Corsair vs Zero

[pbehn]

I can easily agree with that. If the impression I got from reading the whole thread was similar, I'd never register and respond.

Better radios make sense to me. Soviet pilots praised American radios very much. They were good.

The forum is an aviation forum, discussion of individual aircraft strength and weaknesses are what it is for and what it does. You can produce an account to support almost anything, a plane was shot down with a revolver, no one would suggest it was a sound armament strategy though. The A/C designer must give the pilot the best chance of making a kill in the highest number of situations, and the best chance of surviving and landing safely.

Better radios are one thing, having no radio at all in any aircraft is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[bakters]

The forum is an aviation forum, discussion of individual aircraft strength and weaknesses are what it is for and what it does. You can produce an account to support almost anything, a plane was shot down with a revolver, no one would suggest it was a sound armament strategy though. The A/C designer must give the pilot the best chance of making a kill in the highest number of situations, and the best chance of surviving and landing safely.

Better radios are one thing, having no radio at all in any aircraft is a disaster waiting to happen.

Spec-sheets have been done to death. The numbers are known, even if often misunderstood. The only practical test of how those numbers related to reality is forbidden topic here. What else remains but concentrating on combat reports?

When a Corsair pilot writes that he was incredibly surprised at the ease with which the Japanese leader reversed on them, then it's telling something which can be hard to figure out from bare numbers. When another pilot writes to newspaper readers that they can beat the Zero, because Japanese pilots are badly trained, cowardly and short sighted that's also telling something.

Perfect? No. Nothing ever is perfect, though.

 

[pbehn]

When a Corsair pilot writes that he was incredibly surprised at the ease with which the Japanese leader reversed on them, then it's telling something which can be hard to figure out from bare numbers.

One of the greatest strengths of any fighting unit is learning from your mistakes and those of others. The US airforces constantly improved training and tactics to maximise the times they had the advantages and minimise the times they didnt. Pilots reporting how a Zero reversed on them would be asked how it happened what did they do, what could be done better what should not be ever done, that is how you get to grips with an enemy.

By this the effectiveness of the whole unit slowly improved and this coupled with its ever increasing size overwhelmed both the LW and IJN forces. By wars end the Japanese and Germans had very few top class pilots left.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Spec-sheets have been done to death. The numbers are known, even if often misunderstood. The only practical test of how those numbers related to reality is forbidden topic here.

Is it?!?!? There are many documented encounters between allied aircraft and the Zero and it's performance was well documented, some of those reports praised the Zero (VMF-211 over Midway) and other condemned it (475th Fighter Group, SW Pacific) so spare us the sarcasm. If you took the time to read some of the posts here you'll find a pretty even assessment of ALL WW2 aircraft, and although some may have their bias, I think discussions here about the Zero (as well as other Japanese aircraft) are discussed fairly and accuracy. History shows us that the Zero was indeed a deadly dogfighter at about 250 mph, and could be a deadly opponent anytime encountered, up to the end of the war, however due to tactics and pilot skills, it was all but swept from the skies, I think the end result of WW2 more than verifies this. Later model Zeros were an improvement but were too little too late.

 

[pbehn]

The "Thatch weave" is not dependent on aircraft performance but had a major impact on losses to Zero's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave

Once you read it it seems so much like the obvious thing to do it is amazing no one had ever thought of it before 1941, the fact is though no one had, or at least no one had thought to train crews in it as the maneuver of choice.

 

[GrauGeist]

I earlier posted a first-hand account by an Ace who successfully flew against the A6M and it was brushed off. This is real world advice coming from a man who's actions against the Japanese was life or death. One mistake would mean failure resulting in death, injury or swimming.

These are the best possible means of determining how well the Allied or Axis planes performed. There were a great deal more pilots, who's opinions couldn't be shared, because they made a mistake and paid the ultimate price for that error.

When a captured A6M5 was flown in trials against the F6F, the summary was as follows:

"Do not dogfight with a Zero 52. Do not try to follow a loop or half-roll with a pull-through. When attacking, use your superior power and high speed performance to engage at the most favourable moment. To evade a Zero 52 on your tail, roll and dive away into a high speed turn."

Now perhaps it could be said that this trial may have been flawed because it did not have a Japanese pilot, however, all pilots (Allied or Axis) will have similar abilities and one objective, to kill and avoid being killed.

And again, 2Lt. Walsh, an Ace with VMF-124 shared his experience with his A6M encounters while flying the F4U:

I learned quickly that altitude was paramount. Whoever had altitude dictated the terms of the battle, and there was nothing a Zero pilot could do to change that — we had him.
The F4U could outperform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed maneuverability and slow speed rate of climb. Therefore you avoided getting slow when combating a Zero. It took time but eventually we developed tactics and deployed them very effectively...
There were times, however, that I tangled with a Zero at slow speed, one on one. In these instances I considered myself fortunate to survive a battle. Of my 21 victories, 17 were against Zeros, and I lost five aircraft in combat.

And he was there, he lived to tell about his engagements. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross among other achievements. So I would take his advice very seriously.

You can compare charts, numbers, statistics and such all day long, but in the end, it's what the Pilots themselves have to say, that holds any weight.

bakters, I want you to follow this link An afternoon with Saburo Sakai and see the words of Saburo Sakai and pay attention to what he says. If there was ever a human being that would hold the true secret of the A6M, it would be this man. Think about his experience, so when he makes a comment like:

putting a kid with only about 20 hours flight time into a plane and telling him to take on U.S. pilots in Hellcats and Corsairs is just as much a suicidal tactic as being a kamikaze

He is not quoting charts, tables or any other source...he was there.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Bottom line, the F4U claimed an 11 to 1 kill ratio during WW2. In the book Vought F4U Corsair by Martin W. Bowman; it shows that there were only 189 F4Us lost to enemy fighters while claiming 2,140. I have not found information on what the exact F4U to Zero ratio is but even if it's embedded in those numbers its obvious that the F4U was clearly superior to the Zero.

More on the Zero including the assessment of the Aleutian Zero.

Koga's Zero | Texas Flying Legends Museum

 

[Hiromachi]

On actual combat from 1943 perspective, so when tides were turning I'd recommend getting this :

It's of course in Japanese so few here may actually read the contents, but there are tables that should be easy to decipher even with google translate. It also contains a lot of lesser known pictures. I mention this specifically because of F4U ( along with P-38 ) and Zero battled over Solomon Islands throughout 1943 which is a great base to draw some conclusions.

 

[bobbysocks]

The only practical test of how those numbers related to reality is forbidden topic here.

that is because the flight models you are basing your experience and conclusions on are biased, flawed, and in a lot of cases completely erroneous. spread sheets and performance reports give the best snap shot of what it was like back then. the mods have warned of taking gaming here so I wont say anything more than I am well versed in Gaijin flight models and antics ( since 2009 )....and will converse via PM about this if you wish....or you can open a thread in the gaming section here and we can talk openly.

 

[pbehn]

I thought the best practical test was use of an enemy aircraft to test which was why so much effort was put into getting them.

 

[bobbysocks]

and hence write a report....see the combat over Darwin thread. the reports there are a perfect example...

 

[bakters]

Bottom line, the F4U claimed an 11 to 1 kill ratio during WW2. In the book Vought F4U Corsair by Martin W. Bowman; it shows that there were only 189 F4Us lost to enemy fighters while claiming 2,140. I have not found information on what the exact F4U to Zero ratio is but even if it's embedded in those numbers its obvious that the F4U was clearly superior to the Zero.

More on the Zero including the assessment of the Aleutian Zero.

Koga's Zero | Texas Flying Legends Museum

Claimed victories to real losses? Against rookie pilots sent on one-way missions? While often having overwhelming numerical and tactical superiority?

No, it's not obvious which plane was a better dogfighter.

 

[GrauGeist]

bakters, did you read my post (#486) which contained the link to the the interview with Saburu Sakai??

 

[Hiromachi]

bakters, did you read my post (#486) which contained the link to the the interview with Saburu Sakai??

I never exactly understood how did this interview was done and what was the quality of person translating but in many points it contradicts what we know from "Samurai", "Winged Samurai" or "Genda's Blade". Hell, I even have Combat Flight Simulator 2 manual which except for all game details contains crucial here interviews with Allied veterans as well as interview with S. Sakai. No such language was used as in interview posted above.

Things that especially caught my attention :

Take that idiot [Minoru] Genda. He could barely fly, but he jumped up and down about the Shiden-kai ["George"], so everybody else pretended to like it, too. That plane was a piece of crap, put together by a third-rate firm [Kawanishi].

First, I honestly dont believe that Sakai would call someone, especially his superior an idiot. After the war he became rather a peaceful Buddhist acolyte and such words simply dont fit. Other thing is that I doubt Sakai was unaware of the Gendas flight experience and skill, Genda was one of the best pre-war pilots of ww2 and along with his wingmen they created a feared formation known as "Genda's Flying Circus".
Last is the Kawanishi N1K2-J, while N1K1-J indeed had multiple issues, lot of that has been corrected in N1K2-J. Reading through multiple accounts, most of them written post war so there was no pressure from former leaders or military itself, aircraft was praised for its handling and firepower. Again it had its flaws, but calling it a piece of crap.


There are too many things that contradict each other, that I only would recommend reading this along with other books or interviews to get more clear view.

 

[bakters]

bakters, did you read my post (#486) which contained the link to the the interview with Saburu Sakai??

Yes. I always loved the guy.

 

[bakters]

I never exactly understood how did this interview was done and what was the quality of person translating but in many points it contradicts what we know from "Samurai", "Winged Samurai" or "Genda's Blade". Hell, I even have Combat Flight Simulator 2 manual which except for all game details contains crucial here interviews with Allied veterans as well as interview with S. Sakai. No such language was used as in interview posted above.

Things that especially caught my attention :

First, I honestly dont believe that Sakai would call someone, especially his superior an idiot. After the war he became rather a peaceful Buddhist acolyte and such words simply dont fit. Other thing is that I doubt Sakai was unaware of the Gendas flight experience and skill, Genda was one of the best pre-war pilots of ww2 and along with his wingmen they created a feared formation known as "Genda's Flying Circus".
Last is the Kawanishi N1K2-J, while N1K1-J indeed had multiple issues, lot of that has been corrected in N1K2-J. Reading through multiple accounts, most of them written post war so there was no pressure from former leaders or military itself, aircraft was praised for its handling and firepower. Again it had its flaws, but calling it a piece of crap.


There are too many things that contradict each other, that I only would recommend reading this along with other books or interviews to get more clear view.

I did not take notes nor use a tape recorder during our conversation, and these "quotes" are paraphrased by myself to the best of my memory. Please do not repeat them or attribute them to Sakai-san in any published forum.

Edit: It appeared to me, since the interviewer didn't take notes or recorded anything, Sakai could have been more honest here...

 

[Hiromachi]

I did not take notes nor use a tape recorder during our conversation, and these "quotes" are paraphrased by myself to the best of my memory. Please do not repeat them or attribute them to Sakai-san in any published forum.

That is a bit logically contradiction, you take the interview to present view and ideas of a person you are interviewing in his own words. But anyway, I managed to dig my CFS 2 manual (which is a beautiful thing, a testament how much some people cared about making their products) and here is an interview with Saburo Sakai, it is supplied by much bigger one that was available on Microsoft website 15 years ago. I am that kind of person that copies and saves everything since internet is not a book, things may disappear and they do, even as most say otherwise.
Interview was under this link Object moved
It was done by Michael Ahn, and please keep in mind that it was related to a game hence some questions and answers are directed towards those who will play it, but I still find it very informative and showing certain perspective.

PART 1

Interviewer: If you could offer one bit of advice to a new pilot about surviving an encounter with the enemy, what would you tell him?
Saburo Sakai: Remain calm and collected.

Interviewer: What were your "rules of engagement?" Did you have "style" of entering a fight with the enemy?
Saburo Sakai: There are three basic types of engagement: fighting from equal positions, fighting from an advantageous position, and fighting from a disadvantageous position. There are also variations those three.
It's a rare occasion when two groups find each other at the same time. Usually one will have height advantage of the other. A dogfight is a variety of situations. We had no radar then so seeing the enemy first was the most important thing. And once you are in a dogfight you don't know which way the enemy is coming at you - you don't know at all. Therefore, where the fight starts, where is the enemy, how many of them, what kind of shape they're in, what are their tactics - you have to figure this out this as quickly as possible. In the 200 dogfights, I was never seen first - it was always me who found them. I was the fastest in my squadron at spotting the enemy.

Interviewer: Did you practice any kinds of flying rituals (flying high, staying clouds), to gain an advantage over the enemy?
Saburo Sakai: I tried to put myself in a position in which the enemy could not fire upon me but in which I could fire upon my enemy, regardless of the difference in altitude.

Interviewer: What kind of "set-up" did you try to get before opening fire? Behind the enemy? Above or below him? Did you prefer slashing attacks, or turn-fighting tactics?
Saburo Sakai: I strove to shoot down my enemy in the first pass or attack, tried not to open fire too soon, never followed an enemy into a dive, and tried to get behind my enemy and stay there.
1. Attack from above and behind is the most important rule; one should always strive for this
2. Always attack in ways that will keep you behind the enemy
3. Attacking from below and behind, always try to shoot them down in the first attack
4. Do not chase the enemy when they dive or evade using other vertical movement

Interviewer: What did you like the best about the Zero in flight?
Saburo Sakai: Good things about the Zero in flight were the very long range, and the good visibility all around the plane. If you place too much emphasis on a feature, you will lose something else. You have to cover everything in a plane's performance - some positive, some negative. It's a kind of compromise. The Zero-sen is a very good compromise. For a pilot, it's quite comfortable. Before the war I was ordered to fly to China - they never tested how long we can fly and what distance. So we were ordered to try and flew it for twelve hours and thirty minutes - a world record at that time.

Interviewer: How is the Zero in combat?
Saburo Sakai: Good things about the Zero in combat were the responsiveness of the control stick, the tight turns it could make (to the left), the ability to climb quickly, and the reliability of the 7.7mm fixed-machine guns.
Interviewer: What is your opinion on the other Japanese planes you flew?
Saburo Sakai: Type 96: Was better for dogfights than the Zero, but its range wasn't as good
Raiden: An interceptor.
Shiden: Range was too short and the landing gear had issues

Interviewer: What would you tell new pilots about the Zero?
Saburo Sakai: I would tell new pilots the following things about the Zero...
Good points: Dogfighting prowess and a quick rate of climb. And the 7.7mm are very reliable.
Bad points: Doesn't perform well in dives. Enemy fire causes fires and easily damages the airframe.

Interviewer: What advice did you actually give?
Saburo Sakai:
Strong points: The responsiveness of the control stick, the range, and the reliability of the 7.7mm guns
Weak points: Understanding of group tactics. Methods of evading enemy fire when surprised by the enemy. Use sudden control adjustments, pulling away in the opposite direction of the line of fire, slide to the side, and continue to do this.
In wartime, you're afraid when you meet your enemy for the first time. Never be isolated from the leader. Keep your cool and posture - never panic. When you enter an area where the enemy can attack you, adjust the propeller pitch so you won't burn up your engine in a dogfight. Make sure you switch your fuel to main tank and drop your drop tanks. We used drop tanks over enemy territory, but rarely over our own territory.

Interviewer: What was life like about a Japanese carrier? What were the men like?
Saburo Sakai: Officers and enlisted pilots were treated differently. There was an incredible amount of discrimination between officers and enlisted pilots. This included differences in food, alcohol, cigarettes, and even the briefing rooms where they waited before flights at airbases.

Interviewer: What was the most fun thing on the carriers?
Saburo Sakai: Crew quarters in the evening.

Interviewer: What was the most difficult thing?
Saburo Sakai: When air engagements went against us and we lost people in those engagements.

Interviewer: What were the men like?
Saburo Sakai:The most senior person in the crew quarters was in charge of that room. There were no officers stationed there. Ninety percent of the pilots were enlisted men.

Interviewer: What did you do for entertainment?
Saburo Sakai: There was hardly any entertainment. The senior crewmembers in each quarter were like your father or your elder brother. Officers never visited the quarters.

Interviewer: How did you deal with the pressure of upcoming air engagements?
Saburo Sakai: We didn't do anything special.

Interviewer: How easy or difficult was it to take off and land on a carrier?
Saburo Sakai: A 'leadlamp' was used when landing in the Japanese navy. Pilots were nervous, but we didn't think it was hard. Taking off was easier than it was on land.

Interviewer: What was life like at Rabaul, when the men were not in combat?
Saburo Sakai: We basically waited day after day at the airbase. Veteran pilots studied formation patterns with the wing leader.

Interviewer: What kinds of activities did you do to keep busy? How did you keep morale up?
Saburo Sakai: Morale was always high. We didn't do anything in particular. Played Shogi, Go, and instruments.

Interviewer: What was the food like? Did you listen to the radio or read newspapers? Was there more news of the war or about home?
Saburo Sakai: The food was the lowest level of food consumable by human beings. The officer's food was different. There was no radio, newspapers, or magazines, and we received hardly any letters from our family and friends in Japan. There was hardly any news or information.

Interviewer: What were you instructors like? Where they tough? Kind? Did they offer up advice? What kind of maneuvers to did you practice and did you find them valuable in combat? Did they give you any advice on flying in combat?
Saburo Sakai: When I was a trainee the instructors were kind. However, the quality of instruction gradually decreased. Later instructors didn't understand how to teach and became stricter.

 

[Hiromachi]

Part 2

Interviewer: Did your men have strengths and weaknesses in their flying skills?
Saburo Sakai: Our strength was the individual skill of our pilots (i.e. how to fight one-on-one, and the marksmanship of the pilots - we didn't let our skills lapse, we kept practicing the same things over and over). That was the only strength of Japan in the war. Our weakness on the other hand was our group tactics. When you talk about features of a car or an airplane, they are just machines. They themselves don't fly. They don't try. It's the combination of pilot and machine. The pilot who can maximize the feature of the machine - that is the strong pilot. The good pilot. The Zero pilot can see three hundred and sixty degrees and can find anything much quicker. The pilot of the American fighters can't see behind him (because of the fuselage). Because of that, we targeted to the rear. But the American planes had armor to protect the pilot but the Zero, to maximize its horsepower didn't add anything like armor. The Zero pilot had to use his ability to see the enemy first, instead of armor. The American airplanes' powerful engines and the machine guns were much better than the Zero. When they received hits, the Zero often exploded or burned - it's quite fragile and easy to burn. But the American planes were very strong and were designed to protect the pilots' lives. The Japanese pilot as well as the aircraft were regarded as "consumables". That was the philosphy - a foolish philosophy. Also, the Japanese Navy placed too much emphasis on the warship. They thought the navies would fight each other by huge war vessels so they didn't place much emphasis on the airplane. The Americans had a much better philosophy -America produced more aircraft and trained more, eventually catching up with the Japanese. It was fighter against fighter in WWI, but in WWII it was group against group. The Japanese were very bad at this, but the Americans used the philosophy of American football - teamwork. Excellent.

Interviewer: Other than by actual combat, how did you learn of new enemy planes? Was there any intelligence on this? How did everyone share information on fighting against different enemy planes such as the P38, the Wildcat, the Hellcat and the Corsair? What did you think of these planes?
Saburo Sakai: The only information we were given on enemy planes was a single page of specifications of pre-war American, British, and Dutch planes. As the war went on we were also not given any information about new enemy aircraft, and were forced just to deal with them as we could when we encountered them.

Interviewer: What are your thoughts about the men you fought against? Did you find them to be skilled?
Saburo Sakai: I don't think they were as skilled in individual combat as the Japanese were. But the boom-and-zoom tactics they developed to take advantage of the Zero's inability to dive well were very effective.

Interviewer: Did the U.S. pilots use more teamwork in combat than the Japanese?
Saburo Sakai: I am confident that Japanese pilots were superior on a one-on-one basis. But the ability to work as a team both offensively and defensively that the Americans had was very impressive. Perhaps this comes from the team spirit and thinking they developed playing American football. This hit us particularly hard in the air engagements from the middle war onwards (teamwork and search patterns).
They all wanted to win. Combat makes the pilot's will to win stronger. With every fight they become much stronger. I got stronger with each victory. The first fight I didn't remember anything or understand anything. My first kill, there were many things that I should have done but I forgot everything. I didn't know what I should do. After coming back I was not rewarded: I was disciplined. I broke all the rules I should have respected and because the other pilots supported me, that's the reason why I was able to survive. I was heavily disciplined - they hit me with a wooden stick - a very heavy blow. But as I got more kills I began to have the confidence that I would never be defeated as long as I was in a Zero.

Interviewer: Did you bracket the enemy first with MG, then fire your 20mm cannon when he was in range?
Saburo Sakai: No, no no that was never true.

Interviewer: Did you set convergence on your guns?
Saburo Sakai: Yes, we had convergence. We counted on the 7.7mm because we had plenty of ammo. The ballistics was very good and fired very straight.

Interviewer: What was your convergence range for the 20mm cannon?
Saburo Sakai: In the Japanese Navy, the setting was 200 meters on the cannon. But all the pilots wanted a much closer convergence. I asked my subordinate to adjust it because it's much better closer in. So we asked the men to adjust the convergence to become much shorter.

Interviewer: At Rabaul and Lae did you fly the same plane?
Saburo Sakai: No, we changed. Two hundred hours was the maximum flying time before the plane needed an overhaul and disappear from our squadron. Therefore we switched planes often. There were no specific airplanes assigned to our pilots. They continuously switched engines in our planes and sometimes we saw change after change. Only the commanding officer had an airplane to himself, and he scarcely flew it! I never had a dedicated airplane. The first day of the war, the was a specific airplane for each pilot and was numbered according to position in the formation. But after engine trouble and damage, the planes had to be changed. So by the second day there was no order to the numbering.

Interviewer: Did you ever use radio when you flying in combat?
Saburo Sakai: The radio was useless. We knew a week before the opening of the war that it was useless. It just made bunch of noise - if there was a worst piece of equipment in the Japanese Navy, it was the radio for the fighter planes. You couldn't hear anything at all. Close to the opening of the war, we pilots realized the radio was heavy and useless so I removed mine to save weight, as well as the wooden antenna pole. I cut that off. My commander, a very difficult man, saw this and yelled, "What did you do with this airplane?" I told him, "I need to make my airplane lighter to fly to Manila. It's much better." He replied, "Please, take mine out too!"

Interviewer: Did you use hand or aircraft signals to your wingmen?
Saburo Sakai: There was nothing to communicate. We flew from practice. From the movement of the leader's head, we were able to understand what he was thinking. Once you're in a dogfight, you don't think, "Who's flying way over there?" You can never tell. You never can tell who is who in a big dogfight. If you're above a fight and announce that an enemy is behind you, then everyone in the fight will look back! You can never tell. There's nothing to talk about in a dogfight.

Interviewer: Did you have a specific bomber escort technique?
Saburo Sakai: Unlike the United States, Japan was a very poor country and had a very small number of aircraft. So we would fly a few minutes ahead of the bombers first, to the targeted area. Ninety-nine percent the Allied were sure of where we were going so they were waiting for us. When we were strong in the beginning of the war, the enemy aircraft would all retreat and we'd clean them up. That was at the very first, but later, as you know, the situation was reversed.
So we sent one group ahead and a second group flew five hundred meters above the bombers, and slightly ahead of them.

Interviewer: How would you be recognized by your superiors in the field?
Saburo Sakai: It's true that I didn't receive any award. The squadron commander knew about my achievements, but nobody else knew. It was quite regrettable. Entertainers were awarded medals and so on, but I didn't receive anything. In Germany it was very different. Pilots were awarded medals regularly during World War II but the Japanese Army and Navy - nothing.

 

[Hiromachi]

Part 3

Interviewer: Can you tell the story of the formation flight over Port Moresby with Nishizawa and Ota?
Saburo Sakai: During the Japan-China war, I was on a bombing mission when I saw one of our pilots land on the enemy's field burning. He blew up on the field. Later at Rabaul and Lae, we were fighting every day and I knew I wouldn't live long. I wanted to do something before I died, like what that pilot did when he landed on the enemy's base. We couldn't copy that, so we decided to do something as pilots - fly a great, beautiful flight to demonstrate our skills. That was our promise to each other. Nishizawa and Ota - I called them and said, if we have time and the others return to base and we have enough ammo and fuel, we can fly as a team and perform these aerobatics. So when the rest of the flight turned for home, Nishizawa and Ota joined me on my wing as number two and number three. I signaled, "Let's start" and we started. So we did a beautiful loop over the American base, but Nishizawa signaled that our altitude must be much lower! So we lowered our altitude to less than 1,000 meters - 700 or 800 meters. I signaled - three times. So we did a loop three times. I raised my arm in triumph - "ah we did it!" and we flew back. This was a secret between the three of us. Because we knew we could die at any time, we did what we wanted to do. The next day was cloudy day and a P-40 dove from the clouds and dropped a bag with a streamer attached to it.. We opened it and found a note in English. Sasai-san confronted us with note, reading it to us: "Yesterday you performed aerobatics over our base and it was really exciting. We applauded. Next time you come we'll be ready to dogfight - please come wearing a green muffler - we'll be waiting for you, wearing a green muffler as well." Sasai read this to us and yelled, "What is the meaning of this!?" We apologized profusely to him. But I'm sorry I never was able to have that dogfight. After the war, I met some of the U.S. soldiers who were Port Moresby who saw our aerobatics that day - they told me they stopped firing their guns as we did our maneuver, and stopped to applaud us.


Interviewer: About not shooting down a passenger plane full of women and children over Java-
Saburo Sakai: It was me. That was in the Dutch East Indies. This was during the bombing of Java. The order was to shoot down any aircraft over Java. I was over Java and had just shot down an enemy aircraft when I saw a big black aircraft coming towards me. I saw that it was a civilian aircraft - a DC-4. As I flew closer I saw that it was full of passengers. Some were even having to stand. I thought that these might be important people fleeing, so I signaled to the pilot to follow me. The pilot of the aircraft was courageous enough not to follow me so I came down and got much closer. Through one of the round windows I saw a blonde woman, a mother with a child about three years old. So I thought I shouldn't kill them. As a child I went to a middle school for two years, a school I was later expelled from. While I was there I was taught by an American, Mr. Martin. And his wife came to the class to teach us while her husband or the other teachers were away. She was good to me. And that woman in the airplane looked like Mrs. Martin. So I thought that I shouldn't kill them. So I flew to ahead of the pilot and signaled him to go ahead. Then the people in the plane saluted. The pilot saluted me, and the passengers. I don't know where it went: either to the United States or Australia. I couldn't find out. But a few years ago I came to find out where that plane went back to Holland. Newspapermen from Holland came to visit me to find out if it was true. Well, anyway, I didn't respect my orders that day but I still think I did the right thing. I was ordered to shoot down any aircraft, but I couldn't live with myself doing that. I believed that we should fight a war against soldiers; not civilians.
So I decreased my record by one.

Interviewer: What was the reason that Japanese pilots didn't use parachutes?
Saburo Sakai: The non-usage of parachutes has nothing to do with the Samurai code. If that is true it's foolish version of that Samurai code. In a war you fight in order to win; not to die. I said to my men, "I will not permit you to commit suicide." We came here to fight with Americans. Stay alive and come back. That was what I trained and that was the reason why some of my superiors didn't like me. But because of this many of my men survived the war.
Of course I would use a parachute. What is the purpose but to come to the battle - not to commit suicide but to fight. A human being, an individual can live only once, so you should live as long as you could. When you die you can do nothing for your country. If you become captive, the other side that captured you must protect you. There is opportunity to escape and in the future you may be able to come back to your side. You should try to survive as long as you can.
I have a shrine - I pray for the pilots: there are many who shouldn't have died so young.
Those who died were rewarded, but survivors were not recognized.

Interviewer: Can you tell me the story of the belt buckle given to you at Rabaul by Sasai?
Saburo Sakai: I was leaving Rabaul - I had to go back to the hospital, so Sasai-san took this out of his belt and gave it to me. In Japan it is said that at tiger will travel 1,000 leagues (4,000 kilometers) and will come back. Sasai-san said, "Please go back to Japan (which is 4,000 kilometers away) and please come back to Rabaul." That was his intention. But he died in Rabaul, on my birthday. He's still there.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Claimed victories to real losses?

As you become more educated here you'll learn that there is much discussion about claims vs. actual kills. It is well know that ALL sides overclaimed aerial victories

Against rookie pilots sent on one-way missions? While often having overwhelming numerical and tactical superiority?

Not always the case - look at the F4U's operational record when it first saw combat - the first squadrons who flew it encountered some excellent pilots from both the IJN and JAAF.

No, it's not obvious which plane was a better dogfighter.

The F4U had the better war record and could out maneuver the Zero in certain tactical situations but the important points are pilot skill and training and eventually the allied forces fielded both.