On April 18, 1943, the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, was ambushed by American P-38 fighters over the island of Bougainville while on a bomber's inspection of the front line, and the plane was destroyed. This incident was called the "A Incident" by the Japanese Navy, and its impact was very far-reaching.
It is worth noting that the six Zero fighters escorting Yamamoto Fifty-Six retreated in this battle. So, after such a serious lapse, what happened to the six Zero pilots?
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > six Zero Pilots of the 204th Air Force</h1>
On 18 April, General Isoroku Yamamoto and his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Ugaki, took off from Rabaul in two Type I land attack aircraft (bombers), escorted by the Zero Team of the 204th Air Force of the Japanese Navy stationed in Rabaul. Yamamoto and his party designated only 6 escort fighters, and The 204th Air Force Flight Captain, Captain Yoshijiro Miyano, had proposed to increase it to 20 escort aircraft, but the Combined Fleet Command dismissed it as "unnecessary". Isoroku Yamamoto seems to be still superstitious about the performance of the Zero.
Despite this, Captain Yoshijiro Miyano arranged for 9 Zero takeoff escorts, but the long planes of the second squad of fighters failed halfway and the wingmen also returned, so the escort aircraft became 6 again.
The six escort Zero pilots (pictured from top right to bottom left) are Commander and First Squad Leader Takeshi Morizaki (Reserve Lieutenant), No. 2 Tsuji Tsujino Toyomitsu (Ichi fei cao), and No. 3 Sugita Shoichi (flying length). The third squad leader hidaka Yoshimi (Kami-fei-cao), the second machine Okazaki Yasushi (second flying cao), and the third aircraft Yanagaya Kenji (flying length).
The oldest of the six pilots, Takeshi Morizaki, Yoshimi Hidaka and Kenji Yanagaya, are all 24 years old, Toyomitsu Tsujinogami is 21 years old, Yasushi Okazaki is 20 years old, and the youngest Sugita Shoichi is only 18 years old. However, the youngest, Shoichi Sugita, later became one of the Japanese Navy's highest-achieving air combat aces. At this time, Sugita Shoichi was still a novice, but already had a record of shooting down B-17 bombers, and it was beginning to emerge.
The highest-ranking lieutenant, Takeshi Morizaki, joined the Japanese Navy in 1940 as a 7th class student in the Flight Section. During the Battle of Midway, Takeshi Morizaki was a Zero Pilot stationed at Midway, who did not participate in the battle, but was seriously injured when the carrier sank, resulting in poor vision and often wearing sunglasses.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > six zeros were "turned away from the mountain"</h1>
The process of Yamamoto's fifty-six shooting down is very familiar to many people in the history of the war. By deciphering codes, the U.S. military learned the time and route of Yamamoto's party, so on the morning of April 18, 16 P-38 Lightning fighters took off from Guadalcanal Henderson Airfield and ambushed them over Bougainville Island. During the battle, the U.S. army divided into two groups, 12 of the cover group led the escort Zero fighters at an altitude of 6,000 meters, and 4 of the attack group attacked 2 type I land attacks from low altitude.
However, As the commander of the escort aircraft, Takeshi Morizaki was so easily deceived that after discovering that 12 P-38s of the US military cover group had attacked, he actually dropped the Yamamoto landplane and rushed up with all 6 Zeros.
According to Yuki's survivor pilot, Yuki Hiroshi Yuki, the survivor pilot of the Ugaki plane, during the flight, the escort Zero long plane (Takeshi Morizaki) suddenly flew to the side of the bomber, signaled that a U.S. plane was coming, and then flew up. Two Type I attack aircraft also accelerated and began to flee.
According to Kenji Yanagaya, the only surviving japanese after the surrender of Japan, the commanders of the two squads, Takeshi Morizaki and Yoshimi Hidaka, all rushed to the U.S. aircraft cover group, and the wingmen followed. The 6 Zeros began to scare fire in a head-on state, and the US planes were quickly dispersed, and neither side lost anything. However, when the Zero turned around to bite the P-38, it found that Yamamoto's isoroku's landplane was already smoking...
It was precisely because the six Zero fighters were "transferred away from the mountain" that four P-38s of the US attack group killed from low altitude easily captured the landlines of Yamamoto Isoroku and Ugaki and double-clicked them. All the crew of Yamamoto's fifty-six planes were killed, and three people, Lieutenant General Ugaki, Major General Motoharu Kitamura, and pilot Lin Hao, of the second plane, escaped.
When the six Zero fighters returned, the U.S. P-38 flew away with high speed advantage. Although both the United States and Japan boasted of "shooting down many of each other's fighters," only one P-38 did not return.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > six pilots were not punished afterwards</h1>
Contrary to most conjectures, the six Zero pilots made a serious mistake that killed the commander of the Combined Fleet and left themselves unharmed, but none of them were actually punished afterwards.
After the six Zero fighters returned to Rabaul airfield, the pilots returned to their dormitories normally. According to a colleague recalled, on the night of the 18th, when he and Sugita Shoichi were cooling off in the lanai, Sugita suddenly said: "Actually, today I went to guard the chief plane, but the chief plane was beaten..." A few days later, the body of Yamamoto Isoroku was transported back to Rabaul. Since then, nothing seems to have happened to the 204th Air Force, and everything has gone as usual.
Shoichi Sugita
Judging from these details, the Japanese Navy kept yamamoto's 56th death (the Navy A incident) a strict secrecy. The 204th Air Force was "too normal" after the fact, which was the real abnormality.
The six Zero pilots who participated in the battle later continued to fight normally and were not deliberately arranged to die in battle. Even Sobuki Okazaki, Toyomitsu Tsujino, and Shoichi Sugita were promoted to ranks in May. Despite this, due to the cruelty of the war, six Zero pilots were killed one by one, and only Kenji Yanaya eventually survived until the end of World War II.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > the outcome of six pilots</h1>
For most of 1943, the Japanese Navy's 204th Air Force, stationed in Rabaul, had been involved in the brutal Battle of the Solomon Islands, with a large number of new and old pilots dying in expendable battles. Nor could the six Zero pilots escape this fate.
On June 7, air combat broke out on Russel Island, with Hidaka Yoshimi Kami and Yasuichi Okazaki being the first to be killed. It was also during this air battle that Kenji Yanagaya's flying Zero was hit in the cockpit by the machine gun of the F4F "Wildcat", and four fingers were knocked off in his right hand, and finally he barely escaped the battlefield. However, Yanagaya, who was wounded and disabled, became the luckiest person and was sent back to Japan by a hospital ship.
Kenji Yanagaya
On 16 June, air combat broke out on Guadalcanal, and Lieutenant Takeshi Morizaki and Captain Yoshijiro Miyano, the flight captain of the 204th Air Force, were shot down and killed at the same time.
On July 1, air combat broke out on the island of Lendowa, and Tsujino Toyomitsu Kamichi was shot down and killed.
Finally, Shoichi Sugita, who grew into an ace pilot, fought in Rabaul and won many battles. On August 26, Shoichi Sugita was shot down while attacking a U.S. plane over Buyin Airport, was seriously injured during parachuting, and was subsequently transported back to Japan. After recovering from his injuries, Sugita continued to participate in many battles in Mariana, the Philippines and other places, and finally joined the famous 343rd Air Force on the mainland, flying the new "Purple Electric Reform" fighter.
On April 15, 1945, the US aircraft attacked the Kagoya Aviation Base in Kagoshima, and Shoichi Sugita flew the "Purple Electric Reform" on the ground to take off urgently, but was hit and killed by the F6F "Hellcat" during the slide. According to figures released by the Japanese authorities, Shoichi Sugita shot down as many as 70 individually and 40 jointly, ranking among the best in the Japanese Navy.
In the end, of the six Zero pilots escorting Yamamoto Fifty-Six, only Kenji Yanagaya survived the war and died of illness in 2008 at the age of 88.
It is worth mentioning that Lin Hao, the pilot of the Type I land attack No. 2 aircraft shot down in the "A Incident", also lived until 2006. However, Lin Hao has always refused to meet with Kenji Yanagaya, and may still resent the dereliction of duty of escort zero. (Author: Tao Mujian)