CAPTURED AIRCRAFT - ODD PHOTOS

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Then post this stuff boy! Get yourself some Forum Cred This would have been a great post. :lol: Just give the original URL credit like this...

World War II Plus 55

"Meanwhile, the Japanese are delayed by American attacks and the need to refuel, and can't launch an attack on Dutch Harbor until 3 p.m. Rear Adm. Kakuji Kakuta hurls 17 bombers and 15 fighters at the enemy. The planes hurtle in at 4 p.m. and attack the grounded liner Northwestern, driven up on the beach by a williwaw, her 16th grounding. Japanese bombs do heavy damage but the ship's crew floods the engine room to stop the fire. The grounded liner's engines provide heat, steam and power to Dutch Harbor. Japanese bombers rake Dutch Harbor's oil tanks and installations, demolishing one wing of the base hospital. Four big fuel tanks explode with a roar heard 40 miles away, incinerating 750,000 gallons of 100 octane. Only 18 men are killed, 25 injured, but the Japanese take no casualties.

However, en route back, eight American P-40 fighters attack the enemy. Both sides lose two aircraft. As the Zeroes rumble home, one, piloted by Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga, spots a PBY flying low in the water. He streaks down to finish off the seaplane and splashes the PBY. But the PBY's blister gunner, Aviation Machinist's Mate W.H. Rawls, helps turn the tide of World War II by putting a bullet through Koga's oil pressure line. Pressure goes down to zero. Convinced his engine will pack up, he turns his crippled plane to land on Akutan Island, putting out a voice distress message. Koga lands with his wheels down, a mistake on the boggy tundra. The wheels get caught in the tundra, flip the Zero on its back and break Koga's neck, killing the pilot.

The Zero lies undisturbed for a month when a US Navy PBY's crew spots it. A Navy team is sent to retrieve this prize. Koga's Zero is damaged, but mostly intact. American crews quickly ship the Zero back to the States, the first Zero captured intact by the Americans. In California the Zero is re-assembled and test-flown before a team of engineers from Grumman, which is designing a new fighter called the F6F Hellcat. Most of the design is nearly completed, and test models have been flown. But by studying the Zero and its principles, the Grumman team is able to make a few more changes to a design that is already capable of driving the Zero from the skies and giving the Allies supremacy in the air. After the war, a myth will develop that Koga's Zero enabled the Americans to change the Hellcat's design, which is not true.

"
 
Other than the fact that the A6M2 was discovered by the crew of a patroling PBY, most of that write up is nonsense. The A6M2 recovered from the Aleutians had absolutely nothing, say again, nothing to do with the design of the F6F.

Rich
 
Other than the fact that the A6M2 was discovered by the crew of a patroling PBY, most of that write up is nonsense. The A6M2 recovered from the Aleutians had absolutely nothing, say again, nothing to do with the design of the F6F.

Rich

Rich, didn't the post state that it was a myth? What exactly are you contesting in the post?
 
If memory serves, the Koga Zero was destroyed in a ground accident.
Another plane taxi'd into it cutting it up pretty bad. They [whoever they
were] decided not to repair it. How it was disposed of was not made public.

LCDR Richard G Crommelin, skipper of VF-88, got an opportunity to fly #4593 in February, 1945. His brother, CDR John Crommelin was in charge of training at ComFAirWest. So, with "Uncle John," as he was known, seeing to Dick's education, it was logical he should get a Zero hop. On taxiing out for this hop, Dick was overtaken by an airplane, SB2C-4, which was notorious for miserable vision ahead when in the 3 point attitude. The "Beast" just sawed its way through the Zero from tail to cockpit stopping just short of Dick. Truly, it as a tragedy for the machine, but a miracle for Dick. Dick Crommelin, who was my father's roommate aboard Yorktown (CV-5) when they were in VF-42, was later lost over Hokkaido on 15 July 1945.

My father, who by the time Dick's Zero hop was so dramatically cut short was asst ops officer for TF-38 working for Jimmy Thach, had the opportunity to pick up some flight time iout of NAS North Island in April - March 1945 while the TF staff was ashore between deployments. In the corner of a hangar he found the piled up remains of #4593. He removed the starboard wingtip, the airspeed indicator, and the manifold pressure gauge. These we carried around from duty station to duty station until he retired in 1971. In the mid 1980's he gave the wingtip and the instruments to the Navy Museum at NAS Anacostia in Washington DC.

It was John Crommelin's predecessor at ComFAirWest training, Jimmy Flatley, and his fighter training officer, my father, who arranged to have #4593 flown from its storage at the NATC shop at NAS Anacostia to NAS North Island where it could be put to use. He once wrote:

"I, too, saw this Zero as a pile of salvage at NAS San Diego - in the balloon barn. The A R did a beautiful job of restoration. At that time I was freshly back form Midway as a CV-5 survivor. I left for Pearl SW Pac in Oct '42 so couldn't follow developments as it was being rebuilt. By the time I returned from SW Pac in July 1943, the Zero had been long gone to the east coast. It went to Tactical Air Intelligence Center (TAIC) and base at Anacostia. After F.M. Trapnell and a number of other worthies such as "Boogie" H[offman]. tested, compared, evaluated it, the Army put it through similar paces.

"From Aug 1943 to 4 Nov 1944 I was VF training officer staff ComFAirWest Coast and assistant to Jim Flatley through most of that time until he went to work for Marc Mitscher in TF-58. He was relieved by John Crommelin. While working for Flatley I learned that the Zero still at Anacostia was flyable but in a state of disuse. We got some pressure up (you remember J. H. Flatley, Jr.!) and got the machine ferried out to Hangar 40 North Island, our office and general hangout. The Zero was in dire need of attention and care and got it.

"All this took time and I'm not sure the plane could be flown before Jim went out to the Fast Carriers. My log shows what must have been one of the earliest flights in our custody - 14 Sep 1944. Several hops later my log show 21 Oct - 'Flight with J.G. Crommelin - he in FM-2 - pretty even.' My last hop in this Zero was 25 Oct 44. On 4 Nov., as a result of the long reach of J. Thach, I was flying to Ulithi to go to work for him on J.S. McCain's TF-38 staff. Sometime during my absence the Zero received strike damage because when I returned to Coronado for a few weeks in Mar 1945 the wreckage of the Koga Zero was piled up in Hangar 40. My guess is that the mishap occurred in Jan or Feb 1945. Grief over this was short lived - we got a beautiful low-time Zero, model 52, captured on Guam and I got some mightily interesting flights in this bird, but that's another story.

"As to the Zero 21, I believe most of my information comes from John Crommelin concerning its loss. Since his brother, Richard, was involved he had more than casual interest in the mishap. Dick, a friend, classmate from USNA, classmate Pensacola, room mate almost a year while we were in VF-42, Yorktown, was headed West with his squadron, VF-88, and they were in San Diego for transportation. As C.O., but also with John seeing to Dick's education, it was logical he should get a Zero hop. On taxiing out for this hop, Dick was overtaken by an airplane, SB2C-4, which has miserable vision ahead when in the 3 point attitude. The "Beast" just sawed its way through the Zero from tail to cockpit stopping just short of Dick. Truly, it as a tragedy for the machine, but a miracle for Dick. Pity we later lost him over Hokkaido on one of our last TF-38 strikes of the war."

As a young fellow in the very late 1960s and early 1970's I was known to operate a rather hot 1966 Pontiac GTO; mounted on the dash of that car was a manifold pressure gauge . . . from A6M2 # 4593. I believe that was the last of our cars in which that instrument was semi-permanently mounted, so I guess you could say I was the last one to use a piece of this airplane operationally.

Rich
 
Rich, didn't the post state that it was a myth? What exactly are you contesting in the post?

What is written is
" In California the Zero is re-assembled and test-flown before a team of engineers from Grumman, which is designing a new fighter called the F6F Hellcat. Most of the design is nearly completed, and test models have been flown. But by studying the Zero and its principles, the Grumman team is able to make a few more changes to a design that is already capable of driving the Zero from the skies and giving the Allies supremacy in the air. After the war, a myth will develop that Koga's Zero enabled the Americans to change the Hellcat's design, which is not true."

The fact he covers himself with the last sentence is neither here nor there. He repeats the myth above, apparently as some sort of fact. A6M2 #4593 was not test flown for Grumman. So, if the author wants to call it a myth, why does he even mention it? Not criticizing anyone here, just some, IMO, poor research and poor writing with a CYA tag. Zero-F6F myth is one of my pet peeves.

Rich
 
I'm sure that not many of you have seen this one before?!

luftwaffspitfireflightwj0.jpg
 
Doesn't mean it hasn't been done after Photoshop was invented. The aircraft are all of one squadron (by the identification codes) and the Germans never captured that many Spitfires of that type let alone a squadron at the same time. However they could be British Spitfires pretending to be 109's.

27429.jpg
 

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