Japanese Versus American Victory Claims (2 Viewers)

[MIflyer]

From the book Operation KE, the authors Richard and Dennis Letourneau, point out something interesting.

Overclaiming of air to air kills is normal but during the period covered by the book, that of early 1943 when the Japanese were withdrawing from Guadalcanal, the Americans overall claimed two kills for every actual kill made.

In contrast, the Japanese, Army and Navy, claimed four kills for every actual kill made.

And when non-kill losses are taken into account, the actual number of kills claimed by US pilots is in reality an accurate estimate of enemy losses.

Consider the impact on morale of this situation. In the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe was assured that the raids of the day before had finished off the RAF, only to have the numbers of Spitfires and Hurricanes seemingly undiminished every day. On one occasion the RAF was indeed tapped out, with all units committed, but a lone WW1 pilot, station commander, attacked a formation headed for his base and they all jettisoned their bombs and ran for home. Of course in that case the the German bombers had missed meeting up with their fighter escort (German fighters and bombers could not talk to each other over the radio but occasionally RAF and German fighters were on the same frequency) and just knew they were going to get their arses well and truly kicked. The appearance of that one Hurricane was seen as conformation of this fear, since there surely had to be a hundred fighters right behind it.

With their massive overclaiming it must have seemed to the Japanese that the Americans had an inexhaustible supply of planes and pilots, which indeed they did, only just not right there and then.

And of course we know that many US aircraft hit by Japanese fire made it safely back to base. In contrast a USMC F4F pilot at the Canal was desperately trying to get the Zeros off a Admiral's PBY and just sprayed .50 cal at them to scare them off. It was years after the war that he found he had shot three Zeros down that day; they were only slightly damaged but in each case probably no more than a single .50 cal round had damaged an engine, punched through an oil line, and caused a fuel leak that prevented the Zeros from making it home.

 

[Shortround6]

In contrast, the Japanese, Army and Navy, claimed four kills for every actual kill made.

Japanese navy was claiming 10-11 US subs for every one actually sunk.
The US sub building yards must have been truly astonishing.
And why push for better AS weapons when you are so successful.

 

[MIflyer]

Japanese navy was claiming 10-11 US subs for every one actually sunk.

I read where some RN pilots met some German POWs and told them they were from the Arc Royal or some other RN carrier. The Germans insisted that was impossible, that they knew full well that carrier had been sunk many months before.

Of course even before Dec 1941 the RN carriers were pulling into US ports to get repaired and refit. On one occasion they got new US ship-to-air radios that were vastly superior to those used by the RN. If the Germans hit an RN carrier an then their air recon could not detect it in any port in the Med or in the UK, then they would have "known" with certainty that carrier was sunk.

After WW2 when IJN records became available, a number of leading US sub captains saw that there were Japanese ships they "knew" they had sunk in reality were not. They claimed the Japanese had lied in their own official records.

 

[andrewgeorge]

From the book Operation KE, the authors Richard and Dennis Letourneau, point out something interesting.

Overclaiming of air to air kills is normal but during the period covered by the book, that of early 1943 when the Japanese were withdrawing from Guadalcanal, the Americans overall claimed two kills for every actual kill made.

In contrast, the Japanese, Army and Navy, claimed four kills for every actual kill made.

And when non-kill losses are taken into account, the actual number of kills claimed by US pilots is in reality an accurate estimate of enemy losses.

Consider the impact on morale of this situation. In the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe was assured that the raids of the day before had finished off the RAF, only to have the numbers of Spitfires and Hurricanes seemingly undiminished every day. On one occasion the RAF was indeed tapped out, with all units committed, but a lone WW1 pilot, station commander, attacked a formation headed for his base and they all jettisoned their bombs and ran for home. Of course in that case the the German bombers had missed meeting up with their fighter escort (German fighters and bombers could not talk to each other over the radio but occasionally RAF and German fighters were on the same frequency) and just knew they were going to get their arses well and truly kicked. The appearance of that one Hurricane was seen as conformation of this fear, since there surely had to be a hundred fighters right behind it.

With their massive overclaiming it must have seemed to the Japanese that the Americans had an inexhaustible supply of planes and pilots, which indeed they did, only just not right there and then.

And of course we know that many US aircraft hit by Japanese fire made it safely back to base. In contrast a USMC F4F pilot at the Canal was desperately trying to get the Zeros off a Admiral's PBY and just sprayed .50 cal at them to scare them off. It was years after the war that he found he had shot three Zeros down that day; they were only slightly damaged but in each case probably no more than a single .50 cal round had damaged an engine, punched through an oil line, and caused a fuel leak that prevented the Zeros from making it home.

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From what I've read, 2:1 and 4:1 overclaiming are actually fairly sober ratios for American and Japanese fighter pilots during the South Pacific campaign.

Michael Claringbould's work suggests it was closer to 4:1 and 5:1 respectively over the course of the whole air campaign from 1942-1944.

Your point about the apparently inexhaustible supply of enemy planes and men is interesting. The Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders obviously wouldn't have been able to sustain the kind of air losses the Japanese fighter pilots were claiming, and quadruple so for the Japanese. Bruce Gamble's Rabaul books are interesting—turns out there were rarely more than 100 Japanese fighters in Rabaul and the Solomons at any given time (except when carrier air groups were detached for specific offensives). Kenney's Fifth Air Force was claiming like 30, 40, 50+ confirmed kills every time they hit Rabaul in the fall of 1943. The impression is that Kenney was well-aware that his claims were probably fantastical, but the positive publicity was more important.

And things got kicked into overdrive during the "Ace Race" after single-engine allied fighters started operating from Bougainville (within range of Rabaul). Boyington was the master of the bogus "confirmed kill" on the way back to base from a sortie that no one else was around to see.

 

[Irregualr23]

A recurring tendency among some historians sympathetic to the Japanese side is to count only the recorded losses of selected IJNAF units, overlooking the possible involvement of other units, including nearby IJAAF units. Some also count only Japanese pilot losses as the loss number while including all U.S. aircraft losses, even subsequent write-offs for the U.S. loss figure. Such inconsistent criteria can exaggerate the apparent extent of U.S. overclaiming and distort assessments of the actual loss ratio. U.S. overclaiming was a real issue, but its extent cannot be reliably judged through unequal comparisons. Admittedly, reconstructing losses for every Japanese unit is extremely difficult, given the incomplete surviving records and the destruction of many documents before the war ended. Nevertheless, missing records should be treated as a source of uncertainty, not as evidence that no losses occurred.

 

[andrewgeorge]

A recurring tendency among some historians sympathetic to the Japanese side is to count only the recorded losses of selected IJNAF units, overlooking the possible involvement of other units, including nearby IJAAF units. Some also count only Japanese pilot losses as the loss number while including all U.S. aircraft losses, even subsequent write-offs for the U.S. loss figure. Such inconsistent criteria can exaggerate the apparent extent of U.S. overclaiming and distort assessments of the actual loss ratio. U.S. overclaiming was a real issue, but its extent cannot be reliably judged through unequal comparisons. Admittedly, reconstructing losses for every Japanese unit is extremely difficult, given the incomplete surviving records and the destruction of many documents before the war ended. Nevertheless, missing records should be treated as a source of uncertainty, not as evidence that no losses occurred.

Hmm, I can't say I agree with the characterization of these researchers as being sympathetic to the Japanese side…. They do work with Japanese military sources, but that's generally where the "sympathy" ends.

You'll have to give me an example of what you mean with respect to bailouts or crash landings not being counted as aircraft losses and given as examples of overclaiming. That would be an extremely strange methodology and I certainly don't recall anyone I've read tallying up American and Japanese operational reports that way. If anything I think the tendency of most folks doing this research is to try to find as much credible evidence for the aviators' claims as possible—after all, the pilots were usually the only first-hand witnesses. If no planes were actually lost in an engagement but some were indeed shot up, or a pilot reports a particular evasive maneuver that might explain an enemy pilot's victory claim, that's almost always highlighted.

As for records, I'm sure incomplete records account for some claims here and there, but it wouldn't make much of a dent in the overall pattern I don't think. Over the course of months of engagements we'd be talking about hundreds and hundreds of aircraft and aircrew that are simply not accounted for in any of the military administrative documents, including records with are otherwise relatively complete, which I find implausible.

 

[Jobbin02]

A recurring tendency among some historians sympathetic to the Japanese side is to count only the recorded losses of selected IJNAF units, overlooking the possible involvement of other units, including nearby IJAAF units.

Any examples?

Some also count only Japanese pilot losses as the loss number while including all U.S. aircraft losses, even subsequent write-offs for the U.S. loss figure.

Again, any examples in particular?

 

[MIflyer]

In the book Intrepid Airmen, about the USS Intrepid one TBF crew came down after attacking the IJN Mushashi near the PI. They were rescued by guerrilla forces and during their travel across one of the larger PI islands encountered some Ki-61 that seemed to have gotten lost and bellied in out of gas. The pilots were immediately captured by PI guerrillas. It was obvious that they were not going to survive the experience. The Japanese may have "owned" the PI but most areas of the islands were only occasionally under their control.

I recall someone claiming that the Germans counted a loss only when airplane was lost and the pilot did not survive. That is hard to believe.

On the other hand, Goering was quoted as saying that one of the Luftwaffe's biggest problems was that "German pilots want to sleep in their own bed at night." He said that too many German fighters hit in combat crashed and were lost because the pilots chose not to land their damaged aircraft at the first available base but make it all the way back to their home field. I guess that would also apply to pilots that chose not to bail out and tried to nurse their aircraft back to base.

In contrast, during the BoB RAF pilots seemed to have no problem setting down anywhere and then catching a train or whatever transport available back to base.

 

[Squish]

There are a couple of authors that more or less support the conclusion about American vs Japanese over-claiming.

Michael Claringbould basically puts the loss ration for US to IJA at around 1:1 and points out that it is far less than what American pilots claimed.

Richard Dunn also has very similar conclusions in his book South Pacific Air War.

I went down this rabbit hole a little while ago and even reached out to Justin Pyke regarding the methodology employed by Dunn + Claringbould and he basically related that there is no real reason to doubt their research or doubt that Japanese records were doctored at the time.

 

[andrewgeorge]

There are a couple of authors that more or less support the conclusion about American vs Japanese over-claiming.

Michael Claringbould basically puts the loss ration for US to IJA at around 1:1 and points out that it is far less than what American pilots claimed.

Richard Dunn also has very similar conclusions in his book South Pacific Air War.

I went down this rabbit hole a little while ago and even reached out to Justin Pyke regarding the methodology employed by Dunn + Claringbould and he basically related that there is no real reason to doubt their research or doubt that Japanese records were doctored at the time.

Thanks for this summary!

I'd just add that they of course dispel any illusions about the veracity of recorded Japanese claims as well. I think thats probably just less surprising because the Japanese records didn't form the basis for 50 years of popular history about the war.

Also, probably doesn't need to be said, but records of your own side's aircrew and aircraft losses are almost always going to be as accurate as feasible—if you're the C.O. of an air group that's suffering major attrition, you don't want to fudge that. You need supplies and equipment and reinforcements! If you're worried about your reputation, or don't want to admit failures, you're gonna be more inclined to punch up the numbers of the *enemy's* supposed losses to show you gave better than you got.