Chapter 9
Grim Attrition
With the end of the Midway encounter the A6M entered a new phase. Elation at easy victories now became tempered with steely determination. The opening phase had been a walk-over, now the air war in the Pacific entered a new, more testing period. It started with a disaster of a different kind, one that was to come home to roost in the years ahead.
The Aleutians and capture of an intact Zero
In contrast to the epic and cataclysmic battle at Midway Atoll, the Japanese occupation of the Aleutians was little more than an irrelevant footnote, except for one factor, the capture, almost intact, of another A6M. Although, as we have seen, previous examples had been indeed obtained they had not been thoroughly examined or if they had been what data had been obtained had not been passed down to the Allied combat pilots in the field who had to learn its attributes (and weaknesses) the hard way.1 By contrast another RAF pilot who flew with No. 258 Hurricane Squadron in Burma wrote how, even when the facts were presented to them, some pilots refused to credit them. ‘We were warned of a speed which matched our own and, difficult to believe, in fact hardly believed, a superior maneuverability.’2 Even so many points on the design of the A6M remained obscure but what became known as ‘The Aleutian Zero’ resolved them.
The two small Japanese aircraft carriers of 4 Kōkū-sentai had been allotted to the Task Group of Rear Admiral Kakuji Kakuta that was cover a landing force to seize the Aleutian bases of Adak, Attu and Kiska, in order to protect their northern flank.3 The air strength comprised the newly built Junyō (which had only been commissioned on 3 May), with thirteen Model 21 A6Ms commanded by Lieutenant Yoshio Shiga, with Fighter Division Officer Lieutenant Yasuhiro Shigematsu, and six A6Ms of 6 Kōkūtai under Lieutenant Zenjirō Miyano, which were earmarked for Midway once the island had been occupied, embarked; and the 1933-built Ryūjō, which had twenty Model 21 A6Ms embarked under the command of Lieutenant Kenjirō Nōtomi with Lieutenant Minoru Kobayahi as Fighter Divisional Officer. They sailed from Ōminato, Mutsu Bay, in northern Honshu with an escort of two heavy cruisers, Maya and Takao, three destroyers and an oiler.
Further south was Vice-Admiral Hosogaya Boshirōwith the light cruisers Kiso and Tama, three destroyers, three escorts and four minesweepers escorting a troop convoy of our transports with 2,500 occupation forces under Rear Admiral Ōmori Sentarō. American air strength was vastly superior and consisted of ten B-17s, thirty-four B-18s bombers and ninety-five P-40 Warhawks and two squadrons of PBYs, but, in practice, they contributed little.
The Aleutians were notorious for their foul weather and on arrival the Japanese found low cloud base (300m) and murky visibility and each carrier was forced to operate more-or-less independently. Lieutenant Shiga led the first wave with thirteen A6Ms and twelve D3A dive-bombers from Junyō, and a further three A6Ms and six B5Ns from Ryūjō against the American base at Dutch Harbor, Amaknak Island, Fox Islands, on 3 June and the escorts destroyed a PBY Catalina. A second attack was again led by Lieutenant Shiga, with six A6Ms and fifteen D3As, but bad weather aborted this raid, although two further PBYs were destroyed by the fighters. The weather continued to be atrocious on 4 June but, at 1140, six Junyō A6Ms got airborne with eleven D3As, along with six A6Ms led by Lieutenant Masayuki and nine B5Ns from Ryūjō. While the attack was made the bombers hit the radio station, hit again the Northwestern, a barracks ship in the harbour, the PBY repair hangar, a warehouse, destroyed an anti-aircraft gun site and set ablaze six oil storage tanks.
During the strafing attacks on the harbour area one shotai, Petty Officer 1st Class Masu-aki Endo, with Petty Officers Tadayoshi Koga and Tsuguo Shikada, chopped down yet another PBY over Beaver Inlet, Egg Island, then turned a made a second run from 600ft in single line-ahead, during which machine-gun fire from the ground registered hits in both Shikada and Koga’s plywood drop tanks, one bullet severing the return oil line between the oil cooler and the engine, according to a subsequent US report. Koga’s machine began spewing out oil and his speed fell away as the engine began to stutter. The shotai headed toward Akutan Island, already pre-designated as an emergency landing site with the submarine I-15 lying offshore to rescue any downed pilots. Koga lowered his undercarriage before it was noticed that the ‘grass’ was in fact bog. On touch-down the wheels dug into the mire and flipped Koga’s A6M over onto her back breaking his neck. Reluctant to destroy the wreck in case Koga was still alive his two companions left it and returned to their carrier. The A6M and its nineteen-year old pilot were therefore left undisturbed and undetected for more than a month.4
Meanwhile a force of eight P-40s from Otter Point, Umnak, was encountered by Jūnyō’s aircraft on their return flight over Otter Point, Umnak Island, which shot down two of the Japanese D3As before the A6Ms intervened and destroyed two P-40s before the rest fled. The two carriers and their escorts withdrew and rendezvoused with the carrier Zuihō, which had twelve Type 96 Claude fighters embarked. On 6 June the Japanese occupied Kiska, which became a seaplane base for Rufes, and Attu fell the following day. These bases remained in Japanese hands for the next eighteen months but were never of practical value. The recovery and detailed examination of Koga’s A6M, by contrast, proved an unexpected treasure-trove for the US Navy.
Only by chance did the Americans locate the Zero; a PBY on patrol had, due to bad weather, strayed 240 miles off course and while making its way back to Dutch Harbor detected an aircraft on Akutan. Later a special search party found the aircraft considerably damaged from the landing, with Koga’s body still hanging in his straps inside, and took steps to recover it. This took several attempts but eventually the aircraft was dragged out from the bog on a skid and taken by barge to Dutch Harbor for cleaning up and further examination where the total lack of armour protection, self-sealing fuel tanks, and IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) devices gave vital knowledge of the A6M’s areas of vulnerability immediately. The aircraft was then crated up and loaded aboard the Navy transport St Mihiel and taken to Seattle where it was trans-shipped for passage to US Naval Air Station North Island at San Diego, where it arrived on 12 August and was subsequently re-built to a full flying state under considerable secrecy in record time. Considerable work was involved requiring the complete re-building of the fin, both elevators, rudder and rear fuselage; the replacement of top fuselage skin and stringers and sliding cockpit; the repair of the pilots seat, fuselage around the cockpit area, entire engine cowling and cowl flaps; the rebuilding of a wing-tip, port landing flap, bullet holes and complete internal re-wiring and testing of all instruments and hydraulics, while the engine need considerable attention, although the propeller, strangely enough, was relatively intact. So much work was required and so many parts had to be fabricated on the spot with American materials, that some critics maintain that the subsequent flight-testing did not reflect the true full potential of the A6M. This may very well be true, but this aircraft was the best they had and Koga’s machine, a true A6M or not, was vigorously flight-tested in the years ahead and did give valuable insights in what had up to then been the bane and great terror of the Pacific air war. It has been asserted that this aircraft was, ‘… critical in helping the Americans devise defensive and offensive tactics that in part resulted in the neutralization of the Zeke as an effective fighter’.5 However, as we have seen Thach and others had already devised some defensive tactics to minimize the A6M’s obvious superiority over the F4F, and, in addition both the Navy’s massive new fighters, the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Chance-Vought F4U Corsair, were already flying by the time this A6M arrived on the West Coast, so any claim that they had been designed as result of its examination will just not wash.
The first such aerial examination of the A6M was conducted from North Island by Navy test pilot Lieutenant-Commander Eddie R. Sanders, who carried out two dozen flights in the period 20 September to 15 October 1942, and Commander Fred Trapnell, both transferred from Anacostia NAS. Among their observations, which were duly promulgated out to the fleet pilots and training units from November 1942 onward, were the confirmation of the already very apparent fact that at low speeds the A6M could easily out-turn any American fighter and this was to remain the case to the very end of the war, but that at 200 knots (370.4 km/h) or above the excellent aileron control rapidly faded away and slowed the roll, which, it was revealed, was slower to starboard than to port. The float-type carburettor frequently cut-out under negative-gravity acceleration. It was also interesting that in Sander’s official report of 29 September, he commented that the A6M was:
… equipped with complete instruments, some of which appear to be superior to ours;6 two-way radio (frequency 4596 KC); radio compass (Fairchild); oxygen with regulator to control flow with changes in altitude; droppable belly tank; provision for two bomb racks on wings; flotation bags in wings and fuselage, which are constantly inflated and secured in several places to the structure with a vent to the atmosphere which can be closed at will; and instead of fuel boost pump or tank pressure, there are controllable air scoops below the gas tanks, for cooling the gas apparently.
Subsequently, this A6M was flight-tested by conducting aerial competitive duels against current fighter aircraft – both Navy (Vought F4U Corsair and Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat) and Army (Bell P-39D-1 Airacobra, Curtiss P-40-F Warhawk, Lockheed P-38F Lightning and North American P-51 Mustang). Testing continued throughout the war first at the Tactical Air Intelligence Center at Anacostia and then back at San Diego where it flew with a captured Type 52 from Guam. In February 1945, however, the Aleutian Zero met its final demise at the hands of the enemy, in the chunky form of a Curtiss SB2C Helldiver whose pilot failed to see Commander Richard G. Crommelin taxiing her out. The ‘Beast’ simply ran over the little Japanese fighter and the SB2C’s propeller chewed her rear fuselage up in chunks. The remains were junked, but she had played a significant part in the defeat of her sisters far away across the broad Pacific.
Guadalcanal and the Solomons
To the unfortunate Japanese soldiers condemned to serve on Guadalcanal during the abortive attempts to wrestle back control of Lunga Point airstrip, it was ‘Ga To’ (Starvation island). But the island also proved a starvation diet for the IJN over the period August 1942 to February 1943, for, despite some hard-fought surface and air victories over the American fleet, the end result was failure. Troops and ships were fed piecemeal, always too little and too late, and although the island was almost re-taken in October and the American carriers reduced to just one active vessel the following month, final victory eluded Yamamoto.
Battle of Eastern Solomons
Fought soon after the Midway epic, this third air-sea battle took place on 24/25 August and came about with the Japanese response to the US Marines landings at Tulagi, Florida and Guadalcanal islands from 7 August onward and the capture of the partly completed airstrip at Lunga Point, which was named Henderson Field.
Overall command was exercised by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto with Rear-Admiral Chūichi Nagumo still commanding at sea with two fleet carriers, one light carrier, two battleships, sixteen cruisers and twenty-five destroyers deployed operating in support of the Ka offensive to re-take the island. Land forces assigned to this task left Truk Lagoon, the 2 Battalion of 28 Infantry Regiment under Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki and 5 Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force aboard three troop transports on 16 August escorted by four heavy cruisers, a light cruiser and eight destroyers. Rear-Admiral Hiroaki Abe with the Advance Force had two battleships, three heavy cruisers one light cruiser and three destroyers; Vice-Admiral Nobutake Kondōhad the Advance Force with the seaplane carrier Chitose, five heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and six destroyers. Nagumo had the Main Body, carriers Shōkaku (with twenty-seven A6Ms under Lieutenant Hisayoshi Miyajima, and twenty-seven D3As and eighteen B5Ns embarked), Zuikaku (also having twenty-seven A6Ms, led by Lieutenant Aya-o Shirane, with twenty-seven D3As and eighteen B5Ns embarked); and Ryūjō (with twenty-four A6Ms under Lieutenant KenjirōNōtomi, and nine B5Ns aboard), the latter ship being seconded to the 1 Kōkūtai from the 2 Kōkūtai with one heavy cruisers and eight destroyers.
Their American equivalents were under overall command of Admiral Robert Ghormley with Rear-Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher once again commanding three fleet carriers, Enterprise, Saratoga and Wasp, with a battleship, six heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, two AA cruisers and eighteen destroyers. Twenty-two more aircraft were based at Lunga Point and there were long-range PBY floatplanes and Boeing B-17s at Santa Cruz Island and Espiritu Santo respectively. Fletcher had pulled out the American carriers after just one day; leaving the Marines ashore unsupported and the resulting night surface action off Savo Island destroyed the American cruiser covering force. On 23 August Fletcher detached the Wasp, heavy cruisers Australia, San Francisco and Salt Lake City, light cruiser Hobart, AA cruiser San Juan and destroyers of Task Forces 18 and 44, to Efate island for refuelling, even though just reaching there involved two days’ steaming, thus reducing the size of his force by one-third.
There were three separate Japanese attacks, but only two hit home. The Ryūjō was detached with a heavy cruiser and destroyer escort, to carry out an attack on Lunga Point airstrip. At 1120 she duly launched six A6Ms led by Lieutenant KenjirōNōtomi, escorting five B5N2s. These were followed at 1248 by a further nine A6Ms, each of which carried a pair of 60kg bombs. A combined assault had been planned with twenty-four G4M and fourteen further A6Ms dispatched from Rabaul, but bad weather had already aborted that attack and Ryūjō’s aircraft were forced to act alone. Ten F4Fs and two P-400s intercepted and two Marine Corps F4Fs were destroyed for the loss of four B5Ns. As the carrier had been badly damaged and later sank, the survivors had to try and land back at Rabaul and three A6Ms were lost en route there.
The Japanese fleet carriers launched two waves against the US carriers, the first at 1450, comprising four A6Ms escorting eighteen D3As led by Lieutenant-Commander Mamoru Seki, from Shōkaku, and six A6Ms commanded by Lieutenant (j.g.) Saneyasu Hidaka, and nine D3As from Zuikaku. They destroyed four US aircraft and scored bomb hits on Enterprise. Three A6Ms were lost there, including Petty Officer 1st Class Shigeru Makino.
The second wave, which got away at 1600, comprised three A6Ms escorting nine D3As from Shōkaku and six A6Ms with eighteen further D3As from Zuikaku, all under Lieutenant Sadamu Takahashi, but these were forced to abort their mission without locating the American force. Arriving back after nightfall Nagumo ordered the carriers searchlights switched on to guide them in, all save five D3As made it back aboard, with some aircrews being rescued by destroyers after ditching.
The Americans had a huge CAP of fifty-three F4F-3s overhead with good radar warning, but these were poorly handled and most of these were misdirected and failed to intercept, while of those that did, four were destroyed by their own flak defences while the A6Ms kept the rest away from their charges most efficiently and destroyed two Wildcats. The main thrust of the dive-bombing was against Enterprise and the D3As scored three direct hits, which put her out of action for two months. Although the Americans claimed to have destroyed seventy Japanese aircraft when only forty-two in total made the attack, twenty-five aircraft failed to return. Likewise their air striking forces achieved nothing other than two near-misses on the Chitose and many had to land at Lunga Point.
Meanwhile, after considerable hesitation, at 1340 Fletcher had Saratoga send a thirty-eight plane striking force against Ryūjō, which had been pinpointed by a PBY four hours earlier. The Ryūjō, in the absence of the majority of her aircraft away attacking Guadalcanal, had just seven A6Ms, which destroyed one TBF. The little Japanese carrier was hit by an estimated four bombs and also hit by a torpedo that hit right aft and flooded the starboard engine-room and which caused a 21-degree list and brought her to a halt. Later the damaged carrier was subjected to another ineffectual high-level bombing by B-17s, which were attacked by A6Ms and later lost one of their number which crash-landed, but the badly damaged and abandoned Ryūjō sank that night taking with her the four remaining of her aircraft. All her CAP had to ditch but the pilots were rescued by escorting destroyers. The Japanese heavy ships also failed to make contact for a surface action and by nightfall each fleet had withdrawn leaving an unsatisfactory outcome from both viewpoints. Total Japanese A6M losses were put at thirty-three.7
Subsequently the Shōkaku flew off fifteen A6Ms led by Lieutenant Hideki Shingō to the airfield at Buka airfield, Bougainville, closer to the action, from where they conducted attacks on Guadalcanal between 28 August and 4 September, destroying fifteen US aircraft in actions on 29 and 30 August and 2 September, but lost six, including Lieutenant Shingō himself and Lieutenant Masanobu Ibusuki, both of whom had to make force-landings.
Battle of Santa Cruz
This was the fourth carrier-versus-carrier battle of the Pacific War and was fought on 26 October 1942. The Japanese had planned a major ground counter-attack at Guadalcanal between 20 and 25 October, by further elements of Lieutenant-General Hyakutake’s 17 Army, which had earlier been ferried in from Rabaul with the aim, once again, of re-taking Henderson Field (known to the Japanese as Lunga Point or Runga Point – which they code-named RXI). In case the US Fleet might once more attempt to influence the battle on the island, Yamamoto moved strong forces into the area of the southern Solomons in the hope of inflicting a decisive defeat upon them. When the Oka regiment prematurely signalled on 25 October that they had taken the airfield, the Japanese warships moved south, and the two fleets finally made air contact with the north of Santa Cruz Island about 250 miles (400m) south-west of San Cristobal.
The Japanese forces, under overall command from the Yamato back at Truk Lagoon, consisted of the Kidō Butai with Shōkaku (now finally equipped with radar), Zuikaku and Zuihō of 1 Kōkūtai, escorted by nine destroyers under Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo; the 2 Kōkūtai (re-named from 4 Kōkūtai) with the carrier Junyō and two destroyers, under Rear-Admiral Sentaro Omori;8 the Main Body, with heavy cruisers Atago, Maya, Myōkō and Takao, and seven destroyers, and Vice-Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Support Group, battleships Haruna and Kongō with two destroyers; the Vanguard group of Rear-Admiral Hiroake Abe, with battleships Hiei and Kirishima, heavy cruisers Chikuma, Suzuya and Tone with eight destroyers, plus a supply group of four tankers and one destroyer. As can be seen Yamamoto’s penchant for the complex splitting of separated forces in groups still persisted, despite the dire example of the Midway debacle. The air complements of the four Japanese carriers comprised: Shōkaku – twenty A6M2s, under Lieutenant Masanobu Ibusuki, along with twenty-one D3A1 dive-bombers, one Yokosuka D4Y1 dive-bomber, and twenty-four B5N2 torpedo-bombers; Zuikaku – twenty A6M2s, led by Lieutenant Aya-o Shirane, along with twenty-three D3A1s and twenty B5N2s; Zuihō – twenty A6Ms, commanded by Lieutenant Saneyasu Hikdaka, plus nine B5N2s. Finally the Junyō had twenty-one A6Ms embarked, many of them piloted by survivors from Midway, as well as eighteen B5Ns and nine D3As. After intensive training practice at Saeki the carrier arrived at Truk and, when Hiyō dropped out of the operation, Lieutenant Yoshio Shiga and part of her Kōkūtai transferred to Junyō to replace heavy losses received in attacks on Guadalcanal earlier.9
Just about the time the Japanese moved again, changes to the US Fleet were afoot. After his performance at Eastern Solomons, came the torpedoing of the Saratoga on 31 August, which put her out of action for three months, followed soon after by the loss of the Wasp on 15 September, Rear-Admiral Fletcher had been sent back to the States. Admiral Robert Ghormley also went and was replaced in command by his old friend Admiral William F. ‘Bull’ Halsey, now recovered from his long hospitalization at Pearl Harbor. Halsey had just arrived at Noumea on 18 October when the storm broke, but, true to form, and in contrast to the previous hesitant decisions of some of the previous base and sea commanders in the area, on learning the Japanese fleet was out ‘Bull’ sent one simple signal – ‘Attack – Repeat – Attack.’10
The American forces comprised the carrier Enterprise with thirty-six F4F-4 fighters embarked, along with forty-four SBD-3 dive-bombers and fourteen TBF-1 torpedo-bombers, escorted by the battleship South Dakota, heavy cruiser Portland and anti-aircraft cruiser San Juan and eight destroyers (Task Force 16, under Rear-Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid) and the carrier Hornet, with thirty-seven F4F-4s, and thirty SBDs and sixteen TBF-1s on board, escorted by the heavy cruisers Northampton and Pensacola and the anti-aircraft cruisers Juneau and San Diego, with six destroyers (Task Force 17 under Rear-Admiral George D. Murray). There were also at this time sixteen F4F-4s at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, with twenty SBD3s, two TBF-1s and twelve Army fighters, P-39/P-400s Airacobras. There were also numerous PBYs (some fitted with torpedoes) and land-based Army B-17s under Rear-Admiral Fitch in support and these had sighted the Japanese forces as early as the 23rd. These long-range units made attacks on 25 October but, as usual, failed to score any hits. Neither of the two opponents’ carrier aircraft managed to locate the other but Junyō’s bombers attacked US Marines near the disputed airfield.
At 0250 on 26 October a PBY made contact and reported back to Kinkaid but the account was delayed for three hours and in that long period one of Tone’s scouts located the Americans. As usual then the Japanese struck first sending away a sixty-four plane strike. At 0510 the Shōkaku contributed four A6Ms, under Lieutenant Hisayoshi Miyajima, plus eight Zuikaku fighters under Lieutenant Aya-o Shirane while the Zuihō contributed nine A6Ms, under Lieutenant Saneyasu Hidaka with Lieutenant (j.g.) Shū-ichi Utsumi, Warrant Officer Masa-aki Kawahara, and Petty Officers Masao Kawasaki, Masaichi Kondō, Zenpei Matsumoto, JirōMitsumoto, Yasuhiro Nakamura and Shizuta Takagi. The Zuihō shotai engaged incoming American strikes heading for the fleet and destroyed three F4Fs and two TBF Avengers, so damaging a further F4F and two more TBFs that they had to turn back to their carrier. This was all well done, but during the melee the A6M group had become disorientated and four of them, Utsumi, Kawasaki, Matsumoto and Takagi, failed to find their way back to their carrier and were lost.
Meanwhile at 0540 the Zuihō was surprised by two SBDs lurking in the clouds and struck by one bomb and damaged. She could still launch aircraft but could no longer land them back aboard.
For her first attack at 0705 the Junyō put up twelve A6Ms under Lieutenant Yasuhiro Shiga escorting seventeen B5Ns. Nagumo then ordered her to close her force for close co-operation. The D3As attacked Enterprise but scored no direct hits, although they did hit the battleship South Dakota and the AA cruiser San Juan losing eight dive-bombers in the process. At 1106 Junyō got away a second strike, with eight A6Ms escorting seven B5Ns.
The Japanese strike force was detected at a distance of forty miles (65km) and no fewer than thirty-seven F4Fs joined the CAP to block them. Despite this the majority of the American fighter aircraft failed to engage and only four D3As were destroyed, in return for which the A6Ms destroyed six Americans. The remaining sixteen Japanese dive-bombers thus had only to face the AA fire the Hornet Task Force.11 The dive-bombers scored three direct hits on Hornet and, additionally, a fourth D3A was hit by anti-aircraft fire and set on fire, the pilot deliberately choosing to make a suicide crash into the carrier, which caused more damage. B5Ns then added two torpedo hits to the tally and disabled her engines, while another D3A made a deliberate suicide run into her and she wallowed to a halt. Meanwhile the destroyer Porter took a torpedo hit and had to be put down by gunfire.
For the second Japanese attack Shōkaku sent five A6Ms under Fighter Division Officer Lieutenant Hideki Shingō (who was lost) with nineteen D3As; they were joined by four A6Ms from Zuikaku led by Warrant Officer Shigemi Katsuma with sixteen B5Ns. These attacked the Enterprise Task Force and again eluded most of the defending F4Fs, losing just two dive-bombers. For the loss of eight further D3As they scored two direct hits and one very near miss on Enterprise badly damaging her. The following torpedo-bombers lost three of their number to F4Fs but failed to score any hits on the carrier, although the destroyer Smith was badly damaged, and lost five more B5Ns in the process. The A6Ms fared better and between them they destroyed five American fighters. The Junyō put up twelve A6Ms under Lieutenant Yasuhiro Shiga escorting eighteen B5Ns.
Meanwhile hastening up into the battle the Junyō launched twelve A6Ms escorting seventeen D3As and these scored one near miss on the Enterprise and hit the battleship South Dakota and the AA cruiser San Juan but lost eleven aircraft in the process.
Despite her depleted air complement the Zuikaku mustered yet a third strike, with five A6Ms under Lieutenant Aya-o Shirane, with two D3As and seven B5Ns and, likewise the Junyō got away eight A6Ms escorting seven B5Ns. The little Junyō had still not shot her bolt, and conducted yet a third wave at extreme range with six A6Ms, with four B5Ns and managed to hit Hornet a second time. The indefatigable Shirane and one companion were lost in combat while the remaining three Zeros ran out of fuel and were lost. Meanwhile the Hornet had listed over and was abandoned by her crew, aided on their way by another two bomb hits from the Zuikaku team. Two US destroyers were ordered to sink her to prevent her being captured by the Japanese but she stubbornly refused to do down and they had to flee when powerful Japanese surface forces arrived. In the end two Japanese destroyers completed the task for them as the carrier was too damaged to salvage.
Against the opposing American strikes the Japanese fighter defenders had performed far better than their opposite numbers. The Shōkakū’s radar set had detected the incoming American strike at seventy-eight miles’ range at 0640. A total of just twenty-four A6Ms were available to form the CAP during the day and they destroyed nine enemy bombers, including one which Petty Officer 1st Class Shigetaka Omori took out by ramming, when the enemy was about to bomb the carrier. The Zuihō’s three A6M contribution engaged the escorting Hornet F4Fs, which left the SBDs unprotected and four of them were quickly shot down. One of Hornet’s SBD pilots recorded this thus: ‘The Zero fighters engaged our four fighters and quickly shot down two of them. The other two fighters, trying to survive, disappeared into some clouds. That was the end of our fighter support. We were on our own.’
After he had made his dive attack and was try to escape, Fisher also graphically described what it was like to be on the receiving end of an A6M attack:
When I finally leveled off at 300 feet, my gunner yelled, ‘We’ve got a Zero on our tail!’ Putting it mildly, it was a horrifying feeling. I couldn’t out maneuver the Zero. With a Zero on its tail, a SBD dive-bomber has a slight advantage over a single fighter because of the gunner’s rapid-firing, twin 30-calibre guns. So I dove closer to the water where the fighter couldn’t get in a position below us – a dangerous spot because the gunner couldn’t position his guns to bear down on the Zero. My gunner, ARM 3/c Ferguson, practically shot off our rudder trying to hit the Zero. Both [our] wings were riddled with small jagged holes after being hit with 7.7mm bullets. One bullet passed between my legs, shattering my engine’s cylinder temperature gauge. Finally, the Zero fired his 20mm cannons, and a shell exploded in the radio transmitter located behind my armored seat. A radio-frequency manual was blown to bits with confetti flying all over the cockpit. The concussion from the exploding shell inside the confines of the cockpit canopy felt like I had been hit a hard blow on top of my head. Simultaneously, I felt a red-hot burning sensation in my right arm just below my shoulder. Shrapnel fragments flying around in the cockpit had hit my upper right arm just above the elbow. Momentarily stunned, I had lost my vision, but my mind was visualizing the shimmering, wavering faces of my mother and Annie. I didn’t want to die, but felt completely helpless. After recovering from the shock of the concussion and as my vision cleared, the Zero fighter, with its big red ‘meatball’ insignia, was flying off my right wing, just like a wingman. The pilot was staring at me! When our eyes met, he drifted back behind us. Ferguson had been shot in both thighs with 7.7mm bullets and a piece of shrapnel had gouged some flesh out of the calf of his right leg. Ferguson managed to reload his jammed guns, in spite of his wounds, and waited for the Zero to get into firing range. The Zero pilot evidently felt we were cold turkey and moved slowly into position for the kill. Ferguson fired first and hit the engine of the Zero. The Zero, with its engine smoking, pulled up sharply away from us and then disappeared. We had miraculously survived: Ferguson had not panicked. He had saved both our lives.12
The defence could not prevent the Shōkaku suffering three bomb hits, which severely damaged the vessel, but did not sink her. Both these Japanese carriers survived but had to withdraw from the battle. The Hornet’s TBFs failed to attack the carriers at all and instead concentrated unsuccessfully on the cruiser Tone, and nor did the Enterprise torpedo-bombers fare any better when they assailed the heavy cruiser Suzuya. Only three Shōkakū A6Ms were lost in combat. However, aircraft from Hornet did later manage to hit the heavy cruiser Chikuma with one bomb and one torpedo, but she survived. Losses among the Japanese strike force were very heavy, the Shōkakū had only four A6Ms and one B5N when she was detached with the damaged Zuihō at the end of the engagement; the Zuikaku was better off, having thirty-eight A6Ms, ten D3As and nineteen B5Ns when the battle ended. With the loss of one fleet carrier and severe damage to a second, plus the other damage, the American force withdrew but due to the heavy aviation losses the Japanese, although they could claim a victory, were unable to force the issue and Guadalcanal remained in American hands.
The Rufe in the Solomons
While land-based and carrier-based A6Ms slugged it out over and around the Solomon Islands, the A6M2-N Suisen was also moved into the area as an alternative fighter in that sea-girt theatre of war. Thus began the saga of the Kamikawa Maru and her brood. As early as 10 August 1942 the Kamikawa Maru had been allocated to join the Chitose in 11 Koku Sentai (Seaplane Tender Division), 2 Fleet and on the 23rd she left Yokosuka for the Shortland Islands, Bougainville Island south-east of Rabaul at the head of the Solomon chain, where she arrived five days later. From 4 September she became part of Homen Koku Butai under Rear-Admiral Takatsugu Jōjima. The main operating base for the unit was Shortland Harbour with an advance base at Rekata Bay, Santa Isabel Island, strategically closer to the disputed airfield at Lunga Point, Guadalcanal. The main aircraft complement at this time comprised eleven Nakajima A6M2-N fighters, under the command of Lieutenant Jiro Ono, aided by a pair of Mitsubishi F1M2s and Aichi E13A1s for reconnaissance duties
The float fighters were soon in demand and, on 13 September, scored their first victory when two A6M2-Ns destroyed an SBD that was landing at Lunga Point. During the fierce battles ashore the next day Kamikawa Maru and Chitose, along with the auxiliary tenders Sanyo Maru and Sanuki Maru, mounted an attack with nineteen F1Ms carrying 60kg bombs, and four A6M2-Ns provided the escort. They were intercepted by four F4Fs and in the fight Lieutenant (j.g.) Masashi Kawashima and Warrant Officer Kawamura were lost.
Between 4 September and 7 November, the Rufes had carried out 360 sorties in 211 separate missions and claimed fourteen Allied aircraft destroyed, while losing nine of its own. Following this the Kamikawa Maru returned to Yokosuka in October and was fitted with radar, before embarking new aircraft and returning to the Solomons once more and commencing flying A6M2-Ns as fighter protection for troop convoys and destroyers running men into Guadalcanal. By 8 October losses and accidents had reduced her complement to just five Suisen and she once more had to replenish. On return Kamikawa Maru was based at Buin in October, where she was attacked by B-17s five times but received only minor damage. By 3 November she was back at Shortland once more and again participated in the famed ‘Tokyo Express’ troop runs into Guadalcanal. One important convoy comprised eleven destroyers under Captain Torajiro Sato with six of 802 (the former 14 Kōkūtai) Kōkūtai’s A6M2-Ns providing air support assisted by four F1M2 from Kamikawa Maru. This convoy was assailed by seven Marine Corps SBDs from VMSB-132, three of Hornet’s TBMs and eight Army Bell P-39s from 67 Fighter Squadron escorted by twenty-one Marine F4Fs from VMF-11. One F4F was destroyed against one float fighter, even though the Americans claimed ten and the convoy landed its troops successfully without loss.
Between 11 November Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka’s destroyers escorted a fast convoy with 14,500 soldiers from 38 Infantry Division, plus guns and supplies to Guadalcanal and Kamikawa Maru’s A5M-Ns again provide air cover. This was followed by another replenishment visit to Yokosuka and further operations from Shortland between 5 and 12 December with the 802 Kōkūtai whose ace pilot became Hisaō Jitō with three kills while Keizo Yamazaki nailed a P-38.
In March 1943 the A6M2-Ns had proved such a thorn in the flesh of the Americans on Guadalcanal that a special mission was mounted to destroy them. Eight P-38s of 70 Fighter Squadron and eight of the big new Marine Corps Chance-Vought F-4U-1s, were sent against the Faisi-Poporang area, on 29 March, but due to the weather only five P-38s and a single Corsair eventually reached the target area near Shortland, Alu Island, at 0620, badly damaging seven of the floatplanes at their moorings.
To continue the story of 802 Kōkūtai, they later moved to Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands where they were re-designated as 902 Kōkūtai on 21 October 1943 with seven A6M2-Ns. They were stationed for a period at the advance base of Greenwich Atoll, some 400 miles SSE of Truk, but were back at Truk by the beginning of February 1944 with an establishment of eight Suisen. When the great American carrier raid hit Truk on 17 February, two A6M2-Ns were airborne and attempted to intercept but were swept aside by the hordes of F6Fs who also totally destroyed the rest of the unit while they were still at their moorings.
Disaster in the Bismarck Sea
On 28 February 1943, a Japanese troop convoy of eight transports, carrying 6,900 men, escorted by eight destroyers, sortied from Simpson Harbour, Rabaul, on their way to land the HQ unit of 18 Army plus strong reinforcements, including elements of 51 Division, at Lae, New Guinea. It was known that powerful Allied air forces had assembled in the area and continuous air cover was planned over the ships by both Navy and Army fighter patrols. However, the Allies mounted strong attacks on the Japanese airfields. While the convoy was still within short range, north of New Britain, fighter cover was relatively easy to maintain, and both 204 Kōkūtai and 253 Kōkūtai shared the mission with the Army aircraft. Things remained placid on the 2nd but the following day the Allied attacks began. There were eighteen A6Ms of 253 Kōkūtai and fourteen of 204 Kōkūtai over the convoy this morning. One transport was sunk by B-17s and two were damaged.
On 3 March while off Finschhafen, Huon Peninsula, Papua, New Guinea, the Allied attacks reached a crescendo, with altitude bombing by B-17s and B-24s, and low-level attacks from A-20s, B-26s, and Australian Bristol Beaufighters and Bristol Beauforts. With the Japanese fighters up high the deadly ‘skip-bombing’ strikes by B-25s proved very effective. Fourteen A6Ms from 253 Kōkūtai working out of Surumi (now Gasmata), on the south coast of New Britain, and twelve from 204 Kōkūtai were aided by eighteen fighters from the Zuihō operating from Kavieng, but all to no avail. One B-17 was shot down by Leading Seaman Masanao Maki from Zuihō, and the A6Ms shot down three P-38s, and a B-25 but lost eight of their own number. The Japanese convoy was almost wiped out, losing all eight transports and four escorting destroyers. With hundreds of troops struggling in the water Allied planes roared in strafing at wave-top level and the result was carnage. In the end about 1,500 soldiers reached Lae, another 2,700 were rescued by destroyers and landed back at Rabaul but 2,890 were killed. It was a major disaster for the Japanese.
As a late postscript to this defeat, in August 1944 a section of A6Ms from 201 Kōkūtai based at Legaspi, Mactan Island, adjacent to Cebu on the Camotes Sea, asking for volunteers to practise their own form of chōhi bakugeki (skip-bombing). The whole group volunteered and selected pilots commenced training under the eye of instructors from the Yokosuka kōkūtai. A practice range was established in the nearby Bohol Strait and the method was refined. The accepted method became a high-speed approach at 280mph (450km/h), at wave-top height, 3ft (10m), carrying a 551lb (250kg) bomb. The release was delayed to with 1,000ft (304m) of the target vessel before bomb release. Such an approach profile gave each ship’s gunner a perfect target for any weapon that would bear and it was expected that the chances of surviving such an attack were minimal. In the event, the American fleet made two overwhelming attacks on Cebu and Legaspi on 12 and 13 September, inflicting heavy losses on both those A6Ms that managed to get airborne and those destroyed still on the ground. Further fighting followed on 21 and 22 September, which used up even more priceless aircraft from the Group. The fighting that followed meant that the skip-bombers were never ever used in action and the chance of avenging Bismarck Sea never came.
The last Gamble – Operation I-Go sakusen
Admiral Yamamoto now launched one final attempt at a mass aerial assault in an attempt to blunt the Allied advances in the South Pacific. Working from both carriers and shore bases at Rabaul, where Yamamoto and his air staff flew to from Truk to oversee the attacks, Bougainville and the Shortlands the offensive included aircraft from the carrier Hiyō at Truk, her Kōkūtai moving to Ballale in the Shortlands on 7 April 1943 and later operating out of Rabaul. Junyō also added her Kōkūtai giving a total landed from the fleet of ninety-five A6Ms and sixty-five D3As, plus B5Ns. 11 Kōkū-kantai had eighty-six A6Ms, seventy-two G4Ms and sixty-seven single-engined bombers on hand.
A mass attack was launched against Tulagi and Guadalcanal on 1 April 1943. No fewer than fifty-eight A6M3s from the 204, 251 and 582 Kōkūtai left their bases and headed south down the Solomons. They were intercepted by Allied fighters in the vicinity of Russell Islands and eighteen A6Ms were claimed destroyed for the loss of six Allied aircraft.
On 7 April an even larger force, 110 A6Ms escorting sixty-seven D3A2 dive-bombers, set out down the Slot to hit Lunga Point and Tulagi. They were met by sixty-seven Allied fighters who claimed to have destroyed twenty-one of them for the loss of seven of their own. The dive-bombers sank the destroyer Aaron Ward, the New Zealand corvette Moa and the US oiler Kanawha and damaged another oiler and a transport.
On 11 April Allied shipping in Oro Bay, Buna, New Guinea, was attacked by twenty-two D3A3s escorted by seventy-two A6Ms, and were met by fifty Allied fighters who claimed six Japanese aircraft destroyed for no loss. However, the fifteen Zuihō fighters alone claimed two enemy destroyed, by Warrant Officers Tsutomu Iwai and Akira Yamamoto respectively, without loss to themselves; the twenty-seven Zuikaku A6Ms claimed one destroyed by Petty Officer 1st Class Yoshio Ch-Ishi, for the loss of two of their own; and the twenty-one A6Ms of the Hiyō Group claimed one enemy destroyed by Warrant Officer Misugu Mori. The Junyō’s nine-fighter contribution made no claims.
The following day an even larger force, a total of 131 A6M3s, was sent out, comprising twenty-three from Zuikaku, fifteen from Junyō, seventeen from Hiyō, fourteen from Zuihō, twenty-four from 204 Kōkūtai, eighteen from 253 Kōkūtai, and twenty from 582 Kōkūtai, along with forty-three G4M2 land bombers of 705 and 751 Kōkūtai, under Commander Masaichi Suzuki, which attacked Port Moresby from Rabaul, Buin and Kavieng. Some forty-four Allied fighters, P-38s of 39 Fighter Squadron and P-39s from 80 Fighter Squadron, rose to meet them. In the ensuing melee two P-38s and four P-39 Airacobras were shot down, while five Japanese bombers were destroyed in the air, and two more crashed on landing. Two A6Ms of 253 Kōkūtai failed to return. Only a few small craft were damaged and some Allied aircraft were destroyed on the ground, including two RAAF Beaufighters, and three American B-25s, while many more were badly damaged and facilities destroyed including a petrol dump that was set ablaze at Kila Kila airfield, Joyce Bay.
Finally, on 14 April, 188 aircraft raided Milne Bay. The carriers contributed seventy-five A6Ms, with twenty-one from 204 Kōkūtai, seventeen from 253 Kōkūtai and eighteen more from 582 Kōkūtai. Twenty-four Curtiss Kittyhawk Mk 1As intercepted and shot down seven Japanese aircraft for the loss of three of their own, including one Junyō fighter, with both Ensigns Yukiharu Ozeki and Shō-ichi claiming kills. Two transports in the bay, the British Gorgon, which was hit several times and the Dutchman van Outhoorn, were damaged, while the RAN minesweepers Kapunda and Wagga were also badly hit.
Yamamoto, believing the highly exaggerated claims of his airmen, called off the offensive on 16 April, but, in reality, the results on both sides had been trifling, Japanese losses being estimated at fifty-five aircraft in exchange for the destruction of a destroyer, a corvette, a tanker, two cargo ships and twenty-five aircraft.13 The I-Go offensive did not even dent the Allied advance. At a post-offensive conference held on 17 April Yamamoto’s staff concluded from these results that the A6M’s performance remained ‘excellent’ and was still superior to any American fighter yet encountered. One change that did affect the A6M was the recommendation that in future a degree of armour protection was a requirement.
Yamamoto ambushed
Meanwhile American Intelligence had intercepted and de-coded the flight plan of Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto and Chief of Staff Vice-Admiral Matome Ugaki who were en route to Ballale airfield in two G4M bombers of 205 Kōkūtai with an escort of six 204 Kōkūtai A6Ms under Lieutenant Kenji Yanagiya. Despite attempts to dissuade this flight taking place for fear of ambush, Yamamoto insisted. A powerful force of sixteen P-38Gs of 339 Fighter Squadron intercepted this group under Operation Vengeance, destroying both transports for the loss of one P-38G to the escorting A6Ms without any loss to themselves.14 Admiral Yamamoto and most of his team were killed, only Ugaki and two others surviving. Admiral Mineichi Koga took over command. In a revenge mission of their own 582 Kōkūtai made two raids and destroyed two P-38s, one apiece by Warrant Officer Kazuo Tsunoda and Petty Officer 2nd Class Kiyoshi Sekiya.