Japanese aviation if aircrew survival was a priority

Barrett said:

I was secretary of the aces assn. when Kawato appeared in the US. Eventually we queried the Zero Fighter Pilots Assn because Kawato's claims were um suspect. It was a Big to Huge Deal when the Japanese said, IIRC, "Masajiro Kawato is no longer Japan's disgrace. Now he is America's disgrace."

Henry Sakaida of honored memory investigated as well, found that K was in fact at Rabaul but was so junior that he seldom flew. He was shot down an captured by the Aussies, and Henry's spadework showed that he sang like the proverbial canary.

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I have a lot of sympathy for Mike Kawato. His bad rep is because he surrendered before the end of the war. He almost certainly did sing like a canary because the IJN failed to train soldiers on how to resist interrogation. In fact, the only instruction they received was to die rather than surrender. In the event that one is ever captured, they have no further instructions. So when a teen boy from an authoritarian regime in a malarial delerium breaks down under questioning, we should all have a lot of sympathy.

The part that bothers me the most about him is his claim on Pappy. As Sakaida would say, Kawato was a glory hound who unashamedly made up large parts of his wartime record. The truth remains that he was flying top-cover the day Boyington got shot down.

A common characteristic between several Japanese men who were born in 1925 I know, like Kawato or Yukio Mishima or my father, was that their war did not end until they died. Mishima posed a muscle nationalist in the postwar but he could not even join the military during the war because of his inferior physique. My father ordered his sons not to drink Coca Cola.

I couldn't live in a world without Coca-Cola.

If the Japan's disgrace was said by Kawato himself, it would be a good excuse for him to stay in the US.
He served in JASDF for almost 30 years with final rank as Officer. Who would mind his career as POW when there were many such guys.
Interesting guy.

JASDF General Kimio Hisamatsu came across Masajiro Kawato at the Stead Airfield in Reno on September 14, 1985.
Hisamatsu did not know Kawato's war did not end yet.
Remembering my father, I feel great sympathy for Kawato.
Sad.

Kawato and Hisamatsu

Source: Aviation History of WW2 (Ikuhiko Hata, 1986)

Admiral Beez said:

Many IJN and IJAF combat aircraft had little protection of the aircrew and the IJN seemingly had no SAR plan for recovering pilots. How would Japan's aircraft and doctrine have to change if keeping their difficult to replace aircrews alive was a priority?

Things the RAF had for example, armoured glass and cockpit, seal sealing fuel tanks, parachutes. There's also rescue beacons, like https://picclick.co.uk/Wwii-Raf-Spitfire-Pilots-Maewest-Emergency-Sea-266182948931.html, plus inflatable rafts and rescue flares. Rescue buoys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_buoy_(Luftwaffe) likely won't work in the open expanse of the Pacific, but perhaps closer to known air routes? And then there's the means to search for and collect the aircrews - those at sea can rely on Japan's flying boats.

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This is an old thread but I'll add that in addition to the rescue aids mentioned above, there was the "Gibson Girl" emergency life raft transmitter that could be used to summon SAR, even in the vast Pacific. It transmitted on 500 kHz and broadcast an automatic SOS or it could be Morse code keyed by a button on the front panel. The whole thing was powered by a hand- cranked generator.