Zero

by Masatake Okumiya

  Early in the morning of June 4, 1942, the aircraft carri­ers Ryujo and Junyo of Rear Admiral Kakuji Kakuda’s 2nd Carrier Task Force approached Dutch Harbor. The task force’s stealthy and unobserved move to the Aleutians actually was the opening blow of the Midway and Aleutian Operations. Lashed by cold winds and driving rain, the Junyo launched six Zero fighters and twelve Type 99 Val dive bombers in the first attack against the American posi­tions. During their flight, our formations encountered sev­eral enemy flying boats, which they engaged and destroyed. This delay in flight, in addition to the violent storms encountered en route, forced the Zeros and Vals to abandon their mission.

  However, six Zeros and eleven Type 97 Kate attack bombers from the Ryujo failed to encounter enemy aircraft on their approach to Dutch Harbor. Led by Lieutenant Masayuki Yamagami, the formation battled heavy rain and thick fog, arriving over the enemy base above a solid layer of clouds. Fortunately the sky cleared directly over the har­bor and our planes dove to the attack. The Kates bombed the radio stations and pier installations, while the Zeros, free from enemy fighters, strafed a number of flying boats tied to harbor buoys.

  After the attack the bombers and fighters reassembled over the eastern end of Unalaska Island, where Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga noticed that his Zero trailed a thin spray of gasoline. Informing Kobayashi that he did not have enough fuel to return to the Ryujo, Koga dropped low over a small island eastward of Dutch Harbor, which had been designated as an emergency landing site for crippled planes. Once down on the island, the pilots would be picked up by a submarine.

  On his return to the carrier, Kobayashi reported to his superior:

  “The emergency landing site appeared from the air to be flat and clear. Koga made his approach perfectly, but immediately after the wheels struck the ground the airplane tipped over, remaining upright. The Zero appeared to be heavily damaged and either the pilot died or he must have been seriously injured. Since the island surface seems to be tundra, it would be difficult to remove the wreckage. We could not discern any sign of human habitation in the vicinity.”

  We did not learn until many months afterward that an enemy reconnaissance plane discovered the Zero. Ground parties rushed to the site found an airplane only slightly damaged, still upright. Koga had been killed by the shock of landing; his head struck the instrument panel with great force.

  Koga apparently realized that to land in the water off the island would have been certain death, for the tempera­ture was so low that only several minutes of exposure to the cold would have killed him. Notified of the emergency crash landing, our submarine scoured the area, but did not sight the wreckage on the island.

  The Americans removed the airplane to the United States, where it was repaired and subjected to exhaustive test flights. They were surprised at the Zero’s unusually light weight and by the fact that the airplane’s high perfor­mance was achieved with an engine of but 1,000 horsepower. It was quickly established that the Zero’s greatest weaknesses lay in its poor diving ability and in its lack of armor-plate protection. The flight tests revealed also that at high speeds the Zero responded sluggishly to aileron control, and that it was limited in altitude performance. Aware of the Zero’s minutest details, the Americans rushed to completion a fighter airplane intended specifically to wrest from Japan the advantages afforded by the Zero. This was the United States Navy’s Grumman F6F Hellcat, one of the most versatile enemy planes to be encountered in the Pacific.

  The F6F was the first plane designed by the Grumman company following their thorough study of the captured Zero fighter. Grumman engineers painstakingly reduced the thickness of the fuselage, and bent every effort to reduce structural weight. With a 2,000-horsepower engine, the new Hellcat had a higher maximum speed than the Zero, could outclimb and outdive and outgun it, and retained the desired benefits of high structural strength, armor plating, and self-sealing fuel tanks. In fact, with the exception of turning radius and radius of action, the Hell-cat completely outperformed the Zero. The advantages of superior engines stood the enemy in good stead, for the Hellcat was twice as powerful as the Zero. This sudden per­formance increase combined with the rising tidal wave of American production forecast the overwhelming strength the enemy would soon bring to bear against the homeland itself.

  In the Aleutian campaign I (Okumiya) was Admiral Kakuda’s air staff officer. I could not realize at the time how far-reaching an effect this seemingly trivial incident of losing to the enemy a single intact Zero could have. We felt strongly that the unnoticed capture of the airplane, assisting the enemy so greatly in producing a fighter plane intended specifically to overcome the Zero’s advantages, did much to hasten our final defeat.

  Meanwhile, in Japan, our government harped on the victories of the Aleutians attacks and the island occupa­tions. The continual emphasis on our successes in the far north was, of course, merely a diversionary effort to con­ceal from the people the terrible losses at Midway.

  CHAPTER 14

  Reorganization of the Combined Fleet

  THE RESULTS OF THE Battle of Midway rudely awak­ened our Naval General Staffs. Only six months after Pearl Harbor, following a succession of unprece­dented victories and stronger than it ever had been before in its entire existence, the Navy retreated sorely wounded from Midway. The sudden insight which this defeat afforded our commanding officers forced them to realize that Midway had voided the concept of the battleship as the prime naval power, and that victory or defeat at sea fundamentally rested on the effectiveness of the aircraft carrier. With the understanding that air power, not the usu­ally impotent sixteen-inch guns, decided naval battles, our planning staffs came also to appreciate the thin-skinned vulnerability of the aircraft carrier, which would always experience the fury of enemy attack.

  At one sweep Tokyo discarded its policy of offensive operations and substituted for it a new, curving defense line which was to be held at virtually all costs before an enemy who was now expected to commence his own assault operations. The outermost reaches of the new defense line extended west of the Aleutian Islands in the north, to the Marshall Islands in the east, from Rabaul to the northeast coast of New Guinea in the south, to the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, and Burma in the west. To most efficiently defend these lines, we reorganized the Com­bined Fleet. The new effort concentrated upon maximum development of our land-based air forces, and we acceler­ated our program of rebuilding the surface fleet around a center of aircraft carriers. On July 14, 1942, the Navy ech­elons received their reorganization orders, with the follow­ing tables of the new first-line Air Corps.

  In addition, there were aboard the fleet’s various battleships, cruisers, submarines, and other vessels the following aircraft:

  Pete (and) Type 95 Reconnaissance Seaplane 39

  Jake (and) Type 94 Reconnaissance Seaplane 44

  Type 96 Small Seaplane 14

  Type 98 Night Scout Seaplane 3

  Thus reorganized, the Combined Fleet’s first-line naval forces had available for combat:

  These figures indicated only too clearly the intrinsic defects in Japan’s military strength, for, compared to the number of first-line naval planes at the war’s outset, we had increased our strength by only 117 aircraft. Further, we now had an increase of only seventy-four planes over the total available immediately prior to the Battle of Midway. Our naval air strength in numbers remained basically static, while the enemy feverishly prepared his industry for the production of more and more warplanes. The future looked dark indeed.

  There was another weak link in our airpower chain which, although lacking the effect of total numbers of aircraft, presaged more and even severer defeats than we suf­fered at Midway. Since the war’s outset, the Navy had adopted, or was about to adopt, only three new-type planes. These were the 13-Shi carrier-based dive bomber (the Sui­sei, or Type 2 carrier-based reconnaissance plane Judy); the 13-Shi large-type flying boat (the Type 2 flying boat Emily); and the 13-Shi twin-engined land-based fighter (the
Gekko, or Type 2 land-based reconnaissance plane Irv­ing). Our domestic aeronautical engineering and production outlook was bleak; despite the pressing demands of combat, we could not hope to accelerate any further the develop­ment and production of new-type aircraft. Geared to a spe­cific, low pace, our industry could not, even in time of need, discard its own shackles. The overall situation seemed even worse when one realized that, even with these difficulties, the Navy was infinitely better off than the Army.

  During the first six to seven months of the war, the Zero remained the Navy’s only front-line fighter airplane and bore the entire burden of all fighter operations. Even in mass production the airplane still featured outstanding performance, ease of maintenance, and dependability. We experienced but two operational difficulties, which were occasional failure of the landing-gear shaft under heavy shock loads, and poor release of the jettisonable auxiliary fuel tank. Even by mid-July of 1942 the Navy did not contemplate replacing the Zero with another fighter.

  As we worked to rebuild and to reorganize the Com­bined Fleet’s various air corps, our worst fears were real­ized. The enemy no longer fell back helplessly. The counterattack in Guadalcanal had begun.

  CHAPTER 15

  Change in Warship-Building Policy

  ALTHOUGH THE NAVY ACTED immediately after the Battle of Midway drastically to change its warship-building policy, placing the aircraft car­rier ahead of the battleship as the backbone of surface power, the damage had already been done. We realized too late that a preponderance of battleship strength could not strategically affect the outcome of important campaigns. Every type of surface vessel was at the mercy of carrier-borne aircraft, and American strength in carrier aviation increased by fantastic leaps and bounds. Although con­stantly exhorted to backbreaking efforts, our industry could do little to contest the monumental production of America’s shipyards.

  Up until immediately after World War I, Japan, as one of the three great naval powers, maintained a surface Navy centered about powerful battleship strength. By so doing, we established a balance of naval power with that of the United States and Great Britain. With the international conflict over, in 1919 Japan turned to its new so-called Hachi-Hachi Fleet Plan, which was to give our nation the strongest fleet afloat. The to-be-reorganized Navy would center around eight battleships (Hachi), including the Mutsu and Nagato, and eight new battle cruisers including the Akagi and Amagi, which were then under construction. At the time our largest planned battleship exceeded by a considerable margin any foreign ship, for we were to con­struct a giant dreadnaught of 48,000-tons’ weight. However, because naval air power in 1919 was restricted to auxiliary activities, the Hachi-Hachi Fleet Plan called for only two small aircraft carriers of 12,500 tons each.

  In 1918, one year before the Navy drafted the Hachi-Hachi Fleet Plan, we laid the keel for the Hosho, Japan’s first aircraft carrier. On March 16, 1923, Lieutenant Shu­nichi Kira, later to become a Vice-Admiral, became the first Japanese pilot to land on a carrier deck when he brought a plane down on the Hosho.

  Because the Washington Naval Conference restricted the maximum tonnage of our battleships, we modified our broad naval program and planned to convert the battle cruisers Akagi and Amagi into large aircraft carriers, the latter as the Kaga. In 1927 we decided to expand our car­rier strength with the new Ryujo, bringing our total to four fleet aircraft carriers. Again international events interfered, for the London Naval Conference of 1930 imposed further restrictions on our warship expansion.

  In 1934, after the adoption of the London Naval Treaty, we instituted the Second Supplemental Plan, which called for the powerful carriers Soryu and Hiryu. Although it seemed as if the Navy would finally receive the large and fast warships it coveted, the limitations of the two naval treaties by which we were bound halted further construc­tion for two years.

  Late in 1936 the disarmament treaties were abrogated, and the Navy instituted a new construction plan which called for maximum shipyard efforts. Under the Third Replenishment Plan (popularly known as the Marusan Plan), we began the actual build-up of the fleet into one of the world’s greatest sea powers. Included in the new program were the famous superdreadnaughts Yamato and Musashi and the aircraft carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, both of which exceeded by a considerable margin the per­formance and efficiency of the Akagi and the Kaga.

  In 1938 we planned the construction of two additional Yamato-class (74,000 tons) battleships and an outsized aircraft carrier, the Taiho, with unusually heavy arma­ment. By 1939 our shipyards began the conversion of large merchant vessels into aircraft carriers. The first of these ships to be so altered, the modern passenger ship Kasuga-Maru, was followed by Japan’s two largest pas­senger ships, the 27,000-ton vessels Izumo-Maru and Kashihara-Maru. Four additional commercial vessels, each exceeding 10,000 tons, were brought into the carrier-conversion program.

  Because of the changing international situation of 1942, the Navy called for a speed-up of the Wartime Con­struction Plan of 1941, under which we added to our ship-building program one more aircraft carrier, the Hiryu-class Unryu. Early in 1942, however, the Navy still regarded as its priority weapon the heavy, fast battleships, and ordered construction to begin on another 74,000-ton battleship, two new-type battleships, two 30,000-ton aircraft carriers, and one 17,000-ton aircraft carrier. The devastating defeat at Midway forced a halt in the new construction program even as the shipyards worked on the keels of the mighty new warships. The Navy abandoned further work on the fourth Yamato-type battleship, then in its initial stages, and ordered a halt to all battleship construction. The third 74,000-ton battleship, the Shinano, was converted to the greatest aircraft carrier ever built (the ship failed to see combat, for on her maiden voyage on November 28, 1944, she was crippled by the American submarine Archerfish, and sank the following day). To provide carrier aviation across the Pacific expanse, the Navy also ordered fifteen new Hiryu-type carriers and five Taiho-type carriers.

  Our efforts came much too late. Due to a combination of circumstances, including the stoppage of raw materials to the homeland and the increasing bombardment of our shipyards by enemy planes, only four of the fifteen planned Hiryu-type carriers came off the ways. None of the planned Taiho-class carriers was completed. The following table lists the entire carrier strength of the Japanese Navy up to the close of the Pacific War; this material was com­piled from official documents on August 15, 1945:

  CHAPTER 16

  Desperate Air Operations Over Long-Range Conditions: The Saga of Saburo Sakai

  ESPECIALLY SIGNIFICANT IN THE first half of 1942 were the great battles of Midway and the Coral Sea. These two vital engagements were decided solely by the weight of air power, despite the commitment of numer­ous opposing land and sea forces.

  Despite this obvious superiority of combat aerial forces to other armaments, however, the United States and Japan failed equally to evaluate properly the significant role of air power in these two engagements.

  Of the land-based air forces in combat at this time, the only major command which maintained heavy and contin­uous air action against the enemy was the 25th Air Flotilla, consisting of the Tainan Air Corps, the 4th Air Corps, and the Yokohama Air Corps. The headquarters of these forces was at Rabaul and was under the command of Rear Admi­ral Sadayoshi Yamada.

  The flotilla engaged in constant air attack, concentrat­ing the full force of its strength against the enemy at Port Moresby, New Guinea. Of lesser consequence were the intermittent attacks which it mounted against Port Darwin, Australia, with medium attack bombers of the 23rd Air Flotilla, based on Timor Island.

  The air attacks against Port Moresby were always made (as was characteristic of this phase of the war) with com­paratively heavy formations composed of twenty-seven or more land-based medium attack bombers and an approxi­mately equal number of escorting Zero fighters. For some time we had been preparing for the capture of Port Moresby; in order to facilitate this undertaking a naval landing force attacked Buna, on th
e northeastern coast of New Guinea, on July 21, 1942.

  This invading force was subjected to a fierce and damaging air attack by approximately one hundred enemy planes on the following day. As a result of this sudden assault our beleaguered naval units were placed in a precarious position, and it became necessary to neutralize the enemy air strength attacking the forces at Buna.

  The greater part of the enemy’s air strength was based at Port Moresby and, to a lesser extent, at the airfields at Rabi, on the southeastern end of New Guinea. Our naval air forces prepared immediately to neutralize Rabi in an all-out attack on August 7, 1942.

  Preparations were well under way for the heavy assault when, abruptly, our attention was brought to bear on a little-known island in the southern group of the Solomon Islands. The enemy had invaded Guadalcanal in what proved to be only the first of a long series of attacks.

  Part of the personal element of the struggle for the air over the Guadalcanal area is vividly recounted in the fol­lowing battle record of Flight Petty Officer, 1st Class, Saburo Sakai (later promoted to Lieutenant [J.G.]), who was at that time a section leader of the Tainan Air Corps.

  The major combatants of World War II experienced many incredible happenings in this long-drawn-out air war. Pilots and aircrew members who were severely wounded in combat miraculously continued on flying duty to an extent far beyond that previously imagined possible. Pilots who might be presumed dead continued to fly their planes; and planes which should have disintegrated under enemy fire somehow, beyond all reason, remained in the air and brought their awed and reverent crews safely home.