Japanese Versus American Victory Claims (1 Viewer)

[Irregualr23]

Dunn's work contains a lot more citations and is a lot more in-depth. This is from keyword searching "ratio" in Southwest Pacific Air War.

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What I was referring was the recurring trend for researchers to put an aim first that " Allied overclaim was vast and the overall exchange ratio shall be 1:1 even", and based on biased statistics from different sources that are often not able to cover all combat units & losses types, draw the conclusion "Allied victory claims are wildly exaggerated, while Japanese claims are merely inaccurate" from flawed & bias method.

It is clear from this reference, Dunn directly used Japanese wartime propaganda number of 64 as the loss value and said "no reason for Japanese to downplay". Which is an extraordinary assumption, considering Japanese systematically doctor their losses & claim figures to the press after the battle of midway, and peaked at late 1944 which is known as the Daihon-ei Happyou. Using this number for the basis of research is unacceptable and definitely biased.

Further similar narrative done by Dunn can be seen as 193 American claims against 44 Japanese losses from 1–15 January 1944 alongside 170 F6F claims against 35 F6F losses from September–December 1943, then suggests the Hellcat was roughly breaking even with the Zero. He was comparing losses & claims from different times, based on captured Japanese telegram and assumed the overclaiming ratio was constant. One of the example would be the raid on Wake Island, where US claimed 30 A6M destroyed in the air, while actual loss for the Zeros were 18, with 6 Hellcat loss in exchange. Here the overclaim definetely exists, but not so exaggrated as been described in above mentioned works.

Those search narratives tended to draw conclusion first, and then find evidences. The result would be biased.

From the USSBS post-war interrogation and reconstruction, neither those 64 or 44 losses held valid for the Japanese. The true loss number to all causes was around 120 - 130 for Jan 1944, for IJNAF only.

Furthermore, as IJAAF systematically destroyed their loss records, most post-war figures were based on pure reconstruction by surviving docs and even pure memory, their accuracy as first-hand sources may be questionable.

 

[RCAFson]

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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It would help if you could provide dates for each of the combats you mention.


The seminal works to read about the Pacific naval airwar, are Lundstrom's First Team, two volume set and his Black Shoe Carrier Admiral volume.

 

[Squish]

Deleted.

 

[Irregualr23]

For instance the chart that you linked as somehow a refutation of Dunn's narrative is apparently from the same section of the US Strategic Bombing Survey that he cites in his book? Or are you using a different section of the US SBS that reports Japanese losses purely based on US claims?

If you've read Dunn's narratives you would immediately find his bias and trying to create the sense that Japanese fought evenly with Allied forces, both in combat results and in materials.

https://rldunn.com/grumman-hellcat/

In this work that I previously used as an example, other than that specific paragraph using illy prepared figure based on Japanese telegram of a different time period, bias and questionable narratives can be concluded as follows:

1. The perfromance figure as accepted by the BuAer, which showed 392mph on the conference, less optimistic value of 380mph was also often been used, but Dunn used rated power performance in his article, provided by some secondary conclusion. I don't believe someone prefessional as Dunn never read any materials from the BuAer.

2. He claimed pilots to obtain far less performance figure as published, and put it in the same level of performance with A6M's figure, without considering pilot was using rated power for testing (5-min limit for Military Power as noted by Prelinminary Handbook of early F6F-3) and with 20-knot pitot positional error uncorrected for. As a professional historian I don't believe he didn't know it, he probably hide the fact intentionally. According to Dean 'Diz' Laird who flew early F6F-3 during that time they waxed the airplane and obtained higher top speed than published. If one would write the similar article with the opposite bias, I would then choose VF-13's test that F6F would do 425-438mph to show how great F6F was, and hide the same instrument error from the audience.

3. He claimed that F6F pilots out-turning A6M been purely pilot's skill issue, igoring that VF-9 war diary pointed out to use combat flaps and also many other records happened around this time.

4. He selective quotes Japanese POW interrogation quotes that downplayed the threat of the Hellcat. Ignoring those widely accepted opinions in Imperial Japan about the threat made by the Hellcat, which can be found in IJAAF fighting doctrine and IJNAF doctrine as well as many interviews in USSBS.

5. He repeated the similar narratives to P-38, P-39 and many other Allied fighting machines in that theatre. There was a friend of mine who really believed in Dunn's narrative and quoted his research and turned out to be very wrong.

These may not referring to the specific work you've mentioned, but clearly shows the intellectual sleight-of-hand done by these researchers to manipulate opinions surrounding South Pacific combat, as you've said previously. And generally speaking, you can see the biased method exists in those researches.

 

[Squish]

Deleted.

 

[Squish]

Deleted.

 

[MIflyer]

I've said he omitted instrument error in his writing

Grumman said that the speed superiority of the F4U over the F6F was almost entirely due to the F4U instrumentation error.

On the other hand, Grumman used few flush rivets on the F6F on the basis that they were harder to install, weaker, and more costly than round head rivets.

 

[FulmenTheFinn]

Are you just shoving your argument through ChatGPT or some other LLM?

It's become a scourge on this site. I made a thread about it last week, and since then I've already seen a bunch of AI posts on this sub-forum alone, usually from the same repeat offenders, including an AI-generated YouTube video from an AI slop channel. It's a shame.

 

[Irregualr23]

Grumman said that the speed superiority of the F4U over the F6F was almost entirely due to the F4U instrumentation error.

On the other hand, Grumman used few flush rivets on the F6F on the basis that they were harder to install, weaker, and more costly than round head rivets.

That the F6F's speed been slower than F4U purely due to instrumentation error was given by Corky Meyer, which I personally believe only partially holds. It may be possible that the F4U tested by Grumman was not flown at its optimistic condition, just as the F6F flew by Vought was clocked to be somewhat slower than Grumman's best figure. The F4U was also experiencing instrumentation error in which the Corsair constantly indicating 10 knots below actual speed, while the Hellcat indicating 20 knots below it. Also, for performance figures to be published, all those instrument errors were to be corrected, so instruments error wasn't a problem for published figures, but it does affect pilots' sense of his speed and range calculation.

F4U's quality control was a problem and before been standardized to FG-1D by Goodyear, you can find F3A/FG-1/F4U to be ranging somewhere on par with F6F-3 to 30mph faster than F6F-3( for those tail-hook removed Corsair) .

The reason for F4U been faster is simple, it has 20 sqft smaller wing area and 20 sqft smaller horizontal tail surface, with a more compact fuselage give it way less wetted area, plus it has flush gun ports and faired gear bay (the Hellcat had protruding guns and landing gears partially unfaired), also the Hellcat's wing and tail were placed 1 and 3.5 deg higher than the Corsair's, relative to the thrust line. In many cases F4U's speed record was clocked at higher critical altitude which naturally yield better. However,the speed advantage at similar condition enjoyed by the Corsair wasn't that great, commonly to be 10-15mph faster than the Hellcat at the same altitude.

As for the rounded rivets at the rear fuselage of the Hellcat, it was visually linked with more friction but I do think F6F's general shape is cleaner than F4U and this also noted in NACA report 829, presumably caused by F4U's wing-duct.

F6F vs F4U is an interesting topics that've been lasting for at least 20 years on the internet since the HiTechcreation forum, and I think it is a topic worth digging out.

 

[andrewgeorge]

If you've read Dunn's narratives you would immediately find his bias and trying to create the sense that Japanese fought evenly with Allied forces, both in combat results and in materials.

I disagree entirely. I just finished his "South Pacific Air War" which you should check out sometime if you're interested in the subject.

He makes it clear the allies had a tremendous material advantage in almost every respect, and that almost every Japanese operation in the South Pacific in 1943-1944 ended in failure.

He also confirms that, yes, there was great deal of overclaiming by aircrews.

 

[andrewgeorge]

Just want to remind everyone to maintain a friendly tone. If someone is sharing information that you believe is wrong, it's an opportunity to correct the record and educate that user.

The use of AI chat applications to generate posts is annoying, but I'd hope everyone is open to learning something new!

 

[andrewgeorge]

Donald Blakeslee made ace flying Spitfires for the RCAF and RAF Eagle Squadron, then acquired 10 more victories flying for the USAAF in P-47s and P-51s.

Flying for the RAF's Eagle Squadron would be no different than flying for the Chinese American Volunteer Group.

England and China were allies of the U.S. flying legitimate combat missions against an enemy at war.

I guess I'm confused then. Blakeslee's RAF service was RAF service, not USAAF service. Boyington's AVG service was Chinese Air Force service, not USMC service.

I'm trying to understand why it's controversial for the military to treat their service in foreign air forces as such, rather than as part of their US military career?

 

[GrauGeist]

I guess I'm confused then. Blakeslee's RAF service was RAF service, not USAAF service. Boyington's AVG service was Chinese Air Force service, not USMC service.

I'm trying to understand why it's controversial for the military to treat their service in foreign air forces as such, rather than as part of their US military career?

Blakeslee was initially RCAF and then transferred to USAAF.

Regardless, an aerial victory remains with the pilot, not the organisation that they belong to.

Robin Olds shot down 12 enemy aircraft during WWII while with the USAAF. During Vietnam, he shot down 4 enemy aircraft while with the USAF, which was a separate branch of service. He is officially credited with 16 victories.

 

[andrewgeorge]

Dunn's narrative is largely that both sides over-claimed at more or less similar rates in aggregate but that the rate of over-claiming depends on the timeframe, theater, etc. There are multiple points in his book that he points this out.

Absolutely. He also is very transparent in trying to piece together which claims are likeliest to have been accurate, and propose explanations for erroneous or contradictory aircrew reports when possible, which I appreciate. I'm not sure how anyone could read the study (SPAW) referenced above and conclude there's any factual sleight of hand going on.

It's not always as compelling a narrative as it could be, and I think some of the larger arguments about the importance of air power in the South/Southwest Pacific campaigns could be fleshed out more and address the historiography more directly. But it's quite detailed and always crystal clear what sources he's working with.

I'm guessing some of the pushback is because this sort of work makes it clear that a lot of the long-established legends about the war simply weren't accurate. I mentioned earlier in this thread that one of the sacred cows is individual pilots' official combat records, but I think another, at least in aviation enthusiast circles, is the set of myths surrounding certain warplanes.

The idea that the P-38, F4U, and F6F were war-winning super weapons in the Pacific is one. I think what the recent research shows is that, yes, they were effective combat aircraft that had some very useful performance advantages over the mid-war fighters they complimented and/or replaced (P-40, P-39, F4F), but they didn't exactly turn the air war upside down either. That runs counter to the stories folks grew up hearing and reading. Hence the skepticism.

Speaking for myself, I find it clears up some problems that never made sense to me when I first read about air combat in the pacific war… e.g. "from what dimension were the famously undersized Japanese air forces magically producing all of these aircraft and pilots to be shot down day after day, month after month?"

It also creates a new shade of appreciation for the skill and courage of allied pilots who, even later in the war, were taking on a persistently dangerous foe who often gave as good as he got—or worse!

 

[GrauGeist]

Absolutely. He also is very transparent in trying to piece together which claims are likeliest to have been accurate, and propose explanations for erroneous or contradictory aircrew reports when possible, which I appreciate. I'm not sure how anyone could read the study (SPAW) referenced above and conclude there's any factual sleight of hand going on.

It's not always as compelling a narrative as it could be, and I think some of the larger arguments about the importance of air power in the South/Southwest Pacific campaigns could be fleshed out more and address the historiography more directly. But it's quite detailed and always crystal clear what sources he's working with.

I'm guessing some of the pushback is because this sort of work makes it clear that a lot of the long-established legends about the war simply weren't accurate. I mentioned earlier in this thread that one of the sacred cows is individual pilots' official combat records, but I think another, at least in aviation enthusiast circles, is the set of myths surrounding certain warplanes.

The idea that the P-38, F4U, and F6F were war-winning super weapons in the Pacific is one. I think what the recent research shows is that, yes, they were effective combat aircraft that had some very useful performance advantages over the mid-war fighters they complimented and/or replaced (P-40, P-39, F4F), but they didn't exactly turn the air war upside down either. That runs counter to the stories folks grew up hearing and reading. Hence the skepticism.

Speaking for myself, I find it clears up some problems that never made sense to me when I first read about air combat in the pacific war… e.g. "from what dimension were the famously undersized Japanese air forces magically producing all of these aircraft and pilots to be shot down day after day, week after week?"

It also creates a new shade of appreciation for the skill and courage of allied pilots who, even later in the war, were taking on a persistently dangerous foe who often gave as good as he got—or worse!

In light of this dissertation, one must ask: then why did Japan lose?

If the current sentiment is leaning toward "a persistently dangerous foe" then how is it that Allied air power (which is pointed out to be less than superior) was able to overcome the magnificent Imperial Japanese war machine?

 

[Greg Boeser]

How are your bombers faring?
Are they getting through to the target and safely home again?
One of the reasons the Japanese started using suicide planes is that their bombers were often not coming back anyway.

 

[Squish]

Deleted.

 

[andrewgeorge]

In light of this dissertation, one must ask: then why did Japan lose?

If the current sentiment is leaning toward "a persistently dangerous foe" then how is it that Allied air power (which is pointed out to be less than superior) was able to overcome the magnificent Imperial Japanese war machine?

Because the Allies had far larger, much better supplied, better equipped, and more effective air forces, naval forces, and land forces? Better intelligence? Better leadership?

All this new research points to is that allied fighter aircraft were not, in fact, consistently racking up extravagant kill ratios over Japanese planes in air battles, as contemporary U.S. claims would suggest. Allied fighters were still better than breaking even, and the exchange rate became more lopsided as the war moved into its final year and change when Japanese pilot quality really fell off a cliff.

 

[andrewgeorge]

How are your bombers faring?
Are they getting through to the target and safely home again?
One of the reasons the Japanese started using suicide planes is that their bombers were often not coming back anyway.

Japanese bomber and attack plane losses were often pretty appalling even in the first year of the war, especially during attacks on warships.

The Japanese concluded they needed something like a 3:1 to 5:1 ratio of fighter cover to bombers in order to execute daylight strikes in contested airspace. Lots of Japanese strike packages over the Solomons and New Guinea in 1943 featured 10 or fewer bombers plus dozens of fighters split between close cover duty and enemy fighter-hunting. Even still the losses were sometimes unsustainably high.

I'd attribute a lot of the extremely high loss rate to allied anti-aircraft capabilities and not just air superiority. Attacking an American task force by the last year of the war meant flying into radar directed guns firing proximity fuze rounds and literally hundreds of 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikon. It took a lot of training and skill to pull off accurate torpedo and dive bombing attacks even in more or less ideal conditions, let alone under that kind of fire. So not only did the losses become completely unsustainable, the results were fewer and fewer. By Formosa in October, 1944, you had some sizeable formations of Japanese attack planes and bombers achieving tactical surprise by approaching US carriers at low level below radar, and nevertheless incurring crippling and irreplaceable losses with only a handful of bomb and torpedo hits to show for it.

It figures kamikaze was an anti-ship tactic.

 

[Frog]

Japanese bomber and attack plane losses were often pretty appalling even in the first year of the war, especially during attacks on warships.

The Japanese concluded they needed something like a 3:1 to 5:1 ratio of fighter cover to bombers in order to execute daylight strikes in contested airspace. Lots of Japanese strike packages over the Solomons and New Guinea in 1943 featured 10 or fewer bombers plus dozens of fighters split between close cover duty and enemy fighter-hunting. Even still the losses were sometimes unsustainably high.

I'd attribute a lot of the extremely high loss rate to allied anti-aircraft capabilities and not just air superiority. Attacking an American task force by the last year of the war meant flying into radar directed guns firing proximity fuze rounds and literally hundreds of 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikon. It took a lot of training and skill to pull off accurate torpedo and dive bombing attacks even in more or less ideal conditions, let alone under that kind of fire. So not only did the losses become completely unsustainable, the results were fewer and fewer. By Formosa in October, 1944, you had some sizeable formations of Japanese attack planes and bombers achieving tactical surprise by approaching US carriers at low level below radar, and nevertheless incurring crippling and irreplaceable losses with only a handful of bomb and torpedo hits to show for it.

It figures kamikaze was an anti-ship tactic.

Not even the last year of the war :during the Santa Cruz Island battle (25–27 October 1942), even if tactically a japanese navy victory, they had to cope with an air defense they never saw before resulting with an appaling cost for the Kido Butai, in term of trained crewmen and pilots and above all of an invaluable veteran cadre loss (groups, squadrons and sections leaders).