For example, you mention that the sdsole resistance was the 202nd Kokutai. This is not the case, In fact an analysis of just one airfield in the area, Babo (at the end of the VogelKop peninsula), reveals the presence of the following units at various times
Japanese Units Based At Babo
202nd Kokutai (formally 3rd Kokutai - Zeros) early 1943 - March 1944
311th Hikotai of the 153 Kokutai - (A6M3-5 Zeros)
753rd 732nd Kokutai - Betty (possibly based)
JAAF 7th Air Division
61st Sentai (Ki-49 Helen)
24th Sentai, 1st Chutai (Ki-43-II Oscar) Sumatra May 1943 to Dagua
34th Sentai (Ki-48 Lily) 1943
59th Sentai (Ki-43-II detachment) Malang 3-43 - 4-43 to But maybe longer
70th 73rd Dokuritsu Chutai (Ki-45 Nick)
45th Sentai (Ki-45 Nick) 16 arrive February 19, 1944 to Wakde
75th Sentai (Ki-48 Lily)
25th Special Base Unit (Betty Topsy Transports)
I am suspecting that the losses you are quoting are just those that relate to the 202nd, when in fact there were a lot of other units in the area. If there were a lot of other formations, it follows that there were a lot of other losses as well.
Determining Jap losses is an extremely difficult affair...
Babo is in Irian Jaya, ie. western New Guinea in the then Dutch East Indies. The raids to the Darwin area were flown from Timor, only place within reach of the Darwin area by even the long legged Japanese single engine fighters. There was more than one thing going on, elements of the 202nd were also used in Western NG before and after the Darwin operations.
But I'm not assuming the 202nd was the only fighter unit involved over Darwin or by some extension claiming it was the only one anywhere in the Dutch East Indies. I'm quoting specific Japanese descriptions of each Darwin raid, which specifically say it provided the escort, giving the number of planes in each case, on the specific dates in my summary above except one, the JNAF raids. That other raid, June 20 1943, was by the JAAF, escorted by the 59th Sentai, lost 1 'Oscar'. Altogether those include each date on which the Darwin Spits recorded combats with Japanese fighters (they intercepted unescorted recon a/c etc on some other days). Neither the Navy nor Army say they did any of those missions jointly (w/ exception of 202nd's escort of Army 70th Ind Chutai 'Dinahs' in Sep '43) and they very rarely did, so no plausible reason to assume that.
Most of the other units you mentioned were not fighters. I did mention the losses of non-fighters over Darwin in the list. The 753rd AG was the 'Betty' unit in the Navy raids, the 61st and 76th Sentai's provided the bombers on the Army's single escorted raid.
Of the other fighter units you listed:
24th Sentai: defensive duty in Sumatra, then action v 5th AF in Western NG (where Dagua is), no battle credit for Darwin, which 59th did get, see Hata/Izawa "Japanese Army..." pgs. 125 and 154.
Ki-45 units: the Spits didn't claim to encounter any twin engine fighters
153 Kokutai: was an E13A 'Jake' recon seaplane unit for at least most of its existence, the pacificwrecks.com site where that list came may have that wrong, anyway 202nd was the Navy fighter unit in Timor escorting Navy raids on Darwin.
The other fighter unit in the immediate area was the 934 Kokutai, Type 2 Float Fighters (A6M2-N 'float Zero' or 'Rufe') which engaged Beaufighters in defensive fighter-fighter missions on a number of occasions in that period but didn't meet Spits.
I don't see any good reason so far to doubt that the 202nd AG (and 59th Sentai on that one occasion) were the only fighter units met by Spits over Darwin. I think the best course for further learning about the Japanese side of things is to read the sources mentioned above which give that info. Fresh eyes so to speak on that might lead to more convincing arguments why to doubt the basic completeness of those accounts. Or alternatively positive evidence of other Japanese losses or involvement by other units would be more convincing.
Now, in my frank opinion, doubt about the completeness of those Japanese losses mainly, though implicitly, rests on the idea the Spits couldn't have overclaimed that much. But plenty of WWII fighter units overclaimed that much and more, including Brit/CW ones in some other cases, and certainly the Japanese did; in this case 202nd and 59th were credited with around 110 Spits v 31 (or perhaps fewer) actually downed.
On Spit losses, I just quoted Price to give general picture of claims and losses on each side, my main point was the Japanese fighter losses, which I cross referenced a few other places. He has 31 ostensible Spit combat losses, plus other non-combat ones on combat missions. I'm sure "Soleil" throws more light on that, very detailed on both sides; so far I just skimmed through for new info on Japanese stuff. Might be worth remembering though, we're assuming all the Japanese losses were due to combat. Their accounts don't actually say *that*.
Joe
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