The real combat history of the Ki-43 (3 Viewers)

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Why is the P-40 limited to 44" MAP?
 
Make the gamer attach his gaming chair to a centerfuge so he can really experience what 9 Gs feels like.
 
Greg Boeser said:
Make the gamer attach his gaming chair to a centerfuge so he can really experience what 9 Gs feels like.
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Well, with no G suit the gamer is lucky to stay conscious at 5 Gs.
The real pilots, who were young fit men (at least to start), not couch potatoes, had a number of other things to contend with, In the South Pacific they might be suffering from malaria and/or dysentery. (take Ex-lax several hours before gaming session).
Gamers could also put the gaming station in an unheated garage and try to play in heavy coats/gloves and boots and partially obscured goggles for winter combat and in shirt sleeves in 105 degree heat (with no fan) and leather helmet, earphones and googles (fogged) for summer/tropical combat
 

I remember in interviews some 75 RAAF Sqn pilots recounted having to blouse their pants into their boots to 'collect' the diarrhea so it wouldn't get all over the rudder pedals, and many at the same time were also having to take off their O2 mask to vomit. One pilot vividly described the feeling of suddenly diving from 20,000' to near sea level (in peril of his life) while experiencing intense abdominal cramps and nausea... didn't sound fun.
 
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Greg Boeser said:
Make the gamer attach his gaming chair to a centerfuge so he can really experience what 9 Gs feels like.
Click to expand...
That stopped me from continuing my initial flying course. Not a centrifuge, but my sea(air)sickness returned. I struggled with it and adapted during my sea career. 18 years later and with 12 years of airsim "flying" I signed up for the flying course, very excited... only to realise that I have to go through all the adaptation to motion sickness again and to pay for it - instead of being paid! So I returned to my airsim chair. Maybe I'll try again - when I get younger.
 

The inaccurate guns, tougher planes, fires going out, and lack of any real time information on what you hit or didn't would be instructive. Help armchair military aircraft enthusiasts like myself better understand overclaiming.

"Man, I'm sure I got like 3 or 4 of them!"

Post-sortie debrief: 2 hits, 0 aircraft destroyed.
 

I know Boyington claimed he ran into Tojos over Rabaul in December 43/january 44. As far as I know there would have only been IJN A6Ms there at the time in terms of single engine fighters.
 
andrewgeorge said:
I know Boyington claimed he ran into Tojos over Rabaul in December 43/january 44. As far as I know there would have only been IJN A6Ms there at the time in terms of single engine fighters.
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From December 1942 through 1944, the IJA operated KI-43, KI-61 and KI-45 types as well as bombers and recon aircraft from Rabaul.
The Sentais were the 11th, 24th, 68th and 78th of the 14th Air Brigade of the 6th Air Division.

When the 4th Air Army took over operations from the 6th Air Division (and the 7th in New Guinea) in mid-1943, it was headquartered on Rabaul.

It's *possible* that a KI-44 may have been encountered, but if some were operating in the area, there doesn't seem to be any official record of it.

The KI-44 was first tested in Saigon and then used mostly in the Philippines, Okinawa and Home Island defense.

I honestly don't think Boynton encountered a Shoki.
 

I hadn't heard about testing in Saigon. I do know 9 pre/early production airframes formed the 47th Independent Chutai and saw operational use over Malaya and Singapore in Dec 41 and early 42.

Of course, that has no relevance to whether Boyington ever encountered one.
 
I believe that on at least one occasion, the 47th and the AVG scapped. Not sure if Boyington was flying that day. I'll check Ford.
 
The 47th Independent Flight Company (Dokuritsu Hiko Chutai) based at Saigon, received their nine pre-production KI-44s in December 1941.

Their serial numbers were 4402 through 4410 and there were several differences between all nine aircraft.

The 47th's commander, Major Toshio Sakagawa flew airframe number 4405.
 
Back to Ki-43
Ki-43 remained dangerous to the end of the war even to very experienced opponents, if they forgot the cardinal rule, do not combat with them at low level and at fairly low speed.

Neel E. Kearby March 5, 1944 after firing at a Ki-48 light bomber at low level he made a mistake and began a 360 degree turn for a secong firing pass. He was caught by a Ki-43 from 77th Sentai.

Thomas McGuire January 7, 1945

What happened, either he turned too sharply whilst trying to get a deflection burst into the Oscar. Or he was fired at by Sugimoto. In the 70s fellow 475th Fighter Group pilot Carroll 'Andy' Anderson interviewed the Ki-84-I Ko Frank pilot Sgt Mizunori Fukuda from 71st Sentai who was adamant that McGuire had been shot down by the other Japanese pilot on the mission, Ki-43 pilot W.O. Akira Sugimoto from the 54th Sentai. Sugimoto had flown armed with a 150 kg bomb a shipping recce southward to the Guimaras Strait to report the presence of any American ships he might encounter. Finding nothing, he had spotted Ki-84 Frank flown by Sgt Fukuda who was returning from same kind of mission and the pair flew in formation together back towards their bases. Returning, Ki-84 Frank pilot Sgt Fukuda was preparing to land at Manapla Airfield (Carolina) when Sugimoto saw a flight of four P-38 Lightnings and engaged and may have fired on P-38L "Eileen-Ann" 44-24845 pilot Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. that crashed. Intercepted by P-38L "Doots" 44-24876 pilot Captain Edwin R. Weaver and P-38J "Miss Gee Gee" 43-28525 pilot 2nd Lt. Douglas S. Thropp, Jr. this Oscar was hit by gunfire before escaping into clouds. Damaged, Sugimoto force landed around 7:20am and was found by Filipino guerrillas and when he did not surrender was shot.

David J. Mason, the finder of some remains of the wreck of McGuire's P-38, conducted several long interviews with Douglas S. Thropp, Jr., both face-to-face and telephone in late 2000. Lt. Thropp, at the beginning of the combat was the No. 3, originally he had been the No. 4 but because the leader of the second element, Maj. Jack Rittmayer had some problems and so the element was falling behind the first element which let McGuire to order Thropp to take the lead of the 2nd element and Thropp open his throtles to catch the 1st element. Both Weaver and Thropp saw a bogie at 12 O'clock low coming towards them. As soon as the bogie passed under McGuire he(McGuire) went into a left turn. McGuire called "Hold your tanks". Thropp started to follow McGuire to the left but as he looked back he saw the bogie pull up and head right for him. He called McGuire and reported the bogie on his tail. He continued his turn till he was heading South. He climbed toward the overcast deck. He looked back and the bogie was still coming at him. Then it began firing at him. He jinked up, left, then right. He does not believe he was hit. Maj. Rittmayer came smoking in at very high speed and fired at the bogie with an 80-90 degree deflection shot. Rittmayer then overshot to the outside. The bogie pulled up, kicked left rudder, rolled and pulled hard left, reversed his course, and dove on McGuire and Weaver. McGuire and Weaver were still maintaining a level turn in close formation. Weaver was still on McGuire's right/outside wing. They had completed a 270 degree turn to the left and were beginning to head in the original westerly direction.. Thropp followed the bogie with his own left wifferdill. He was about to warn McGuire about the bogie heading across the circle towards them but Weaver called first and said "He's on me now". The bogie came downhill fast, accelerating, cutting across the circle, pulling lead on McGuire and Weaver. Thropp then saw the bogie pull up to avoid colliding with McGuire and Weaver. He could not tell if the bogie had fired at McGuire or Weaver but it was pulling enough lead and it was well within range. Thropp closed in on the bogie and when he was in range opened fire with the bogie in his gunsight. After three seconds of fire the bogie disappeared in the clouds heading North towards the ocean. He was disappointed that he missed. Thropp turned left to the West and looked over to his left and saw a burning airplane on the ground. He thought it was Weaver. He thought Weaver was shot down by the bogies gunfire. Who else could it be he thought. Thropp had no idea where McGuire or Rittmayer were. When he looked back to the front the bogie reappeared coming right over his head at a distance of 30 meters. Guns blazing. He had no idea who it was firing on. He did not think the bogie was firing on him. He turned hard left and realized he still had his drop tanks on. His plane was feeling very heavy. He then jettisoned his tanks and turned left doing a 180 to go after the bogie. But he did not see the bogie right away. He flew around for a few seconds and saw a second plane burning on the ground. Then he looked around for any other P-38's to join up with. After a few more seconds and a slow turn to the left he looked to his rear and saw the bogie closing on him again. He thought Son of a Bitch. He firewalled the throttles but noticed his left engine was not putting out full power. He saw 45 inches of manifold pressure on the left and 55 inches on the right. He headed for the cloud deck while keeping an eye on the bogie. The bogie closed to within firing range. Then it fired. Thropp saw the guns light up and he jinked left, the tracer bullets went wide right. The bogie made a correction and fired. Thropp saw the guns light up and he jinked right, the bullets went wide left. The bogie made a correction and fired again. Thropp saw the guns light up and pushed forward, the bullets went over the top of the canopy. The bogie made a correction and fired. Thropp thought I don't think this is going to work for much longer so he pulled up into the clouds and transitioned to instruments. He called for McGuire. Thinking what the hell is McGuire doing all this time. But Weaver answered him. It was then that he realized that McGuire and Rittmayer had crashed. He thought "well this has been a damn fine morning!" Thropp told Weaver that he wanted to join up with him but Weaver said he did not want to waste time looking for each other in the clouds and to RTB alone. Thropp returned to Dulag alone, landed, and taxied in. A crew chief came up and asked "where are the others". Thropp said "McGuire and Rittmayer are down and burning". The news spread like wildfire. The whole base knew before Weaver landed 10 minutes later. Thropp looked over his plane and was surprised to see it had been hit. He could not remember being hit during the dogfight. There was a hole in the left engine turbo-charger and the right tail boom. He could not tell if they were 20mm or 12mm holes. So either Sugimoto or Fukuda hit his P-38. IMHO more probably by the former because when he first saw Fukuda's Frank it was probably firing at Rittmayer's P-38 which Fukuda shot down right at the beginning of his attack. And before Fukuda began shot at him he had firewalled his throttles and noticed that his left engine was not putting out full power.

While preparing to land at Carolina Airfield (Manapla) when Fukuda saw Ki-43 Oscar pilot WO Sugimoto engage a flight of four P-38 Lightnings and P-38L "Eileen-Ann" 44-24845 pilot Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. crash then Ki-43 Oscar pilot WO Sugimoto intercepted by P-38s piloted by Weaver and Thropp.

Fukuda broke off his landing and entered the dog fight and made a head on pass against P-38J Lightning 43-28836 pilot Major Jack B. Rittmayer and shot him down. Afterwards, he was fired on by P-38L "Doots" 44-24876 pilot Captain Edwin R. Weaver and damaged. He fired on P-38 pilot 2nd Lt. Douglas S. Thropp, Jr. but was again hit by Weaver and his engine began loosing power. Disengaging, Fukuda few into the clouds then returned to land at Carolina Airfield (Manapla) and while landing the left landing gear leg collapsed and his plane flipped over and he suffered back injuries in the landing. After three months recovering from his injuries, he resumed flying combat missions in defense of the Tokyo area until the end of the Pacific War.

The McGuire part was mainly based on https://web.archive.org/web/20120127010823/http://www.aerothentic.com/historical/articles/McGuire.htm Conducted by David J. Mason plus relevant Pacific wrecks articles.

So it might have been that McGuire saw that the Sugimoto's Ki-43 was getting to a good firing position behind him / saw that it opens fire at him / even that his plane began taking hits that forced him to tighten his turn too much.
 
I don't think that the McGuire situation was so rare either. When I was transcribing aircraft force availability yesterday I was reading through several combats in Bloody Shambles III in 1945 involving Ki-43s vs P-47s and Spitfire Mk VIII and the results were mostly inconclusive, but the Ki-43s were still able to escort some of those pesky Ki-48 light bombers to their targets. Losses were minimal and the JAAF was losing a bit more, but some Allied fighters were still getting shot down too. I'll transcribe a few of these later.

There clearly was a slight advantage to the newer / faster planes but in situations like contending with bombers that need to be shot down, you can't take your time with Boom and Zoom because the bombers will reach the target and drop their bombs and be off back toward their base. So that means you have to stick around and fight which means you lose a lot of your advantages. The Luftwaffe faced the same problems in North Africa.
 
J Juha3 thanks for putting all that together. Interestingly, Mason found exploded 20mm rounds inside of McGuire's cockpit, although there was no mention whether or not these were Japanese or American. As the P-38 was armed with a 20mm cannon in the forward fuselage, it seems unlikely that these would have exploded backward into the cockpit under heat stress. This supports the scenario that Fukuda somehow managed to get shots in on McGuire, although that would directly contradict the eye witness testimony of all surviving pilots.

I think it's more likely that Mason somehow discovered Rittmeyer's P-38 and confused it for McGuire's as Fukuda's testimony clearly stated that he dumped a mixed stream of 20mm and 12.8 directly into the cockpit of Rittmeyer's aircraft.

One more thing, IIRC Mason reported that Sugimoto's Ki-43 was a Mark III Ko, which would explain why it was able to outpace a slightly damaged P-38 at low altitude.
 
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It is difficult to say whether Sugimoto flew the Ki-43-II or the -III. At the time, the 54th Sentai operated both models, according to Hata, Izawa and Shores' book Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units and Their Aces 1931-1945. In Osprey's book Ki-43 'Oscar' Aces of World War 2, author Ichimura does not mention the model Sugimoto flew, but the colour profile of Sugimoto's aircraft drawn by artist Laurier shows a Ki-43-II and the caption also identifies it as a -II. On the other hand the Pacific Wrecks article identified Sugimoto's plane as a Ki-43-III

According to the link and Pacific wrecks article, the 20 mm "bullet" was unfired. Generally Mason by using a metal detector was able to dig up about two dozen pieces of McGuire's aircraft. And the pieces were mostly small/very small, the biggest one seems to have been a firing pin and breech assembly for a .50 cal Browning M2 but mostly screws, nuts and bolts. Filipino eyewitnesses told that the plane crashed upside down hitting first trees and the crashing in a small ravine with a creek and exploded and burned intensely with nearly a full fuel tanks and drop tanks. Some of the wreckage may have been recovered by Filipinos or the Japanese Army patrol. Over the year, most of the large pieces of wreckage were scrapped or removed.

Many Japanese pilots said that they could survive if they flew on Oscar and saw the attacker and the view from the cockpit of a Oscar, especially from the models II and III, was superb. One the other hand the Oscar losses were very heavy on New Guinea and in Philippines. But at least Sugimoto seems to have great trust in his plane and his skill. A lone attack against a P-38s formation which had altitude advance demands guts. He might have seen only three of the P-38s or has thought that Rittmayer was too far behind to be able to interfere his attack on Thropp's plane.
 
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The Pacific Wrecks article mentioned that it was a 20mm HEI fragment (which meant it had exploded):

Pacific Wrecks - The Search For The Crash Site of Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr.

On Sunday January 7, 1945 a flight of four U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) P-38 Lightnings were conducting a fighter sweep of the northern part of Negros Island in the central Philippines.
pacificwrecks.com

Here's an image of the fragment:


It looks to me like it hit some thing, but I could be wrong. By the way, I'm definitely wrong about the 20mm shell fragment being in the cockpit. There was an article about the Guerillas recovering and burying McGuire's body. In the interview, they mentioned that IIRC McGuire was in the cockpit.

There's no mention of where the 20mm was recovered from. Thanks for the correction, I've been repeating this fabrication for many years now.
 
Thanks a lot for the link, I haven't read that very interesting article before. I'm not an expert on 20mm HE fragmentation, I've only seen fragmentation patterns of Finnish Army pipe mines, which are completely different animals. We placed human-shaped targets at different distances from the mines before detonating them. When we approached them, they looked relatively intact at first, but closer, we noticed that the closest targets looked like sieves, full of small holes. But I've seen pictures of the fragmentation patterns of German 20mm MG FF HE rounds, Soviet 20mm HE round, and modern 20mm round. They all fragmented into numerous small fragments. So I think the picture shows a cooked off 20mm round. But like I said, I'm not an expert and I've only seen a small picture of it. But that might be why later articles say "unfired 20mm bullet".
 
One addition to my earlier message #592, the Neel E. Kearby part. According to Hiroshi Ichimura, both WO Koichi Mitoma and novice Sgt Hiroshi Aoyagi claimed a P-47 over Wewak on that day. Kearby's plane was the only P-47 lost on that day according to John Stanaway in Kearby's Thunderbolts.
 
J Juha3 that's a cool as hell anecdote. Regarding the shell's origin, I believe you are correct that it came from a P-38, although I hope that S Shortround6 can chime in as he has an extraordinary knowledge of munitions. The Hispano Suiza HEI 20mm shell fragment seems to be slightly blue-green because of oxidation, which means a brass shell.

According to several sources, the US Hispano-Suiza 20mm shell was made from brass. Japanese munitions were made AFAIK from steel. Put two and two together, and that was from McGuire's P-38.

So that 20mm must have been exploded from fire. It's even mentioned in the article that the 50 cal showed signs of heat stress.

Imperial Japanese Navy Ammunition - 20mm Projectiles

Imperial Japanese Navy Ammunition Type 99 20mm Ammunition Naval 20mm ammunition is divided into two classes: Type 99 Mk I an...
ww2data.blogspot.com

It's not clear what kind of metal Japanese shells used, but it looks like their aircraft cannon used brass bodies and casings as well for AP rounds. However, it looks like (according to the link above) that their HEI shells used steel bodies. So this suggests that the shell fragment is from a US 20mm cannon.
 
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Thanks again for a very useful link. I own some weapons books, i.e. Flying Guns World War II by Williams & Gustin but that site gives also info on the metal used to bullets/shell bodies.
 
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