Chapter 7

Forging a Legend

The dice were cast and the final decision was made and the prearranged signal to initiate the attack on the main American naval base at Pearl Harbor, was sent to Admiral Nagumo: ‘Nitaka-yama Nobore’ (‘Climb Mount Nitaka’).¹

Pearl Harbor

The six Nagumo force carriers at 0550 hours on 7 December 1941 were some 220 miles north of Oahu. On a bearing of 10^o they turned their noses into the wind and increased their speed ready for launching. The attack was to be made in two waves, the first being 183 aircraft strong. The A6Ms were split between each wave plus maintaining a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over the force at all times from a combined retained pool of forty-eight Zeros.

The Kaga contributed a nine-strong A6M2 hikotai to the first wave, under Lieutenant Shiga. The Sōryū sent off nine A6Ms in the first wave under Lieutenant Suganami. The Hiryū sent out just six Zeros in the first wave, led by Lieutenant Okajima. Shōkaku also dispatched six A6Ms under Lieutenant Kaneko in the first wave. The Zuikaku contributed six more A6Ms under Lieutenant Sato in the first wave. They attacked the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay. From a total of thirty-six PBY Catalina seaplanes based there, no fewer than twenty-seven were destroyed and a further six damaged to varying degrees. The first Aichi D3A dive-bomber tipped over at 0755 to commence the attack.

The opening move of the Pacific War was but a few hours old when the A6M2s took one of their first combat losses of the Pacific War. Ironically, that loss was not due to US reaction but to the over-zealousness of one Zero flyer, which brought about his own demise. The Akagi had contributed the No. 1 Fighter Strike Unit comprising a hikotai of nine A6M2s divided into three shotai of three planes each. No. 1 Shotai was Lieutenant-Commander Shigeru Itaya, who was in overall command of the 1st Wave fighter aircraft, with Petty Officers 1st Class Takashi Hirano and Shinatsugu Iwama. No. 2 Shotai consisted of Lieutenant Masanobu Ibusuki, with Petty Officer 1st Class Yoshio Iwashiro and Seaman 1st Class Toichiro Hanyu. No. 3 Shotai comprised Warrant Officer Suekichi Osanai, Petty Officer 2nd Class Masao Yaguchi and Seaman 1st Class Mitsuyoshi Takasuka.

The Zeros made landfall close to Kahuku Point, north-eastern Oahu. The first aircraft encountered was a civilian trainer they overtook close to Nuuanu Pali Pass, which they quickly dispatched before moving to the south-west toward Hickham Field. At 0800 local time they were beginning to line up their attack when a flight of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of 38 Reconnaissance Squadron, en route to Pearl Harbor from Hamilton Field, California, stumbled into their view flying along the south coast. Itaya’s leading shotai immediately commenced a run on one of these aircraft, which he mistook for a transport aircraft, followed by the rest of the group in line astern. The B-17 was heavily and continually hit and began to burn; the pilot attempted to land the crippled bomber as Itaya’s fighters passed overhead before turning to strafe the airfield at low level. The B-17 crew members, eight of whom were wounded, were running for shelter and one was killed by strafing, while the bomber itself was shot up burned out. One attacker, Petty Officer Hirano, made a very low pass machine-gunning as he went and misjudged his height. His propeller blade tips scraped the runway, twisting them out of shape, and his bulky belly tank was wrenched off. Out of control the A6M (AI-154) veered upward south-west toward Fort Kamehameha with her pilot struggling to keep her engine running before entering a terminal stall and diving through the palm trees, which broke the Zero up and slewed her into the forts Ordnance Machine Shop, instantly killing Hirano as well as four US soldiers and injuring others from a group standing on the ramp gaping at the oncoming aircraft out in the open. The wreckage was later moved to the Hawaiian Air Depot hangar at Hickham for analysis.

The second wave arrived over Oahu seventy-five minutes after the first. Akagi contributed a further nine A6Ms to the second wave under Lieutenant Saburo Shindo, another China veteran, while nine more helped maintain the Combat Air Patrol over the force. The Kaga contributed a nine-strong A6M2 hikotai to the second wave, under Lieutenant Yasushi Nikaido. The Sōryū dispatched nine A6Ms in the second wave under China veteran twenty-seven-year-old Lieutenant (j.g.) Fusata Iida. They engaged the few American P-40s that managed to get airborne and quickly destroyed them all, and then turned their attentions to Kaneohe Bay Marine air base. After their strafing attack the section re-assembled and it was then noticed that the aircraft of Lieutenant Iida was streaming aviation fuel, which eyewitness Sub-Lieutenant Iyozo Fujita assumed was from a hit from a small-calibre weapon and not serious. However, Iida was seen to close his cockpit canopy deliberately, and went into a vertical dive toward the runway. Fujita later related:

Thinking that he was going to make another strafing run on the field, I immediately began a wingover to follow his plane down. I realised abruptly, however, that Lieutenant Iida was flying in a most unusual manner, quite different from his usual tactics. I watched his plane as it dived in its vertical, inverted position until it exploded on the ground between the Kanoeohe airfield hangars.²

Fujita himself was involved in some of the little aerial fighting over Pearl Harbor, and at 0915 was claimed shot down by Lieutenant Lew Sanders flying a P-36, but, although taking mechanical damage, Fujita remained airborne and soon afterwards he shot down a P-36 flown by Second Lieutenant Gordon Stirling. Nursing his damaged engine and escorted by two wingmen, he managed to reach the Sōryū where he landed safely at 1145. Lieutenant Masaji Suganami’s section conducted three separate strafing runs against Wheeler Field in between attacks by D3A dive-bombing strikes, and then moved over to Ewa Field and repeated the process. The Hiryū also flew off a full nine-plane section in the second wave, under Lieutenant Sumio Nōno.

The IJN lost a total of nine A6Ms during the Pearl Harbor attack. The casualties in the first wave were Petty Officer 1st Class Takashi Hirano from Akagi, Petty Officer 2nd Class Seinoshin Sano from Kaga and Petty Officer Toru Haneda also from Kaga. The second waves A6Ms losses were Lieutenant Fusata Iida, Petty Officer 1st Class Shun-Ichi Atsuma and Petty Officer 2nd Class Saburo Ishii – all these three from the same hiko shotai from Sōryū. Also lost were Petty Officer 1st Class Shigenori Nishikaichi from Hiryū, Warrant Officer Ippei Goto from the Kaga and Petty Officer 1st Class Tomio Inenaga, also from the Kaga.

The fate of Shigenori Nishikaichi was particularly poignant. His aircraft was damaged during a dogfight with Curtiss P-36 Mohawk fighters from 46 Squadron, 15 Pursuit Group, USAAC, over Diamond Head, and as he headed back north toward the safety of the Hiryū’s deck his fuel was draining away. Nishikaichi knew as he passed the most north-westerly of the Hawaii Island chain that he would not make it back and decided in desperation to make an emergency landing. An island had already been preselected for just such an emergency and the Japanese had thought it totally uninhabited. A submarine was tasked to rescue any such stranded aviators from the north beach. However, contrary to Japanese belief Ni’ihau Island did have a resident native population, albeit a tiny one. It was a privately owned island run since 1864 by the New Zealand Robinson family, whose then head, Alymer, kept outsiders well away to preserve the wildlife, habitat and language (it became nicknamed ‘The Forbidden Isle’) and employed the Ni’ihauan islanders to help with the ranch. There were no telephones or electricity on the island and of course nobody had the remotest idea of the momentous events even then taking place 150 miles to the south-east of them. The A6M2 was on her last legs and so, after two passes to seek a suitable landing spot, Nishikaichi put her down in a flattish field, near a small house. Unfortunately, on the final few feet of his approach he flew into an unnoticed wire fence, which flipped his aircraft up and he ended up nose-down and briefly out for the count.

His crash had been observed by Howell Kaleohano and he, naturally, ran to assist the dazed occupant out of the aircraft cockpit, also carefully confiscating his revolver and flight documents. Nishikaichi’s English was rudimentary and other neighbours, Yoshio Harada, and his wife, Irene, were summoned. From a Japanese immigrant family, Harada was Hawaii-born and bred and thus fluent in both languages and Nishikaichi told them of the attack, hoping to play on their family heritage and loyalties and get his weapon and map back and enlist their help to reach the rescue beach. They fed him and even entertained him and when the news of the attack came over the radio they kept him interred then took him to Ki’i Landing for the US officials to collect him. They never came as all sailings had been banned in the panic following the assault. Eventually, after six days, Harada decided to help and stole a shotgun. After attempts to communicate with the submarine via the A6M2’s radio had failed, in desperation on the night of the 12th the two men entered the township and took several residents hostage. Eventually one Ben Kanahele, despite being shot twice, and his wife, wrestled with Nishikaichi and killed him, while Harada turned the shotgun on himself and committed suicide. Nishikaichi’s body was buried on the island for a time, then at the end of 1942 removed from the main island, ultimately being returned to Japan for family re-internment. His A6M2 (B11-120) survived him and parts of it are on exhibit at the Ford Island Pacific Aviation Museum.

The American air strength in Hawaii was considerable, totalling 223 US Army aircraft, but proved mainly ineffective. The main fields were Hickam, Wheeler and Bellows, with the Navy Luke Field on Ford Island and the Marine base at Ewa, which were all heavily hit, the Marine flyers having eight F4F3 fighters torched on the deck. The full list of aircraft casualties was that the US Navy lost 92 destroyed and 31 damaged, whereas the US Army lost 77 and had 128 damaged. The American fighter losses included five P-40Cs, thirty-seven P-40Bs, and four P-36As, while bomber losses included four B-17Ds, twelve B-18As, and two A-20As.

The US Navy carriers Enterprise and Lexington were absent that day; fortunately for them for they were the primary targets of the Japanese dive-bombers, but that did not prevent them suffering losses. On the 7th the Enterprise under Vice-Admiral William F ‘Bull’ Halsey was returning from ferrying twelve Marine F4F Wildcat fighter aircraft to Wake Island. As customary she started to fly off her aircraft to Ford ahead of her arrival, some eighteen Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers being the first dispatched and launching from 0618 onward. They arrived over Pearl at 0835 and five of them were immediately shot down by the A6Ms, with Petty Officer 1st Class Isao Doikawa claiming to have destroyed three and Petty Officer 3rd Class Shinichi Suzuki claiming another two. In fact, the A6Ms are credited with destroying four while another SBD was damaged by fire from an Aichi D3A and another was destroyed by US anti-aircraft fire.³ The earliest US Navy losses, however, had been inflicted on the Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats at Ford, twelve of which belonging to VP-22 were targeted by D3As of which seven were destroyed and the remainder damaged. From a total of sixty-one PBYs only eleven survived the assault intact, many being lost to strafing A6Ms as we have seen.⁴

The Philippines, 1941

On 7 December 1941 the Far East Air Force (FEAF) of American and Allied air forces in the Philippines had at their disposal, 227 combat aircraft, of which 175 were fighters, but of these only the 107 Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawks and P-40B Tomahawks were considered modern. Among older types included the Seversky P-35 and the Boeing P-26, known as the Peashooter. There were seventy-four bombers of which thirty-five were Boeing B-17C/D four-engined Flying Fortresses. The island of Luzon with, at its south-west end the capital, Manila, with the Bataan peninsula across Manila Bay shielding the Navy base of Subic Bay, was the most important target. Under General Douglas MacArthur, elevated to command from retirement, the major defence of the island was to be undertaken by the Army Air Service and to defending its principal bases of Clark, Iba and Nichols Fields he assigned his main priority. The Japanese were equally sure of the importance of quickly gaining control of the air before their invasion forces became engaged ashore, and had mustered considerable air forces at Chiai, Taichung, Tainan, Takao and Tungkan airfields in Formosa (Taiwan) in readiness. Of course, had the time zones not been so different, they would have wished to made simultaneous air attacks on both Pearl Harbor and the Luzon airfields. Pearl being five hours, twenty minutes ahead of Luzon, they had to accept the fact that their aircraft strikes against the latter would probably meet a fully alerted enemy. Nonetheless they were not deterred by this potentially dangerous situation. All their six main fleet carriers were locked up in the Pearl Harbor strike of course, while the Imperial Army Air Force’s 5th Air Army’s bombers could hit the target in the northern part of the island but lacked sufficient range to reach central and southern Luzon. This left the IJN long-range bombers of Vice-Admiral Nishizo Tsukahara’s 11th Kōkū-kantai to carry out the mission. This was no problem for, as we have seen, they had been conducting such operations for five years in China. With a strong American fighter force waiting for them, it was clear that the extended range of the A6M was the ace-in-the-hole the Japanese relied on to accompany and protect their bombers, as before. What all the planning in the world could not do for either side was predict the weather. The morning of 8 December found most of the Formosa airfields shrouded in thick fog, which grounded them, although some forty-three Army bombers made raids on northern Luzon targets.

The Americans, also, with their advance warning, had the option of preempting the Japanese moves, by sending the B-17s to blast the Formosa airfields, albeit without fighter cover of their own, but the USAAS had long scorned such protection as superfluous and were confident of their heavy bombers’ ability to not only fight their way through but also to deliver precision attacks. They were to be repeatedly disabused of these tenets of belief before the war was many weeks old. They also deluded themselves that that their own bases were safe from attack from Japanese forces, despite the obvious examples of the numerous Japanese long-range strikes over China in the years 1937–41. There was a plan to attack Formosa with everything they had (‘Rainbow 5’) or, alternatively, flying their aircraft away for safety, either option being available to them.⁵ Accordingly the USAAS, like Brer Rabbit, sat tight and said (or rather did) nothing. Major-General Lewis Brereton twice requested permission from Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Richard Kerens Sutherland, to initiate the air attack operation, but MacArthur, who kept a firm grip on all his subordinates, failed to issue the necessary order until 1120 local time, far too late.⁶ After the war MacArthur was to deny any knowledge at all of such a request. Indeed he stated that Brereton, ‘… never recommended an attack on Formosa to me …’ adding that the Japanese fighters came from aircraft carriers, which was totally untrue. The original Japanese plan had envisaged that the light carriers Ryūjō, Taiyō (the converted merchant ship Kasuga-Maru and not the much larger and much later built Taihō as Saburo Sakai has it) and Zuihō be used in this manner, considering a return flight of a over 1,200 miles plus aerial combat in between, would be impossible, being an even longer mission than those conducted in China. However, none of these small carriers had ever operated the A6M before and their capacity was small. However, under constant pressure from their unit leaders, Captain Masahisa Saito and Captain Yoshio Kamei, the elite A6M pilots of the Tainan and Takao (Kaohsung) based flyers, including Commander Motoharu Okamua, Yasuna Kozono, Commander Takeo Shibata, and Lieutenant Hideki Shingo, and veterans of the Sino Japanese conflict such as Lieutenant Tamotsu Yokoyama and Petty Officer Saburō Sakai, undertook an intense series of exercises, which stretched the range of the A6M from six to seven hours in the air to ten to twelve, with mass formation flights. The Zero carried 183 gallons of fuel and constant practice eked the average fuel consumption out from 35 gallons per hour to just eighteen, Saburō Sakai himself attaining under 17 gallons. Saburō Sakai explained just how this was achieved:

To conserve fuel, we cruised at only 115 knots (59 mps) at 12,000 (4267.2m) feet altitude. Under normal full-power conditions, the Zero was capable of 275 knots and, when over-boosted for short emergencies, could reach its maximum speed of about 300 knots. On our long-range flights we lowered propeller revolutions to somewhere between 1,700 and 1,850 revs per minute, and throttled the air control valve to its leanest mixture. This furnished us the absolute minimum of power and speed, and we hung on the fringe of losing engine power at any time and stalling.⁷

This remarkable feat was duly reported to Vice-Admiral Fushizo Tsukahara, 11 Kōkū-kantai, who was thus able to dispense with all three light carriers completely. They were used in ferry and subsidiary operations. The Taiyō conveyed Type 96 fighters to Palau and Zuihō carried A6Ms to 11 Kōkūkantai from Japan to Davao in February, while Ryūjō covered the landings at Davao and Legaspi with her A5M4 ‘Claudes’.

A few defensive air patrols were mounted by P-40s and P-35As, but although some B-17s were got aloft for their own safety for a spell, many remained static, not even taking the elementary defensive tactic of dispersal, but lined up wing-tip-to-wing-tip, in row upon row on their runways, although fully fuelled. Within a short while, ‘… the greatest concentration of heavy-bombers in the world’ as General Marshall had recently boasted, were being destroyed. It was Pearl Harbor all over again, but with absolutely no excuse of surprise. Meanwhile the fog lifted in Formosa and eighty-four A6Ms, thirty -four from the Tainan Kōkūtai led by Lieutenant Shingo and fifty from 3 Kōkūtai under Lieutenant Tamotsu Hideki Yokoyama, escorting 108 G3M and G4M bombers, finally took off and headed south.

The Japanese executioners, having spent a frantic few hours waiting for the mist to disperse on their home fields and thinking that each minute that ticked by meant an increased period of readiness for the foes, were delighted when, on arrival over their targets at the delayed time of 1215 hours, they found that their victim had considerately placed his own neck upon the block. Again, as at Pearl, the asset of radar warning was wasted when communication was lost. The Japanese thus, and to their amazement, achieved total surprise. They were hardly likely to waste such an opportunity. They swept aside American fighters, wiping out a flight of eight P-40Es of 3 Pursuit Squadron caught preparing for touch-down at Iba airfield, and clashed with the P-35As found at De Carmen field, eliminating half and then setting about the rest. At Clarke the bombing had been intense and deadly accurate. What few aircraft survived this annihilating bomber assault were finished off by a force of thirty-four ground-strafing A6Ms.⁸ At the end of the afternoon a total of fifty-six P-40 and P-35 fighters had been destroyed, along with eighteen B-17s and twenty-six other types, with many, many more damaged to varying degrees, most of them still sitting on the deck, along with base facilities, while the Japanese suffered the loss of just seven A6Ms.⁹ It was a stunning victory.¹⁰

About the only fighter unit untouched at the end of day one, was the Philippine Army Air Corps (PAAC) 6 Pursuit Squadron equipped with twelve P-26 Peashooters and based at Zablan Field. Four of these obsolescent machines (they had first flown as long ago as 1932 and had a top speed of 234mph) were flown to Clark Field and flew reconnaissance missions for the next days over Lingayen Gulf. At 1130 local time on 10 December the unit was surprised at lunch by a force of strafing A6Ms. Four aircraft managed to get airborne, piloted by Captain Villamor and Lieutenants Geronimo Aclan, Alberto Aranzaso, Jose Gozar and Godofredo Juliano, and engaged in a brief skirmish over Pasig before the Zeros, low on fuel, withdrew leaving half the Philippine unit destroyed. The survivors moved to Batangas Field the following day. Here, at 1100 local time on 11 December four machines were scrambled away to intercept a force of twenty-seven bombers at 8,000ft but had difficulty catching them. They were immediately jumped by their Zero escorts who they had failed to notice but claimed to have shot down at least one of them. However, Batangas Field was heavily bombed as was Maniquis where 10 Bombardment Squadron lost its old Martin B-10s plus ten miscellaneous types on the ground.

Meanwhile the Zero sweeps continued, the Tainan group contributing twenty-seven fighters against Clark Field while the Kaohsiung Wing went for Nichols. Tainan A6Ms found no targets remaining at the wasteland that was Clark Field, and flew cover instead over the Vigan invasion force and here Saki destroyed the B-17 of Captain Colin P. Kelly, Jr, that same day.

The Japanese maintained the tempo of their air assault over the following days, indeed increasing it slightly, and, by 13 December had virtually destroyed MacArthur’s air power and, on the 10th an air attack, one of ten the base suffered, totally gutted the Cavite Navy Yard (Sangley Naval Base) itself, blowing up the torpedo arsenal for the entire Asiatic Fleet, power supplies and office buildings, as well as sinking the submarine Sealion (SS-195) and damaging her sister Seadragon (SS-194) and other units. Subsidiary movements included the dispatch of 3 Kōkūtai A6Ms to Palau with G3M bombers to cover the landings at Davao, on the southern coast of Mindanao, on 20 December.

A notable achievement of the A6M in this brief aerial campaign came on 25 December. A Japanese invasion force was put ashore on Jolo Island to seize its strategic airfield. The Tainan Group with its long-range expertise sent twenty-four A6Ms to provide air cover for this operation and they exceeded all their previous achievements. One post-war account summarized this mission thus: ‘This involved a mass non-stop formation flight of twelve hundred nautical miles. This flight of the single-seat fighters was unprecedented in aviation history.’¹¹

The Japanese invasion was already well established with little loss, and their follow-up supply convoys could pretty well come and go as they wished. MacArthur retreated to Bataan where he held out, fruitlessly, for some months but the rest of the Philippines had gone the same way as Hong Kong, Borneo, Malaya, Singapore and soon to follow, Burma and the Dutch East Indies.

The Formosan A6Ms were quickly moved south to provide the same level of air supremacy as the Japanese moved methodically and easily through the colonial possessions of the British and Dutch Empires to the south. Each step of the conquest was taken under the umbrella of fighter cover, airfields were consolidated and then the next step took place. At sea the Japanese Navy proved equally able to crush or brush aside anything the Allied Navies of American, Britain and Holland could muster, and with equal ease they swept the waters of every fragment of organized opposition just as the A6M swept the skies. There was suddenly a great awakening in the west.¹² There proved much for them to ponder in the weeks that followed.

The fall of Singapore

On 18 December the Japanese deployed eleven fighters escorting twenty-six bombers against Singapore. They shot down fifteen defending fighters for the loss of just two of their own fighters. Two days later the Japanese dispatched fifty-two bombers escorted by nine fighters, with Singapore again the target, the A6Ms shooting down twelve Allied aircraft again for the loss of two of their own. On the ground the Allied troops had continually fallen back and ceded the Malayan airfields without much resistance and the Japanese were able to move their A6Ms over the South China Sea and occupy these vital bases for themselves. On 26 December nineteen A6Ms of the 22 Kōkū Sentai left Soc Trang and flew into Kota Bharu.

On 14 January 1942 fourteen A6Ms conducted a fighter sweep over Singapore after their bomber force of fifty aircraft had aborted their mission, the Zeros briefly tangling with Brewster Buffaloes of Nos 243 and 488 Squadrons, without loss to either side. The following day three A6Ms escorted twenty-seven G4Ms in an attack on Tengah airfield, their assigned target of a British aircraft-carrier reported anchored in Keppel Harbour proving illusionary! The trio of Japanese fighters strafed the airfield afterward with no results. On the way back one A6M, piloted by Hiroshi Suyama, was lost.

Twelve A6Ms escorted twenty-four G3Ms in an attack on Seletar airfield on 16 January without casualties and on 17 January eight A6Ms strafed Tengah airfield damaging three Bristol Blenheim IV bombers, two Blackburn Sharks and a Fairey Swordfish that were among many caught on the ground, without suffering any damage in return. On 18 January eleven A6Ms escorted twenty-six G4Ms and were once more in a fight with Buffaloes from Nos 243 and 488 Squadrons. For the first and last ever time the Buffalo had the advantage of surprise and height and at least one A6M, piloted by Yoshihiro Salirana, was lost while one British fighter was damaged beyond repair. It was a rare little defeat for the Japanese.

On 20 January eighteen A6Ms escorted eighteen G3Ms in an attack on Singapore City but they were not engaged as the Hawker Hurricanes tangled with Army bombers instead, losing several of their number in the process. On 21 January nine A6Ms escorted twenty-five G3Ms and twenty-seven G4Ms to bomb Keppel Harbour. Two days later nine A6Ms escorted twenty-five G3Ms to attack Kallang airfield. They were intercepted by Hawker Hurricanes from 232 Squadron and destroyed five of them, damaging two more for the loss of two Zeros.

On 27 January nineteen A6Ms escorted twenty-four G4Ms for another bombing of Kallang, which proved very successful. Four of No. 488 Squadron’s Hurricanes were destroyed, three severely damaged and three slightly damaged. Almost all No. 243 Squadron’s Buffaloes were wiped out, as well as two Bristol Blenheim bombers, while the airfield’s infrastructure was shattered. The pattern was repeated on 29 January when eighteen A6Ms escorted twenty-six G3Ms for an attack on Seletar airfield and the following day Singapore was again attacked with A6Ms providing the escort.

When the island was humiliatingly surrendered on 15 February 1942, 138,708 Allied troops laid down their arms to General Yamashita’s 30,000 soldiers, the last three Hurricanes and a lone Buffalo having flown to safety some days before. The whole Singapore campaign had cost the Japanese Navy five A6Ms, along with just four G3Ms and a single C5M.

The Dutch overwhelmed

Having examined the farce of Singapore’s air defence, we must go back in time to see how Britain’s fellow European ally, the Netherlands, fared against similar opposition.

Although, the third major European colonial power in the East, Holland itself, like France, had rapidly fallen to the combination of Hitler’s Panzers and Stuka dive-bombers, her Queen and Government had been rescued by the Royal Navy and brought back to England where they remained resolute allies. Unlike the French Vichy regime, which quickly turned to outright collaboration with the former foes and ceded bases to Germany’s Axis partner, Japan, in Indo-China, the Dutch determined to fight for their eastern possessions. They had little with which to do so and relied heavily on what assistance could be obtained from the crumbling forces of America, Australia and Great Britain.

The Japanese were not to allow them much respite. Already nine A6Ms under Lieutenant Kikuichi Inano had flown from Saigon into the airfield at Miri, Sarawak, which had been captured without a fight on 16 December, and began flying air cover the supply convoys unloading there. On Christmas Eve they also protected G3Ms Singkawang II airfield in south-west Borneo and carried out strafing attacks. On Boxing Day the 3Ku sent six A6Ms under Lieutenant Toshitada Kawazoe against Menado on the north-eastern tip of the Celebes (now known as Sulawesi) where they surprised and destroyed four or five Dutch Dornier Do 24s and one KNILM Sikorsky S-43B flying boat. On the 28th the 3 Kōkūtai sent another seven A6Ms from Davao under Lieutenant Kawazoe against Tarakan where they became engaged with Dutch Brewster Buffalos of the I-VIG-V, four of which were lost along with a pair of Ryan STM training aircraft, while a single Zero was damaged. Four further A6Ms were in a second raid by G3M on the same target later that day, while five more from Miri intercepted three Dutch Martin 139¹³ bombers attacking their airfield, destroying two of them and badly damaging the third. Thereafter Dutch air resistance in that area faded away.

The Tainan Kōkūtai moved bases to the newly occupied Jolo airfield, in the Sulu Islands, south-west of Mindanao, in groups, the first of which was completed on 30 December and the last on 7 January, totalling twenty-seven A6Ms. Thence it was a comparatively short move 270 miles down the island chain to Tarakan, on the north-east coast of Borneo. Here conditions were extremely bad and the fighters were hard-pressed to maintain patrols to cover the Balikpapan invasion force. When eight B-17s attacked on the 4th they made the usual highly exaggerated claims of ships sunk and damaged, but only scored a single hit, one bomb striking the No. 2 turret of the heavy cruiser Myōkō but causing only superficial damage; five A6Ms failed to intercept them. In addition two A6Ms had slithered off the makeshift runway and been written off. Saburo Saki recalled how much of a shoestring operation it was, writing:

… in the early months of 1942 23 had less than seventy Zeros available for the entire vast area of the East Indies. And since a good number of the fighter planes were always undergoing combat repairs and a thorough overhaul after 150 hours of flight, we average thirty fighter planes at any given time for combat action.

Despite this they were dominant and on 5th January Saki nailed his second B-17 over Balikpapan. On 11 and 12 January, to capture the Langoan airfield, the Japanese dropped paratroops and followed up with seaborne landings and ten A6Ms of 3 Kōkūtai gave air cover while at Tarakan an attack by three B-17s was met by three A6Ms from Jolo, resulting in damage to one machine on each side but no losses. The next day 3 Kōkūtai Zeros destroyed four Australian Lockheed Hudson bombers from a force of seven over Menado. On 13 January three A6Ms destroyed three Dutch Glen Martin 139s over Tarakan and, joined by three Zeros, shot down a further two out of three Dutchmen. A strong force of eighteen A6Ms working from Menado made a surprise assault on the Dutch airbase on Ambon Island off the southwest coast of Seram in the Molucca archipelago, on 15 January. Here they engaged and destroyed two Dutch Brewster Buffalo fighters and strafed one Hudson and destroyed a pair of American Consolidated Catalina PBY flying boats without loss to themselves. A second attack was made the following day when one A6M was shot down by another PBY. The same day the newly captured field at Tarakan was occupied by nine A6Ms from Jolo and by 19 January no fewer than fifty-one A6Ms had concentrated at Manado.

The Kidō Butai now took a hand and mounted an attack on the Australian base at Rabaul on the 20th to soften it up prior to its occupation. Vice-Admiral Nagumo led four big carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Shōkaku and Zuikaku, along with their escorting battleships, cruisers and destroyers. There were two RAAF airfields at Lakunai and Vunakanau to guard the harbour and No. 24 Squadron RAAF had nothing to defend them and the shipping in Simpson Harbour with save seven Commonwealth A-20 Wirraway trainers acting as makeshift fighter planes. The fleet’s A6Ms brushed them aside, instantly shooting down four of them while so damaging two of the others that they were forced crash-land and were written off. They also damaged a lone Lockheed Hudson. Only two Wirraways were left fit to fight and they were hastily evacuated to safety. Next day the Shōkaku and Zuikaku’s A6Ms escorted diversionary raids on Lae, Madang, Salamaua and Wau in New Guinea while Akagi and Kaga aircraft hit Kavieng, New Ireland. On the 22nd they destroyed two Australian artillery positions and both ports were then occupied by Japanese invasion forces while A6Ms escorted Aichi D3A dive-bombers against Port Moresby on New Guinea’s southern coast. The Dutch East Indies were just about isolated from all sides with these moves.

On 24 January both Balikpapan, west Borneo, and Kendari, west Celebes, were invaded and the A6Ms were kept busy providing cover for both operations repelling desperate attacks by Allied aircraft, including B-17s and Dutch Glenn Martin 169s, and clashed with Dutch Brewster Buffalo fighters. One of the A6Ms, piloted by Tainan 2 Shotai’s Warrant Officer Yoshimitsu Harada was shot down by anti-aircraft while conducting a strafing run, killing the pilot. The wreckage of his Zero was later surveyed by Dutch pilots, probably the closest they had ever got to the A6M without risk of death. During the afternoon two more Dutch F2As and three Glen Martin bombers were destroyed while one Zero was forced to ditch. The following day the Dutch lost a further Glenn Martin and three more were badly damaged from the ten that remained, in return Otojiro Sakaguchi’s A6M was destroyed but he parachuted to safety. In intercepting seven B-17s later two A6Ms were lost; five of the American bombers were damaged, two crashing on the way home. While 3 Kōkūtai with thirty-five A6Ms shifted base from Menado to Kendari the carriers Hiryū and Sōryū sent in another attack on Ambon and later landed eighteen of their A6Ms ashore in readiness for the occupation of Amboina and Ceram.

On 4 February a flight of A6Ms moved base to Balikpapan airfield itself and were later joined by the rest of the group. To cover their invasion convoys A6Ms of the 22nd Flotilla operated from Kahang field, located between Kluang and Mersing. On 14 February the Allies made concentrated efforts to bomb these Japanese ships in the Banka Strait, but took heavy losses, as, for example, when several formations of Australian Lockheed Hudson twin-engined bombers from Nos 1, 8 and 62 Hikōtai totalling sixteen machines, of which seven were lost and two more crash-landed, A62 pilots Kozaburo Yasui and Keisaku Yoshimura claiming four of them. Despite this Palembang was taken and its airfields occupied and by the next day the southern tip of Sumatra, with Bali falling five days later and Timor the next day leaving Java isolated. Allied fighter aircraft, Brewster 339s, Curtiss Hawks, Curtiss-Wright CW-21Bs, Hawker Hurricanes and Curtiss P-40Es with mixed units of American, Australian and Dutch defenders had been reported concentrating at Djombanagh, Soerabaya at the island eastern end. This was not without hazard and fourteen from a flight of forty P-40s were lost during the transfer north from Darwin via Koepang to Madura Island airfield, near Djombanagh. Meanwhile the Japanese were busy reinforcing their fight strength in the area ready for the final assault and conducting offensive sweeps. On 2 February seventeen Zeros from Balikpapan made a long-range sweep over eastern Java and strafed the Dutch Maospati airfield, Soerabaya, finding few worthwhile targets, but Lieutenant Jun-ichi Sasai, with wingmen Susumu Ishihara and Shizuyoshi Nishiyama from the covering A6Ms did succeed in shooting down one of a number of Brewsters, while, during the initial approach Yoshisuke Arita and Yoshio Motoyoshi had also destroyed a B-18 bomber over Sedajce, killing US radar specialist Colonel William H. Murphy and his staff, Major Straubel, CO of 7 Bomb Group as well as both pilots. Madang, Madioen and Soerabaya naval bases were heavily attacked the following day with a total of seventy-two G3Ms escorted by seventeen A6Ms under Lieutenant Hideki Shingo and twenty-seven under Lieutenant Tamotsu Yokoyama respectively. Over the target 3 Kōkūtai had a field day massacring the Dutch fighters for the loss of three of their own and Tainan A6Ms achieved equal success, burning five B-17s on the ground at Singosari, Malang, and another in the air by Yoshiri Hidaka as well as a Consolidated Y-40 flying boat destroyed by Saburo Nozawa. The A6Ms then tangled with Dutch Hawks and CW-21Bs shooting down seven of them while four more were forced to crash-land. They then strafed the seaplane base destroying three Dornier 24s, three Dornier Wals three Fokker C-XIs and two Fokker T-IVs. The Tainan A6Ms attacked nine B-17s and destroyed one of them. Finally two P-40s out of six were shot down by 3 Kōkūtai for the loss of Hatsumasa Yamaya, Sho-ichi Shji and Masaru Morita, while Kyoji Kobayashi of the Tainan Zeros was also killed.

This resounding victory was repeated two days later when, on 5 February, twenty-seven A6Ms of the Tainan group sortied against Soerabaya again, followed by eleven from the 3 Kōkūtai, while a third section of ten A6Ms of 3 Kōkūtai headed for Depassar, Bali. One Dutch CW-21B and two Hawks were shot down, a B-17 badly damaged, and three more flying boats, three Dutch Do24s, two Dutch Catalina Ys and two American PBYs were destroyed by strafing. At Bali ten American P-40Es came off worst when they mixed it with ten 3 Kōkūtai A6Ms losing seven of their number destroyed and three damaged. The battles continued in this vein, with on 8 February a force of nine B-17s attacking Kendari, Celebes, being met by nine Tainan A6Ms who immediately shot down two of them and damaged all the others. It was not totally one-sided, AA fire at Makassar claiming the life of one of the leading A6M China veterans, Masayuki Nakase of 3 Kōkūtai, with eighteen confirmed kills on his belt.

Darwin negated

The Kidō Butai under Vice-Admiral Chūichi Nagumo meanwhile took a hand in proceedings on 19 February when the carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū and Sōryū, escorted by two battleships, three cruisers and nine destroyers steered by Halmahera and Ambon and entered the Banda Sea. On the morning of 19th, these carriers despatched a strong force of bombers (seventy-one Aichi D3A2 dive-bombers and eighty-one Nakajima B5N2 attack bombers in two separate groups). The bombers were escorted by fifty-four A6Ms, and these comprised nine Akagi fighters led by Lieutenant-Commander Shigeru Itaya, nine Kaga Zeros under Lieutenant Yasushi Nikaido, nine Hiryū fighters led by Lieutenant Sumio Nono and nine Sōryū fighters under Lieutenant Iyozo Fujita. This whole mass of aircraft was to strike at Port Darwin, the Allied main supply base for Java. In co-operation the 21 and 23 land-based Kōkū Sentai contributed a further fifty-four Mitsubishi G4M2 bombers.

The Allied air power at Darwin comprised ten American P-40Es, fourteen Australian Commonwealth Wirraways, seventeen Lockheed Hudson bombers, several Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats and some minor units. Of these five P-40Es were on patrol, while half the Wirraways were inoperational and the rest never got airborne. It seemed as if nothing whatsoever had been taken on board even now from all the earlier lessons from Pearl Harbor, Malaya, the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies. Two radioed warnings from coast watchers north of Darwin were ignored by the Allied HQ and even when one of the Zeros, piloted by Yoshikazu Nagahama shot down a Consolidated PBY Catalina flying-boat over the American supply ship Florence D, no warnings were issued or any other defensive measures taken. Thus the whole port was caught totally flat-footed. Even the patrolling P-40Es were totally surprised when the same Nagahama, along ahead of the main Japanese force, dived down on them from above. The A6M pilot lost no time in shooting down three of the startled Americans and damaging the other two in the space of a few minutes.

The first wave of Japanese bombers then arrived while the rest of the A6Ms then made a low-level strafing run across the harbour. The five remaining P-40Es began to scramble but two were flamed at once, while a third was damaged and finally crashed. The remaining pair also got into the sky but only lasted a briefly before they were also destroyed while one A6M flown by Hajime Toyoshima was the only Japanese fighter loss,¹⁴ although seven were damaged slightly by ground fire. Six A6Ms strafed the auxiliary field at Bathurst Island and also shot up three American PBYs.

The carrier-based bombers sank the American destroyer Peary, seven transports and many smaller ships and badly damaged two further warships, the American seaplane tender William B Preston and Australian sloop Swan, and six further transports from the forty-seven ships moored in the harbour that day. On the way to the carriers they also sank the freight Don Isidro as well. When the land-based bombers arrived shortly afterwards they completed the job, flattening hangars, buildings, the hospital and workshops and finishing off the two damaged P-40s, destroying also six Hudsons and several light aircraft and causing wholesale panic and desertion among the service personnel.¹⁵ Other than the single A6M the Japanese lost just two dive-bombers and one B5N. As a result of this devastating attack the official British naval historian was to later record: ‘Darwin was put out of action as a base for several months. The last reinforcement link to Java was thus broken.’¹⁶

On 19 February twenty-three A6Ms took off from Balikpapan to strike this assembly; preceded by weather planes they made the 430-mile hop without loss and they arrived over Soerabaya at 1130 at 16,000ft to find the Allies waiting for them. In a six-minute encounter the A6Ms claimed forty enemy aircraft destroyed for the loss of three of their own. Saburo Sakai alone claimed three P-36 scalps and a bombing raid on Madura caught most of the others on the ground later. The Japanese lost another three A6Ms from a force of eighteen dispatched the following day, 20 February, all downed by anti-aircraft fire while making low-level strafing attacks. This attack was repeated in the same force on the 25th and three B-17s and a floatplane were torched but no fighters were encountered. In total the campaign cost ten A6Ms. On 28 February a final attack was made flying escort to twelve G4Ms against the port of Tjilatjap. No opposition was met so the Zeros visited Malang and Bandjermasin to Bali while 3 Kōkūtai conducted similar swift advances via Davao, Manado to Kendrai in the Celebes, where it split, one section moving down to Amboina and then to Dili, Timor Island, while the other went via Makassar also to Bali.

As the long night of Japanese occupation settled over the former colonies of America, Britain and Holland a huge gap was opening up between the Royal Navy, now banished to the central Indian Ocean, and the remnants of the American fleet at Hawaii. Through this gap the Japanese, their appetite whetted by the very ease of the conquests, were threatening to flow, with either the occupation, or at the very least, the isolation of the whole vast Australia continent a very real threat. But, while preparing for the next moves south and east, the IJN was to administer one last blow to Britain’s failing sea power, designed to secure their western flank from final threat or interference.