dive pics of Zero shot down off Roi...

[corsairfreak]

Hi all,

here's a link to a spot where there's 13 pics of a Japanese Zero, shot down off Roi (Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands) during the battle for the atoll. These are dive pics I shot in Nov. 2005...

Untitled Document

I have a total of 21 or so pics of this wreck, and I'm looking for a place to store them on the internet so I can post some links to the pics here. I'll get that done as soon as I can.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Wildcat]

 

[Gnomey]

Cool!

 

[evangilder]

Wow, great stuff! Have you approached the guys that run the Pacific Wrecks website?

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

nice

 

[R-2800]

cool! sad that it's back is broken

 

[timshatz]

Great shots.

Did the pilot get out?

 

[syscom3]

This is great!

 

[corsairfreak]

To answer some questions...

the pilot didn't get out...there's some human bones in the cockpit area, which makes this a gravesite. Interesting that they're still there after all these years in seawater.

I've emailed Pacific Wrecks.com, but as yet no reply.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Wayne Little]

Great set of shots corsairfreak.

 

[T-6]

There is a data plate in the cockpit on the left side above the throttle quadrant. Is there some way you could get a serial number from it? It will also be painted, in Black if made by Mitsubishi or Silver if made by Nakajima, on any removable part e.g. inside the left side of the tail cone surrounding the tailwheel, inside the fuselage gun covers, the spent cartridge chute on the underside of the wings or on the inside surface of the flaps. There would also be a stencil on the rear left fuselage just aft of the Hinomaru which would give the details of the aircraft's identity. I don't know if there was enough paint left for this to be readable.
This was an earlier Zero, definitley not a 52 since it has no exhaust stubs. It also does not have clipped wings thus ruling out the 32. That leaves only the 21 or 22. Most 22's had the long barrel cannon and all had aileron servo tabs. This example has neither making it a 21. The only question remaining is was it built by Mitsubishi or Nakajima and a serial number. Also, was there enough paint left on the tail to get a unit number? This would consist of a one or two character unit code followed by a hyphen and then a three digit aircraft code e.g. W1-151.
Nice photos, though.
Cheers,

 

[corsairfreak]

THANK YOU!! Great info breakdown as to why it's a Zero 21. I'm planning another dive trip to Roi in a couple of weeks, and I'll mention to my dive partners that we need to revisit the Zero wreck. I'll look in the locations that you specified for the data plates, and see if I can find/photograph anything.

Cheers!

Dan