Most valuable Carrier Fighter Of WWII

Peter Gunn · Sep 13, 2018

^^^ Couldn't agree more.

Also I'm outraged at this whole sham of a poll/thread... I don't see the mighty Buffalo listed ergo I declare this poll null and void.

Also also, I may kid from time to time about hijacking any thread to talk about the P-51 but that was not my intention earlier and it seems to have come close to derailing this fine thread, which still has a sham of a poll considering what's NOT on it...

michael rauls · Sep 13, 2018

buffnut453 said:
Gents,

Please understand I'm not suggesting that Swede wasn't a great pilot. Nor am I suggesting that his claims were incorrect. However, if contemporary Japanese sources indicate that 2 or 3 aircraft did return, then we shouldn't discount that.

As to the wingtip damage to Swede's aircraft, all that shows is that the SBD was damaged and suggests that the Japanese aircraft was also damaged. It does not necessarily prove that the Japanese aircraft was destroyed. Take a look at the image below. Any reasonable person seeing that amount of damage inflicted in combat would claim it as destroyed:

View attachment 509466

This is the Mitsubishi A5M of IJN pilot Kashimura Kan'ichi which collided with a P-36 over China in on 9 December 1937. Kashimura returned to base where this photo was taken as he came into complete a successful landing.

The world of aerial combat is messy and aircrew are making snap-judgments in split seconds. There were literally thousands of kill claims made for aircraft that issued a puff of smoke and dived away "out of control" when, in reality, those aircraft successfully returned to base. Very few crews watched their supposed kill dive into the ground/sea because that takes the eyes away from the battle and greatly increases the risk of being shot down themselves.

At the end of the day, we may never know whether or not Swede really did shoot down 3 A6Ms. Frankly, it's an irrelevant argument to his skill as a pilot which is unquestioned. I just wanted to point out that we can't keep relying on the same old tired excuses about "lack of records" or "Japanese aircraft were fragile" to explain every questionable claim by Allied airmen.

Good points. No well never know 100% for sure. I was trying to adress a claim by another poster that because one author said we dont have Japanese records corabarating these claims they did not happen as if that was the end of that if I can quote" they did not happen" and by extension that the record of the SBD was somehow uniquely to a much larger degree than other aircraft suspect.
If i can quote again " not overclaiming by 30 or 40 % but by a magnatude of 4 or 5 times" . So if we take that factor of overclaiming by 5 fold and work out the numbers outside of Swedes 3 claims, the Zero shot up and then colided with at Pearl harbor by an SBD witnesed by dozens that would leave a grand total of about 15 aircraft shot down by SBDs in the rest of the intire war.
I dont think anybody's( or at least verry verry few) are buying that.
Have more to say on the subject but have to run off to work.
Cheers

Shortround6 · Sep 13, 2018

The over claiming percentages or "factors" only work on large scale (hundreds if not thousands of claims) and trying to apply them to small scale actions gets absurd. For instance in a given action one side claims 6 aircraft shot down but actually only shot down 4, they over claimed by 50% or 1.5 to 1. If they claimed 6 but 3 made it back to base ( damaged/written off is another argument) then they over claimed by 100% or 2 to 1. with only 1 aircraft shifting from one column to the other, and so on, out of 6, 2 are shot down and 2 damaged but make it back now the they are overclaiming 200% or 3 to 1.
Overclaiming was sometimes for propaganda reasons (at a higher level than the pilots). see claims that Colin Kelly sank the battleship Haruna or that the British carrier Ark Royal was sunk about 4 times by the Germans.

Shortround6 · Sep 13, 2018

Peter Gunn said:
Also I'm outraged at this whole sham of a poll/thread... I don't see the mighty Buffalo listed ergo I declare this poll null and void.

as a technicality, the mighty Buffalo never flew into air combat from the deck of a carrier. It may have been designed as a carrier plane, It may have served on several US carriers when the US was not at war, It was on two carriers on Dec 7th but VMF-211 (?) is only on the Saratoga (in San Diego) for transport to Wake Island. VF-2 is on the Lexington. The Planes on the Saratoga wind up at Midway by Dec 25th.
VF-2 attacked a submarine on early Jan 1942 but by Jan 27th they are landed in Hawaii and replaced by F4F-3A Wildcats. And that is pretty much the career of the mighty Buffalo as a carrier fighter

fastmongrel · Sep 13, 2018

Almost every aircraft built during the war was shot down at least once.

Wether it was Bob Cheeseburger from Bedford Falls or Hans Von Duellingscar from Schwartzburg or (insert national stereotype here) nationality has no bearing on over claiming.

Peter Gunn · Sep 13, 2018

Shortround6 said:
as a technicality, the mighty Buffalo never flew into air combat from the deck of a carrier. It may have been designed as a carrier plane, It may have served on several US carriers when the US was not at war, It was on two carriers on Dec 7th but VMF-211 (?) is only on the Saratoga (in San Diego) for transport to Wake Island. VF-2 is on the Lexington. The Planes on the Saratoga wind up at Midway by Dec 25th.
VF-2 attacked a submarine on early Jan 1942 but by Jan 27th they are landed in Hawaii and replaced by F4F-3A Wildcats. And that is pretty much the career of the mighty Buffalo as a carrier fighter

Pfftt...

Details details...

buffnut453 · Sep 13, 2018

Peter Gunn said:
^^^ Couldn't agree more.

Also I'm outraged at this whole sham of a poll/thread... I don't see the mighty Buffalo listed ergo I declare this poll null and void.

Also also, I may kid from time to time about hijacking any thread to talk about the P-51 but that was not my intention earlier and it seems to have come close to derailing this fine thread, which still has a sham of a poll considering what's NOT on it...

Shortround6 said:
as a technicality, the mighty Buffalo never flew into air combat from the deck of a carrier. It may have been designed as a carrier plane, It may have served on several US carriers when the US was not at war, It was on two carriers on Dec 7th but VMF-211 (?) is only on the Saratoga (in San Diego) for transport to Wake Island. VF-2 is on the Lexington. The Planes on the Saratoga wind up at Midway by Dec 25th.
VF-2 attacked a submarine on early Jan 1942 but by Jan 27th they are landed in Hawaii and replaced by F4F-3A Wildcats. And that is pretty much the career of the mighty Buffalo as a carrier fighter

In fairness, I did suggest inclusion of the Buffalo (mighty or otherwise) in this list, but solely from the perspective of the impact it had on pushing Grumman to develop a better monoplane F4F. Without the Buffalo, it's entirely likely that the USN would have been saddled with another (slight) evolution to the F3F family with consequent later operational fielding of a modern monoplane fighter.

I freely admit that my suggestion was made ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek...but I've seen worse points made on this forum before now!

DarrenW · Sep 13, 2018

Peter Gunn said:
Also I'm outraged at this whole sham of a poll/thread... I don't see the mighty Buffalo listed ergo I declare this poll null and void.

Seriously, if the Bf 109T made the list than why not the Buffalo??????

Peter Gunn · Sep 13, 2018

DarrenW said:
Seriously, if the Bf 109T made the list than why not the Buffalo??????

Here Here!!! A man truly blessed with infinite wisdom.

CORSNING · Sep 13, 2018

Peter Gunn said:
Here Here!!! A man truly blessed with infinite wisdom.

RCAFson · Sep 13, 2018

michael rauls said:
Good points. No well never know 100% for sure. I was trying to adress a claim by another poster that because one author said we dont have Japanese records corabarating these claims they did not happen as if that was the end of that if I can quote" they did not happen" and by extension that the record of the SBD was somehow uniquely to a much larger degree than other aircraft suspect.
If i can quote again " not overclaiming by 30 or 40 % but by a magnatude of 4 or 5 times" . So if we take that factor of overclaiming by 5 fold and work out the numbers outside of Swedes 3 claims, the Zero shot up and then colided with at Pearl harbor by an SBD witnesed by dozens that would leave a grand total of about 15 aircraft shot down by SBDs in the rest of the intire war.
I dont think anybody's( or at least verry verry few) are buying that.
Have more to say on the subject but have to run off to work.
Cheers

I was discussing SBD kill claims against IJN fighters. Here's another example:
1 Feb 1942:

Fighting Six claimed five enemy aircraft shot down and a sixth destroyed on the ground: three fighters, one floatplane, and two twin-engine bombers. One twin-engine bomber was damaged and another probably destroyed. The squadron lost no F4Fs in combat, but seven returned with battle damage. One F4F and pilot were lost on takeoff, and two others damaged in flight accidents. The two dive bombing squadrons together claimed a total of six enemy fighters shot down over Roi and Taroa, for the loss of five SBDs (three to fighter attack). The total Enterprise plane losses, therefore, were six aircraft. The next day the group counted available for flight operations a total of fifty-six airplanes (fifteen fighters, twenty-three dive bombers, and all eighteen torpedo planes)...(p.76)

...Strangely, the Fighter Unit of the Chitose Air Group did not feel chastened at all. Although not pleased about the nasty surprise attack, they were celebrating too. The unit reported the destruction of seventeen American aircraft (including three probables) for the loss (at Taroa) of one fighter shot down and another badly damaged. At Roi, ten Type 96 fighters engaged the SBDs and claimed five shot down without any loss. During VF-6's strike on Taroa, ten Type 96 fighters were on CAP or managed to get aloft in time to fight. No Chitose pilots were killed, as Lieut. Kurakane survived his abrupt parachute descent and swim as a result of Rawie's ambush. Atake was much admired for his fighting spirit in ramming the Grumman. Against the second Taroa raid, five fighters intercepted, claiming one dive bomber without any loss in return, and on the third raid, three Chitose fighters were engaged, claiming five American planes, again without loss. Big scorer at Taroa was W.O. Wajima Yoshio, with three kills to his credit. (p.77)
(First Team Vol 1, p.76-77)

And this was SBDs versus A5M4s. The only IJN fighter shot down was by an F4F-3.

If we go by kill claims then the Spitfires crushed the IJNAF over Darwin and the Hurricanes did the same in Burma and Ceylon...

Overclaiming doesn't imply deceit on the part of the pilot, if just means that they made mistakes in the heat of combat. Often they made firing passes and observed what they thought were strikes and/or smoke from the targeted aircraft which then appeared to fall away, but the supposed strikes were probably just exhaust.

CORSNING · Sep 13, 2018

OK, I owe everyone an apology. As pinsog pointed out in his post #257
my language was out of line. Thank you for that pinsog. And RCAFson
I undid my DISLIKE rating on post #248. You were just trying to add
facts to the situation. So OK, lets think of it this way, if Swede managed
to keep three Zeros dancing in an SBD until they all broke off, that was
an amazing feat, PERIOD..and his aircraft deserves its due.

CORSNING · Sep 13, 2018

Elvis said:
Actually that was the Ferry speed @ 14K ft. http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/SBD-5_PD_-_August_6_1942.pdf
In the Scout role, it seems the best an SBD-5 could muster was 255 mph.
Most other variations are listed between 238 and 252 mph.
Nice reference site, though. New to me. Thanks for the heads up Corsning!

Elvis

Elvis,
If you look closer at the complete report you will see that the Scout version
is posted using NORMAL power which would be 900 hp. at 13,800 ft. The
scout version of the SBD-5 was fully capable of using military power at that
altitude, 1,000 hp. If you look closely at the speed curves on the graph, which
I have very carefully calculated, you will understand the true maximum speed
of the SBD-5 scout was over 260 mph using military power. The Ferry version's
260 mph. was at normal power.

GrauGeist · Sep 13, 2018

Somebody must have been doing something right during the battle of the Coral Sea, because even with surviving aircraft from the Shoho (sunk) and Shokaku (damaged, unable to launch or recover aircraft), the Zuikaku's air compliment was so depleted, she was not able to participate in the attack on Midway a month later.

Zuikaku's air compliment was comprised of 18 A6M2, 27 D3A1 and 27 B5N2.

special ed · Sep 13, 2018

Although just discovering this thread minutes ago, a couple of trivial comments please. Posts 18 and 19 comment of Martlet vs 109 near Norway. Wouldn't it be a surprise if it were
bf-109 T s involved? Posts 275-7 appear to be the work of Seabees. As for the lack of data for Japanese loss data, it appears even in China, loss identity is a mystery as one book on AVG shows a photo of a fighter which crashed on AVG field, AVG personnel onlookers, and the fin/rudder markings evident and the caption says " this aircraft from a unit not known here". The pilot I.D unknown post war. Finally, a member of our model airplane club was a rear gunner on SBD-s from the Enterprise. He often told us how maneuverable the bird was but never told of any aerial combat, however when not flying he manned a 20mm flexible along the carrier edge with other sailors and got time firing during Kamakazi attacks. His comments were any aircraft downed was impossible to attribute but he got plenty of practice leading the target which made him more confident in the air.

pinsog · Sep 13, 2018

GrauGeist said:
Somebody must have been doing something right during the battle of the Coral Sea, because even with surviving aircraft from the Shoho (sunk) and Shokaku (damaged, unable to launch or recover aircraft), the Zuikaku's air compliment was so depleted, she was not able to participate in the attack on Midway a month later.

Zuikaku's air compliment was comprised of 18 A6M2, 27 D3A1 and 27 B5N2.

Same thing happened during the Guadalcanal campaign when they damaged Enterprise and crippled Hornet. Even though Hornet was crippled (and eventually sunk by destroyers), there weren't a whole lot of Japanese aircrew left to celebrate. A hollow victory I would say.

Elvis · Sep 13, 2018

Shortround6 said:
as a technicality, the mighty Buffalo never flew into air combat from the deck of a carrier. It may have been designed as a carrier plane, It may have served on several US carriers when the US was not at war, It was on two carriers on Dec 7th but VMF-211 (?) is only on the Saratoga (in San Diego) for transport to Wake Island. VF-2 is on the Lexington. The Planes on the Saratoga wind up at Midway by Dec 25th.
VF-2 attacked a submarine on early Jan 1942 but by Jan 27th they are landed in Hawaii and replaced by F4F-3A Wildcats. And that is pretty much the career of the mighty Buffalo as a carrier fighter

...but wasn't the proverbial straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back and caused the Buffalo's (F2A-3's by that time, I believe) to be permanently side-lined, was when they participated in The Battle of Midway (...or maybe it was The Coral Sea) and were absolutely decimated?

Elvis

michael rauls · Sep 13, 2018

buffnut453 said:
Gents,

Please understand I'm not suggesting that Swede wasn't a great pilot. Nor am I suggesting that his claims were incorrect. However, if contemporary Japanese sources indicate that 2 or 3 aircraft did return, then we shouldn't discount that.

As to the wingtip damage to Swede's aircraft, all that shows is that the SBD was damaged and suggests that the Japanese aircraft was also damaged. It does not necessarily prove that the Japanese aircraft was destroyed. Take a look at the image below. Any reasonable person seeing that amount of damage inflicted in combat would claim it as destroyed:

View attachment 509466

This is the Mitsubishi A5M of IJN pilot Kashimura Kan'ichi which collided with a P-36 over China in on 9 December 1937. Kashimura returned to base where this photo was taken as he came in to complete a successful landing.

The world of aerial combat is messy and aircrew are making snap-judgments in split seconds. There were literally thousands of kill claims made for aircraft that issued a puff of smoke and dived away "out of control" when, in reality, those aircraft successfully returned to base. Very few crews watched their supposed kill dive into the ground/sea because that takes the eyes away from the battle and greatly increases the risk of being shot down themselves.

At the end of the day, we may never know whether or not Swede really did shoot down 3 A6Ms. Frankly, it's an irrelevant argument to his skill as a pilot which is unquestioned. I just wanted to point out that we can't keep relying on the same old tired excuses about "lack of records" or "the Japanese didn't report their own losses to save face" or "Japanese aircraft were fragile" to explain every questionable claim by Allied airmen.

I certainly agree with that. No, we'll never know 100% for sure.
Ultimately I think one can't discount 80% of the SBDs war record as was asserted( not by you, I know). That was my overriding point. Not sure how it ended up in this culdisac over Swede Vejtasas record other than questions over it being used by some to discount the SBDs record in general.
Yes, I do however, certainly agree that Japanese records, or anybodys records for that matter should not be just rejected out of hand only that, like claims, especially decades later, and considering the fog of war, they also, should be tacken with a grain of salt.
Respectfully, Michael Rauls

Shortround6 · Sep 13, 2018

It wouldn't have mattered if the Buffaloes shot down Japanese aircraft at the rate of 3 to 1 at Midway.
The US only had 43 F2A-2 and 108 F2A3s. All but 1 of the F2A-2 had been delivered by the end of Nov 1940. Production of the F2A3s started in July of 1941 and finished in Dec 1941. Export orders filled the factory between those times.
The only reason the Navy even ordered the 108 F2A-3s in Jan of 1941 was because of slow deliveries of the F4F. In Dec of 1941 some F2A-3s (only 9 built that month) went straight to training units.

The Navy had not used an F2A in a combat squadron since Feb of 1942 and the Marines had 3 squadrons/units equipped with them. One unit was at Palmyra Island which is around 800-1000 miles south south west of Hawaii.

It is fairly safe to say that had the Japanese not attacked when they did The Marines at midway would have seen the replacement of their F2A-3 in fairly short order, they were already flying a mixed squadron.

parsifal · Sep 13, 2018

, underpinning much of this argument is some basic arithmetic. Japan lost less than 35000 a/c to all causes to the western allies and about 5000 a/c to the Russians in the final days of the war. Within that 35000 are about 7000 captured after the ceasefire with the Americans, but still captured or destroyed because fighting was still occurring in other TOs that the western powers were not involved in. In total, the Japanese lots no more than 19000 a/c to operational causes, however more than half these were destroyed whilst on the ground, and a sizable chunk simply failed to return, presumed lost. Many were expended as Kamikazes and this usually meant unused Kamikazes simply dove into the sea.

Againt those cold facts, the US claims, even the corrected postwar ones are completely unreliable. They just don't add up. Cant add up.

At the end of the war the IJN submitted a memo to the compilers of the USSBS on known losses. it was disregarded, because the data that memo contained did not align with the claims data on which the USSBS eventually was based. And it is the USSBS on which much of the numbers being thrown around now as gospel are based. US members of this forum are unshakeable and immovable on this issue, no matter what level of disproving evidence is presented to them. ive done this so many times, before, its a waste of time to argue.

An example of the mathematical absurdity:

Warbirds and Airshows- WWII US Aircraft Victories

Most valuable Carrier Fighter Of WWII

Which Aircraft do you consider to be the most valuable carrier based fighter of WWII

Sea Gladiator

Dewoitine D376

Grumman F3F

Fairey Fulmar

Mitsuibishi A5M

Fairey Fulmar

Bf109T

Re2000

Re2001

Grumman F4F

Hawker Sea Hurricane

Mitsubishi A6M

Supermarine Seafire

Fairey Firefly

Grumman F6F

Vought F4U corsair

Other

Master Sergeant

Tech Sergeant

Major General

Major General

1st Sergeant

Master Sergeant

Captain

Staff Sergeant

Master Sergeant

Tech Sergeant

Master Sergeant

Tech Sergeant

Tech Sergeant

Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung

2nd Lieutenant

Tech Sergeant

Chief Master Sergeant

Tech Sergeant

Major General

Colonel

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