Station North Island or NAS North Island is located at the north end of the Coronado peninsula on San Diego Bay and is the home port of several aircraft carriers of the United States Navy...
near San Diego where repairs were carefully carried out. These repairs "consisted mostly of straightening the vertical stabilizer, rudder, wing tips, flaps, and canopy. The sheared off landing struts needed more extensive work. The three-blade Sumitomo propeller
Propeller (aircraft)
Aircraft propellers or airscrews convert rotary motion from piston engines or turboprops to provide propulsive force. They may be fixed or variable pitch. Early aircraft propellers were carved by hand from solid or laminated wood with later propellers being constructed from metal...
was dressed and re-used." The Zero's red Hinomaru roundel
Roundel
A roundel in heraldry is a disc; the term is also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of different colours.-Heraldry:...
was repainted with the American blue circle-white star insignia
Insignia
Insignia or insigne pl -nia or -nias : a symbol or token of personal power, status or office, or of an official body of government or jurisdiction...
. The whole time, the plane was kept under 24-hour military police
Military police
Military police are police organisations connected with, or part of, the military of a state. The word can have different meanings in different countries, and may refer to:...
guard in order to deter would-be souvenir hunters from damaging the plane. The Zero was fit to fly again on September 20.
Analysis of the Zero
On September 20, 1942, Lieutenant CommanderLieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander...
Eddie R. Sanders took the Akutan Zero up for its first test flight. He would make 24 test flights between September 20 and October 15. According to Sanders' report:
These flights covered performance tests such as we do on planes undergoing Navy tests. The very first flight exposed weaknesses of the Zero which our pilots could exploit with proper tactics... immediately apparent was the fact that the aileronAileronAilerons are hinged flight control surfaces attached to the trailing edge of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. The ailerons are used to control the aircraft in roll, which results in a change in heading due to the tilting of the lift vector...
s froze up at speeds above 200 knots so that rolling maneuvers at those speeds were slow and required much force on the control stick. It rolled to the left much easier than to the right. Also, its engine cut out under negative acceleration due to its float-type carburetorCarburetorA carburetor , carburettor, or carburetter is a device that blends air and fuel for an internal combustion engine. It is sometimes shortened to carb in North America and the United Kingdom....
. We now had the answer for our pilots who were being outmaneuvered and unable to escape a pursuing Zero: Go into a vertical power dive, using negative acceleration if possible to open the range while the Zero's engine was stopped by the acceleration. At about 200 knots, roll hard right before the Zero pilot could get his sights lined up.
In later test flights, Anacostia Naval Air Station
Naval Support Facility Anacostia
Naval Support Facility Anacostia is a United States Naval Base in Anacostia, Washington, D.C. and is conjoined with Bolling Air Force Base. NSF Anacostia falls under the command of Naval Support Activity Washington.-History:...
director of flight testing Frederick M. Trapnell
Frederick M. Trapnell
Frederick Mackay "Fred" Trapnell was a United States Navy admiral and aviation pioneer. Trapnell was the first Navy pilot to fly a jet aircraft, was considered the best, most experienced naval test aviator of his generation, co-founded the branch's first test pilot school, and played a pivotal...
flew the Akutan Zero in performance while Sanders simultaneously flew American planes performing identical maneuvers, simulating aerial combat. Following these, USN test pilot Lieutenant Melvin C. "Boogey" Hoffman conducted more dogfighting tests between himself flying the Akutan Zero and recently commissioned USN pilots flying newer Navy aircraft.
Following its tests by the Navy, the Zero was transferred from Naval Air Station North Island to Anacostia Naval Air Station in 1943. In 1944, it was recalled to North Island for use as a training plane for rookie pilots being sent to the Pacific. A model 52 Zero, captured during the liberation of Guam, was later used as well.
Data and conclusions from these tests were published in Informational Intelligence Summary 59, Technical Aviation Intelligence Brief #3, Tactical and Technical Trends #5 (published prior to the first test flight), and Informational Intelligence Summary 85. These results tend to somewhat understate the Zero's capabilities.
Consequences
While several sources have stated that information from the captured Zero was used to design the Grumman F6F Hellcat, the U.S. carrierAircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
-borne fighter plane that succeeded the F4F Wildcat
F4F Wildcat
The Grumman F4F Wildcat was an American carrier-based fighter aircraft that began service with both the United States Navy and the British Royal Navy in 1940...
, in fact the Hellcat had already been designed, ordered, and a test model flown by the date of discovery of the Akutan Zero. The first production F6F was flown on 4 October 1942, two weeks after the captured Zero was first test-flown by the Navy. While those tests did not influence the Hellcat's design, they did give knowledge of the Zero's handling characteristics, including its limitations in rolling right and diving. That information, together with the improved capabilities of the Hellcat, were credited with helping American pilots "tip the balance in the Pacific". American aces Kenneth A. Walsh
Kenneth A. Walsh
Kenneth Ambrose Walsh was the fourth ranking United States Marine Corps fighter ace in World War II with a record of 21 enemy planes destroyed.-Biography:...
and R. Robert Porter, among others, credited tactics derived from this knowledge with saving their lives. James Sargent Russell
James Sargent Russell
James Sargent Russell was an Admiral in the United States Navy.-Biography:Russell was born in Tacoma, Washington, the son of noted architect Ambrose J. Russell and Loella Janet Russell. He attended DeKoven Hall School and graduated from Stadium High School in 1918...
, who commanded the PBY Catalina squadron that discovered the Zero and later rose to the rank of Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
, noted that Koga's Zero was "of tremendous historical significance." William N. Leonard
William N. Leonard
William Nicholas Leonard was an American World War II Flying ace and later a Rear admiral in the United States Navy....
concurred, describing it thus: "The captured Zero was a treasure. To my knowledge, no other captured machine has ever unlocked so many secrets at a time when the need was so great."
Some historians dispute the degree to which the Akutan Zero influenced the outcome of the air war in the Pacific. For example, the Thach Weave
Thach Weave
The Thach Weave or Beam Defense Position is an aerial combat tactic developed by naval aviator John S. Thach of the United States Navy soon after the United States' entry into World War II....
, a tactic created by John Thach
John Thach
John Smith "Jimmy" Thach was a World War II naval aviator, air combat tactician, and United States Navy admiral. Thach developed the Thach Weave, a combat flight formation that could counter enemy fighters of superior performance, and later the big blue blanket, an aerial defense against Kamikaze...
and used with great success by American airmen against the Zero, was devised by Thach prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, based on intelligence reports on the Zero's performance in China.
The capture and flight tests of Koga's Zero is usually described as a tremendous coup for the Allies as it revealed the secrets of that mysterious aircraft and led directly to its downfall. According to this viewpoint, only then did Allied pilots learn how to deal with their nimble opponents. The Japanese could not agree more... Yet those naval pilots who fought the Zero at Coral SeaBattle of the Coral SeaThe Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. The battle was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged...
, MidwayBattle of MidwayThe Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
, and GuadalcanalGuadalcanal campaignThe Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between August 7, 1942 and February 9, 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of World War II...
without the benefit of test reports would beg to differ with the contention that it took dissection of Koga's Zero to create tactics that beat the fabled airplane. To them the Zero did not long remain a mystery plane. Word quickly circulated among the combat pilots as to its particular attributes. Indeed on 6 October while testing the Zero, [Akutan Zero test pilot Frederick M.] Trapnell made a highly revealing statement: 'The general impression of the airplane is exactly as originally created by intelligence—including the performance'.
The Akutan Zero was destroyed during a training accident in February 1945. While the Zero was taxiing for a take-off, a SB2C Helldiver
SB2C Helldiver
The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was a carrier-based dive bomber aircraft produced for the United States Navy during World War II. It replaced the Douglas SBD Dauntless in US Navy service. Despite its size, the SB2C was much faster than the SBD it replaced...
lost control and rammed into it. The Helldiver's propeller sliced the Zero into pieces. From the wreckage, William N. Leonard salvaged several gauges, which he donated to the U.S. Navy Museum
U.S. Navy Museum
The National Museum of the United States Navy, or U.S. Navy Museum for short, is the flagship museum of the United States Navy and is located in the former Breech Mechanism Shop of the old Naval Gun Factory on the grounds of the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., USA.The U.S...
. The Alaska Heritage Museum and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum also have small pieces of the Zero.
In an attempt to repatriate Koga's body, American author Jim Rearden led a search on Akutan in 1988. He located Koga's grave, but found it empty. Rearden and Japanese businessman Minoru Kawamoto conducted a records search. They found that in 1947 Koga's body was exhumed by an American Graves Registration Service team and re-buried on Adak Island
Adak Island
Adak Island is an island near the western extent of the Andreanof Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Alaska's southernmost town, Adak, is located on the island...
, further down the Aleutian chain. The team, unaware of Koga's identity, marked his body as unidentified. The Adak cemetery was excavated in 1953, and 236 bodies were returned to Japan. The body buried next to Koga (Shigeyoshi Shindo) was one of 13 identified; the remaining 223 unidentified remains were re-interred in Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery
Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery
is the national Japanese cemetery for 352,297 unidentified war dead in the Second World War , near the Imperial Palace and Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Japan....
in Japan. It is probable that Koga was one of them. Rearden later wrote the definitive account of the Akutan Zero.
External links
- Bill Thies's website
- Zeros over China, 1941–1942. Ben Schapiro. The Warbird's Forum, May 2008—An article describing the capture and repair of Gerhard NeumannGerhard NeumannGerhard Neumann was a German-American aviation engineer and executive for General Electric's aircraft engine division .-Childhood and education:...
's Zero in China in 1941. - War Prize: The Capture Of The First Japanese Zero Fighter In 1941. j-aircraft.com, December 3, 1999. A second article describing the capture and repair of Gerhard Neumann's Zero.
- Article on Yoshimitsu Maeda's crashed Zero