I did a post a couple of days ago about the attack on Attu and Kiska and I had mentioned about the Zero that was captured from that island, and how the Japanese would up there. Well
Murphy made a comment that there was a story about the Zero that was captured, well I decided to do a bit of digging and "Voila" there was the story.
The
Akutan Zero, also known as
Koga's Zero and the
Aleutian Zero, was a type 0 model 21
Mitsubishi A6M Zero Japanese
fighter aircraft that
crash-landed on
Akutan Island,
Alaska Territory, during
World War II.
It was found intact by the Americans in July 1942 and became the first
flyable Zero acquired by the United States during the war.
It was repaired and flown by American test pilots. As a result of
information gained from these tests, American tacticians were able to
devise ways to defeat the Zero, which was the
Imperial Japanese Navy's primary fighter plane throughout the war.
The Akutan Zero has been described as "a prize almost beyond value to the United States", and "probably one of the greatest prizes of the
Pacific War". Japanese historian
Masatake Okumiya stated that the acquisition of the Akutan Zero "was no less serious" than the Japanese defeat at the
Battle of Midway, and that it "did much to hasten
Japan's final defeat".
On the other hand, John Lundstrom is among those who challenge "the
contention that it took dissection of Koga's Zero to create tactics that
beat the fabled airplane".
The Akutan Zero was destroyed in a training accident in 1945. Parts of it are preserved in several museums in the United States.
The
Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937. Attacks by Chinese fighter planes on Japanese bombers caused the Japanese to develop the concept of
fighter escorts. The limited range of the
Mitsubishi A5M
"Claude" fighter used to escort the bombers caused the Japanese Navy
Air staff to commission the Mitsubishi A6M Zero as a long-range land-
and carrier-based fighter.
The Zero, which first flew in 1939, was exceedingly agile and
lightweight, with maneuverability and range superior to any other
fighter in the world at that time. The Zero was superior to any Allied fighter it would encounter for the first two years of the war.
To achieve this, however, Japanese engineers had traded off durability.
The Zero was very lightly built; it had no armor and no
self-sealing fuel tanks. According to American author
Jim Rearden,
"The Zero was probably the easiest fighter of any in World War II to
bring down when hit ... The Japanese ... were not prepared to or weren't
capable of building more advanced fighters in the numbers needed to
cope with increasing numbers and quality of American fighters".
The Zero was the primary Japanese Navy fighter throughout the war.
During the war, the Japanese manufactured roughly 10,500 Zeros.
In 1940
Claire Lee Chennault, leader of the
Flying Tigers, wrote a report on the Zero's performance. However,
United States Department of War
analysts rejected it as "arrant nonsense" and concluded the performance
attributed to the Zero was an aerodynamic impossibility. According to American
flying ace William N. Leonard, "In these early encounters and on our own we were learning the folly of dogfighting with the Zero".
During the
attack on Pearl Harbor, nine Zeros were shot down.
From these wrecks, the Allies learned that the Zero lacked armor and
self-sealing fuel tanks, but little else about its capabilities. The Zero's flight performance characteristics—crucial to devising tactics and machinery to combat it—remained a mystery.
Prior to recovery of the Akutan Zero, technical information from
three other downed Zeros was available to the Allies. One Zero (serial
number 5349), piloted by
Hajime Toyoshima, crashed on
Melville Island in Australia following the
bombing of Darwin.
The Zero was heavily damaged, and Toyoshima became Australia's first
Japanese prisoner of the Pacific war. Another Zero, piloted by
Yoshimitsu Maeda, crashed near
Cape Rodney,
New Guinea. The team sent to recover the plane erred when they chopped off the wings, severing the
wing spars and rendering the hulk unflyable. The third came from China, where
Gerhard Neumann was able to reconstruct a working Zero.
He used a partly intact Zero (serial number 3372) that had landed in
Chinese territory, repaired with salvaged pieces from other downed
Zeros. However, bad conditions and the long delivery time from China
prevented Neumann's Zero from reaching the United States for testing
until after the recovery of the Akutan Zero.
In June 1942, as part of the Japanese
Midway operation, the Japanese
attacked the Aleutian islands, off the south coast of
Alaska. A Japanese task force led by Admiral
Kakuji Kakuta bombed Dutch Harbor on
Unalaska Island twice, once on June 3 and again the following day.
Tadayoshi Koga, a 19-year-old flight
petty officer first class, was launched from the Japanese aircraft carrier
Ryūjō as part of the June 4 raid. Koga was part of a three-plane section; his
wingmen
were Chief Petty Officer Makoto Endo and Petty Officer Tsuguo Shikada.
Koga and his comrades attacked Dutch Harbor, shooting down an American
PBY-5A Catalina flying boat piloted by Bud Mitchell and
strafing its survivors in the water. In the process, Koga's plane (serial number 4593) was damaged by small arms fire.
Tsuguo Shikada, one of Koga's wingmen, published an account in 1984
in which he claimed the damage to Koga's plane occurred while his
section was making an attack against two American Catalinas anchored in
the bay. This account omits any mention of shooting down Mitchell's PBY.
Both American and Japanese records contradict his claims; there were no
PBYs in the bay that day. However, his claims do match American records
from the attack against Dutch Harbor the previous day (June 3). Rearden
noted, "It seems likely that in the near half-century after the event
Shikada's memory confused the raids of June 3 and June 4 ... It also
seems likely that in his interview, Shikada employed
selective memory in not mentioning shooting down Mitchell's PBY and then machine-gunning the crew on the water".
It is not known who fired the shot that brought down Koga's plane,
though numerous individuals have claimed credit. Photographic evidence
strongly suggests it was hit by ground fire. Members of the
206th Coast Artillery Regiment,
which had both 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and .50 caliber machine guns
in position defending Dutch Harbor, claimed credit, in addition to
claims made by United States Navy ships that were present. Physical inspection of the plane revealed it was hit with
small arms fire —
.50 caliber bullet holes and smaller, from both above and below.
The fatal shot severed the return oil line, and Koga's plane
immediately began trailing oil. Koga reduced speed to keep the engine
from seizing as long as possible.
The three Zeros flew to Akutan Island, 25 miles east of Dutch Harbor,
which had been designated for emergency landings. Waiting near the
island was a Japanese submarine assigned to pick up downed pilots. At
Akutan, the three Zeros circled a grassy flat half a mile inland from
Broad Bight. Shikada thought the ground was firm beneath the grass, but
in his second pass he noticed water glistening. He suddenly realized
Koga should make a belly landing. But by then Koga had lowered his landing gear and was almost down.
The plane's landing gear mired in the water and mud, causing the
plane to flip upside down and skid to a stop. Although the aircraft
survived the landing nearly intact, Petty Officer Koga died instantly on
impact, probably from a
broken neck
or a blunt-force blow to his head. Koga's wingmen, circling above, had
orders to destroy any Zeros that crash-landed in enemy territory, but as
they did not know if Koga was still alive, they could not bring
themselves to strafe his plane. They decided to leave without firing on
it. The Japanese submarine stationed off Akutan Island to pick up pilots
searched for Koga in vain before being driven off by the destroyer
USS Williamson.
The crash site, which was out of sight of standard flight lanes and
not visible by ship, remained undetected and undisturbed for over a
month. On July 10, 1942, an American PBY Catalina piloted by Lieutenant
William "Bill" Thies spotted the wreckage. Thies's Catalina had been
patrolling by
dead reckoning and had become lost. On spotting the
Shumagin Islands,
he reoriented his plane and began to return to Dutch Harbor by the most
direct course—over Akutan Island. Machinist Mate Albert Knack, who was
the plane captain (note: the term "plane captain" in US Navy usage
refers to an aircraft's assigned maintenance crew chief, not the
pilot-in-command), spotted Koga's wreck. Thies's plane circled the crash
site for several minutes, noted its position on the map, and returned
to Dutch Harbor to report it. Thies convinced his commanding officer,
Paul Foley,
to let him return with a salvage team. The next day (July 11), the team
flew out to inspect the wreck. Navy photographer's mate Arthur W.
Bauman took pictures as they worked.
Thies's team extracted Koga's body from the plane by having Knack
(the smallest crew member) crawl up inside the plane and cut his safety
harness with a knife. They searched it for anything with intelligence
value, and buried Koga in a shallow grave near the crash site. Thies
returned with his team to Dutch Harbor, where he reported the plane as
salvageable. The next day (July 12), a salvage team under Lieutenant
Robert Kirmse was dispatched to Akutan. This team gave Koga a
Christian burial
in a nearby knoll and set about recovering the plane, but the lack of
heavy equipment (which they had been unable to unload after the delivery
ship lost two anchors) meant their efforts failed. On July 15, a third
recovery team was dispatched. This time, with proper heavy equipment,
the team was able to free the Zero from the mud and hauled it overland
to a nearby
barge, without further damaging it. The Zero was taken to Dutch Harbor, turned right-side up, and cleaned.
Loading of Akutan Zero on barge.
The Akutan Zero was loaded into the
USS St. Mihiel and transported to Seattle, arriving on August 1. From there, it was transported by barge to
Naval Air Station North Island
near San Diego where repairs were carefully carried out. These repairs
"consisted mostly of straightening the vertical stabilizer, rudder, wing
tips, flaps, and canopy. The sheared-off landing struts needed more
extensive work. The three-blade Sumitomo
propeller was dressed and re-used." The Zero's red
Hinomaru roundel was repainted with the American blue circle-white star insignia. The whole time, the plane was kept under 24-hour
military police guard in order to deter would-be souvenir hunters from damaging the plane. The Zero was fit to fly again on September 20.
Data from the captured Zero had been transmitted to the U.S. Navy's
Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) and
Grumman Aircraft. After careful study,
Roy Grumman
decided that he could match or surpass the Zero in most respects,
except in range, without sacrificing pilot armor, self-sealing tanks and
fuselage structure. The new
F6F Hellcat would compensate for the extra weight with additional power.
On September 20, 1942, two months after the Zero's capture,
Lieutenant Commander
Eddie R. Sanders took the Akutan Zero up for its first test flight. He
would make 24 test flights between September 20 and October 15.
According to Sanders' report:
These flights covered performance tests such as we do on planes
undergoing Navy tests. The very first flight exposed weaknesses of the
Zero which our pilots could exploit with proper tactics ... immediately
apparent was the fact that the ailerons froze up at speeds above 200 knots
so that rolling maneuvers at those speeds were slow and required much
force on the control stick. It rolled to the left much easier than to
the right. Also, its engine cut out under negative acceleration due to
its float-type carburetor.
We now had the answer for our pilots who were being outmaneuvered and
unable to escape a pursuing Zero: Go into a vertical power dive, using
negative acceleration if possible to open the range while the Zero's
engine was stopped by the acceleration. At about 200 knots, roll hard
right before the Zero pilot could get his sights lined up.
In early 1943, the Zero was transferred from Naval Air Station North Island to
Anacostia Naval Air Station. The Navy wished to make use of the expertise of the
NACA Langley Research Center
in flight instrumentation, and it was flown to Langley on March 5th
1943 for the installation of the instrumentation. While there, it
underwent aerodynamic tests in the
Full-Scale Wind Tunnel
under conditions of strict secrecy. This work included wake surveys to
determine the drag of aircraft components; tunnel scale measurements of
lift, drag, control effectiveness; and sideslip tests.
After its return to the Navy, it was flight tested by
Frederick M. Trapnell,
the Anacostia Naval Air Station director of flight testing. He flew the
Akutan Zero in performance while Sanders simultaneously flew American
planes performing identical maneuvers, simulating aerial combat.
Following these, USN test pilot Lieutenant Melvin C. "Boogey" Hoffman
conducted more dogfighting tests between himself flying the Akutan Zero
and recently commissioned USN pilots flying newer Navy aircraft.
Later in 1943, the aircraft was displayed at Washington National Airport as a war prize.
In 1944, it was recalled to North Island for use as a training plane
for rookie pilots being sent to the Pacific. A model 52 Zero, captured
during the
liberation of Guam, was later used as well.
Data and conclusions from these tests were published in
Informational Intelligence Summary 59,
Technical Aviation Intelligence Brief #3,
Tactical and Technical Trends #5 (published prior to the first test flight), and
Informational Intelligence Summary 85. These results tend to somewhat understate the Zero's capabilities
F6F Hellcat (1943)
Data from the captured aircraft were submitted to the BuAer and Grumman for study in 1942.
The U.S.
carrier-borne fighter plane that succeeded the
Grumman F4F Wildcat, the F6F, would be tested in its first experimental mode as the XF6F-1 prototype with an under-powered
Wright R-2600 Twin Cyclone 14-cylinder, two-row radial engine on 26 June 1942.
[35][36]
Shortly before the XF6F-1's first flight, and based on combat accounts
of encounters between the F4F Wildcat and A6M Zero, on 26 April 1942,
BuAer directed Grumman to install the more powerful 18-cylinder
Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine — already powering Chance Vought's Corsair design since its beginnings in 1940 — in the second XF6F-1 prototype.
Grumman complied by redesigning and strengthening the F6F airframe to
incorporate the 2,000 hp (1,500 kW) R-2800-10 engine, driving a
three-bladed
Hamilton Standard propeller. With this combination Grumman estimated the XF6F-3's performance would increase by 25% over that of the XF6F-1.This first Double Wasp-equipped Hellcat airframe, bearing BuAer serial
number 02982, first flew on 30 July 1942. The F6F-3 subtype had been
designed with specific "Wildcat vs Zero" input from
Battle of the Coral Sea and
Battle of Midway veteran F4F pilots such as
Jim Flatley and
Jimmy Thach, respectively, among several others, obtained during a meeting with Grumman Vice President
Jake Swirbul at
Pearl Harbor on 23 June 1942, with the first production F6F-3 making its first flight just over three months later, on October 3, 1942. While the captured Zero's tests did not drastically influence the Hellcat's design, they did give knowledge of the Zero's handling characteristics, including its limitations in rolling right and diving.
That information, together with the improved capabilities of the
Hellcat, were credited with helping American pilots "tip the balance in
the Pacific".American aces
Kenneth A. Walsh and R. Robert Porter, among others, credited tactics derived from this knowledge with saving their lives.
James Sargent Russell, who commanded the PBY Catalina squadron that discovered the Zero and later rose to the rank of
admiral, noted that Koga's Zero was "of tremendous historical significance."
William N. Leonard
concurred, describing it thus: "The captured Zero was a treasure. To my
knowledge, no other captured machine has ever unlocked so many secrets
at a time when the need was so great."
Some historians dispute the degree to which the Akutan Zero
influenced the outcome of the air war in the Pacific. For example, the
Thach Weave,
a tactic created by John Thach and used with great success by American
airmen against the Zero, was devised by Thach prior to the attack on
Pearl Harbor, based on intelligence reports on the Zero's performance in
China
However, nine wrecked
Mitsubishi A6M Zeros were recovered from
Pearl Harbor shortly after the attack in December 1941, and United States
Office of Naval Intelligence, along with BuAer had them studied, and then shipped to the Experimental Engineering Department at
Dayton, Ohio in 1942. It was noted that the
experimental Grumman XF6F-1s then under-going testing in June 1942 and the Zero had "wings integrated with the fuselage," a design feature not normally practiced in American aircraft production at that time.
SB2C HellDiver
The Akutan Zero was destroyed during a training accident in February 1945. While the Zero was taxiing for a take-off, a
Curtiss SB2C Helldiver
lost control and rammed into it. The Helldiver's propeller sliced the
Zero into pieces. From the wreckage, William N. Leonard salvaged several
gauges, which he donated to the
National Museum of the United States Navy. The Alaska Heritage Museum and the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum also have small pieces of the Zero.
In an attempt to repatriate Koga's body, American author Jim Rearden
led a search on Akutan in 1988. He located Koga's grave, but found it
empty. Rearden and Japanese businessman Minoru Kawamoto conducted a
records search. They found that in 1947 Koga's body was
exhumed by an American
Graves Registration Service team and re-buried on
Adak Island,
further down the Aleutian chain. The team, unaware of Koga's identity,
marked his body as unidentified. The Adak cemetery was excavated in
1953, and 236 bodies were returned to Japan. The body buried next to
Koga (Shigeyoshi Shindo) was one of 13 identified; the remaining 223
unidentified remains were re-interred in
Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Japan. It is probable that Koga was one of them. Rearden later wrote the definitive account of the Akutan Zero.
