Japanese Versus American Victory Claims (8 Viewers)

[andrewgeorge]

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).

That's what I had in mind when I said losses were sometimes appalling even in the first year of the war. Actions like Santa Cruz or the attack on Lexington off Rabaul even earlier in the war. At least at Santa Cruz the attack and bomber pilots dished it out while getting mauled.

I'm not even sure I'd call Santa Cruz really a victory—I mean, I guess strictly speaking the American fleet lost more ships and retired from the engagement zone. But it was in support of an offensive on Guadalcanal that failed horribly, so the Japanese didn't end up really accomplishing any operational objective.

 

[Frog]

That's what I had in mind when I said losses were sometimes appalling even in the first year of the war. Actions like Santa Cruz or the attack on Lexington off Rabaul even earlier in the war. At least at Santa Cruz the attack and bomber pilots dished it out while getting mauled.

I'm not even sure I'd call Santa Cruz really a victory—I mean, I guess strictly speaking the American fleet lost more ships and retired from the engagement zone. But it was in support of an offensive on Guadalcanal that failed horribly, so the Japanese didn't end up really accomplishing any operational objective.

At least a tactical victory : the damaged Enterprise had to have been jury rigged and for a little span of time, the only flat top (temporarily) on stage was japanese.
But the dire outcome was to come later.
To sum up :
- the core of carriers were lost at Midway ;
- the core of pilots/crewmen was lost at Santa Cruz.

 

[andrewgeorge]

At least a tactical victory : the damaged Enterprise had to have been jury rigged and for a little span of time, the only flat top (temporarily) on stage was japanese.
But the dire outcome was to come later.
To sum up :
- the core of carriers were lost at Midway ;
- the core of pilots/crewmen was lost at Santa Cruz.

That's probably a fair shorthand. Attrition kept Japanese carrier air groups from ever really fully reconstituting their skilled aircrews over 1943-1944 as well. There weren't many shipboard combat deployments since the allies were largely on the offensive. And yet, every time additional air power was needed in the Southeast Area (every few months), a carrier division's air groups would deploy temporarily down to the South Pacific from Truk, where they would incur additional losses which prolonged the rebuilding.

By the time you got to Philippine Sea, most carrier aircrew simply didn't have the training and experience to be very combat effective, and so the US Navy (with all of its other material advantages—numbers of aircraft, numbers of ships, radar-directed intercept, radar fire control, etc) simply chewed them up.

 

[GregP]

So much about aviation is covered incorrectly in the media that AI tends to retrieve the incorrect stuff as gospel. I've spent a lifetime around aircraft / aviation. Hardly any media civerage about aviation is anywhere near true. Quite a few of the books used as references by AI are nothing more than collections of stories with the attendant embellishment that always creeps in when stories are told.

When I have used AI to get things about WWII aviation, it is about 40-60% accurate if I'm lucky. Many times I'm not so lucky. AI doesn't sift through text for accuracy; it sifts for published contant regardless of accuracy. It basically outputs what it finds written in text that is avaiable for perusal.

It's kind of like a self-driving car. The "goodness" of the AI driver is completely dependent upon the programmer or team that writes the software, and they're only as good as the things they anticipate might happen in traffic. If anything happens they have not anticipated, the result is a toss up as to whether or not the response is good. Witness the stupid things done by self-driving taxis fairly recently.

 

[Irregualr23]

So much about aviation is covered incorrectly in the media that AI tends to retrieve the incorrect stuff as gospel. I've spent a lifetime around aircraft / aviation. Hardly any media civerage about aviation is anywhere near true. Quite a few of the books used as references by AI are nothing more than collections of stories with the attendant embellishment that always creeps in when stories are told.

When I have used AI to get things about WWII aviation, it is about 40-60% accurate if I'm lucky. Many times I'm not so lucky. AI doesn't sift through text for accuracy; it sifts for published contant regardless of accuracy. It basically outputs what it finds written in text that is avaiable for perusal.

It's kind of like a self-driving car. The "goodness" of the AI driver is completely dependent upon the programmer or team that writes the software, and they're only as good as the things they anticipate might happen in traffic. If anything happens they have not anticipated, the result is a toss up as to whether or not the response is good. Witness the stupid things done by self-driving taxis fairly recently.

Free AI tools simply tend to make up stuff, using sota model and anything above gpt5.6 and fable5 mostly get rid off the hallucination you see in older models, and they are very useful for going over large quantities of images and ww2 orals in batches and always linking evidence with original source rather than make up any fact by their own.

AI is definitely doing better on reading and understanding context than those who doesn't understand what researcher's writing based on losses reported on each side rather than pure claims.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

S Squish I Irregualr23

Please take your argument elsewhere. The bickering and personal attacks you are making toward each other has a negative impact on everyone's forum experience.

You can both debate this topic in a civil manner without the sideshow.

 

[SaparotRob]

Sure, everyone gives AI a break but I make a teensy little mistake and then there's angry villagers with torches and pitchforks in my parking spot.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Sure, everyone gives AI a break but I make a teensy little mistake and then there's angry villagers with torches and pitchforks in my parking spot.

Could it be your "Club the Baby Seals!" bumper sticker?

 

[GrauGeist]

Could it be your "Club the Baby Seals!" bumper sticker?

Or the "Nuke the Whales" sticker...people are so uptight nowdays...

 

[SaparotRob]

I want to order an "I Chemtrails" bumper sticker.
BTW I did have an "I Nukes" Tee shirt back in the day. It was a birthday present.

 

[GrauGeist]

By the way, next time they get in your yard with torches and pitchforks, turn on the sprinklers.

It's always worked for me...

 

[andrewgeorge]

S Squish I Irregualr23

Please take your argument elsewhere. The bickering and personal attacks you are making toward each other has a negative impact on everyone's forum experience.

You can both debate this topic in a civil manner without the sideshow.

I agree re: civility, although I think there was some interesting information included in that exchange.

Squish's question about Neal Kearby's Medal of Honor engagement is a topic that has come up before I believe, and I think is worth keeping up. Just to paraphrase what was said:

As many people may know, 5th Air Force ace Neal Kearby claimed 6 Japanese fighters over Wewak on October 11, 1943. Supposedly, the six kills were confirmed by examination of the gun camera film. Kearby claimed 2 Zekes (model 21/22 type 0 navy fighter), 2 Hamps (model 32 type 0 navy fighter), and 2 Tonys (ki-61/type 3 army fighter). There's no record of any Japanese naval fighters over Wewak on that date, so probably the Zekes and Hamps were actually Oscars (ki-43/type 1 army fighter). Two other American pilots in the four ship flight claimed fighters as well--three Tonys. So 9 Japanese fighters total.

Dunn's work (and I believe the work of others too, I'm just mostly familiar with Dunn) shows Japanese army records note this exact engagement and that they even got the number of American fighters involved right (easier when it's only four). Except they note only two lost fighters shot down (an Oscar and a Tony) with another two damaged--one badly.

The question was whether this specific gun camera film still exists, and whether it could be examined to better understand how the 5th Air Force arrived at six confirmed kills for Kearby (when only four planes were damaged or shot down). As I understand it, the film definitely doesn't exist anymore. But if someone is aware of any intact gun camera footage from American fighter aircraft mission in which victories were confirmed, and which mission it was, it might be possible to get a better sense of what kind of camera evidence was actually considered sufficient to verify a shoot down. Over-claiming was practically ubiquitous, so there's a good chance whatever you're looking at is going to be from a mission in which "false" victories were awarded to fighter pilots.

For example, maybe a pilot lined up a enemy aircraft and gave it a bursts or two, thought he saw hits or fire or smoke, lost visual on the enemy, and later noticed a suspected crash site on water or land. He surmised it was the plane he shot at, and reported a victory. Let's say the enemy plane wasn't actually downed. Maybe no enemy planes were lost at all that day. What did the gun camera film show? Would visual confirmation of the enemy plane on film be sufficient to confirm the rest of the narrative? Or did the film need to actually show damage or destruction to the enemy aircraft? How often did gun cameras simply fail to record the action at all? Or produce film of such poor quality that it wasn't very helpful?

If anyone has any insights about this it would add to the topic I think.

 

[GregP]

Free AI tools simply tend to make up stuff, using sota model and anything above gpt5.6 and fable5 mostly get rid off the hallucination you see in older models, and they are very useful for going over large quantities of images and ww2 orals in batches and always linking evidence with original source rather than make up any fact by their own.

AI is definitely doing better on reading and understanding context than those who doesn't understand what researcher's writing based on losses reported on each side rather than pure claims.

Thanks for the Chatgpt info. Will have to try it.

Only informational and not a disagreement, but what makes you think loss reports are any more accurate than claims?

In many cases, they aren't even sure how many of some aircraft were built, accepted. and deployed (all separate numbers) much less how many were lost, and especially lost due to what cause. Just by way of example, go try to find an accurate number of Messerschmitt Bf 110s built. Can't do it. Many recrords were lost due to bomb damage late in the war. Wiki claims to know, but their number just follows the widely-accepted total. The actual records were lost.

Ditto Bf 109s. I have a list of werknumers allocated to the Bf 109 production program, but there is no objective evidence that all of them were assigned and built. To this day, there is no accurate number. What we hear is "somewhere around 32,000 - 34,000 units, with some saying wartime production was around 29,000. But nobody really knows since the records were lost.

Last, a thing nobody seems to talk about ... if YOU were a fighter pilot in WWII and your aircraft werre to be damaged, you'd likely do everything possible to convince the attacker that you were injured / dead and going down. So, you'd select rich mixture to produce a vapor trail and mimic an out-of-control, slow-rolling dive hoping he wouldn't follow you for more than a few thousand feet down before deciding he got you and break off and return to the mission / formation rather than follow all the way down and lose contact with his friends. People often don't take into account for real-life damage / escape situations. They think it is black and white. It isn't, by long shot.

I'm of the very strong opinion that most claims were made in good faith, and the inaccuracies are due more to modern people trying to decide what a "kill" was rather than the simple definition of ... shot out of the fight equals a "kill", whether or not it crash landed and the airplane was maube recovered and flew again or not. Either way, he was shot out of the fight. The guy who did it should get an awarded kiill for it.

If that doesn't hold up, then nobody would escort bombers to the target and back. Instead, they'd follow their first and any subsequent "kills" down to the ground and strafe them until tyey were sure of complete destruction. The bombers would wind up unescorted.

Al least, it seems that way to me.

As with EPA mileage, you opinion may vary. And that, too, is OK.

Cheers to you.

Cheers.

 

[andrewgeorge]

Thanks for the Chatgpt info. Will have to try it.

Only informational and not a disagreement, but what makes you think loss reports are any more accurate than claims?

Because the people documenting the losses knew for a fact (or did within a few days) how many planes returned from sortie and how many were damaged and how badly. They didn't necessarily know what happened to those planes or pilots, but they knew the planes were lost. That assessment wasn't impaired by g-forces or split second glimpses or adrenaline or rain squalls and cloud cover or 10 different urgent things all happening at once in a life and death situation.

Plus there's no incentive to fudge the actual number of your aircraft and aircrew losses—you need reinforcements and replacements!

Pilots and gunners in air combat had to assess in real time with all of the impairments I just mentioned, and more. Plus all of the various visually deceptive signals that you mentioned in your comment! The other guy's engine suddenly spews exhaust—smoke! it's on fire! The other guy wildly rolls and dives for the deck—maybe capped the pilot, he went in for sure! I see something hit the ground/water—most likely the plane I'm pretty sure I got good hits on with my first pass!

Plus the incentives are to be as optimistic as possible. It's good for morale, good for your career, good for your confidence, good for your ego. And if you're a fighter jockey you probably have got a least a bit of an ego!

On the other hand, let's say I'm in charge of making entries in the operational log for a fighter group. We sent up 25 fighters from a couple different squadrons, and 22 returned. One of those crash landed on the runway. Another 4 had varying degrees of damage. Pilots returning report seeing one of our planes that didn't return shot down. The other two planes no one knows. So I put in we had 4 damaged, one write-off on crash landing, two lost for operational/unknown reasons, and one maybe shot down or maybe also lost for operational/unknown reasons.

Maybe two days later one of the missing pilots shows up—he force landed at a different airstrip. His fighter was a write-off. I record that, and probably amend the record. The other plane is still lost for unknown reasons.

We need replacements for the four fighters we've lost. Command needs to know what our current available air strength is. The only thing I'm unsure about is what exactly happened to some of our lost planes, but I'm not confused about the fact they didn't come back.

Now it could be those records were lost or deliberately destroyed in retreat or at the end of the war. And so all we have to go on for evidence of an action is the other side's aircrew reports. But given that in most situations where loss records do exist they tend to reveal aircrew reports as overly optimistic, I think it's fair even in that circumstance to take the reported results with a grain of salt.