Hellcats vs. Zero
The am6 "zero" myth began on September 13, 1940 in the Sino-Japanese Battle of Bishan, in which the Japanese army claimed that 13 zeros participated in the first air battle, and played a "27-0" disparity (actually 13-0) against the Chinese Air Force.
The symbol of the destruction of the "Zero" myth is that the US F6F "Hellcat" entered the war in the autumn of 1943 and quickly beat the "Zero" to the head. It is worth mentioning that there was a Japanese ace pilot, Toshiyuki Sueda, who not only participated in the Battle of Bishan, but also participated in the first confrontation between the "Zero" and the "Hellcat", and died in the battle.
Sino-Japanese Air Battle of Bishan Mountain
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Hellcats first confronted Zero on Wake Island</h1>
Previously, some domestic articles had suggested that the first battle between the Hellcat and the Zero took place at the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943. But in fact, the first air battle between the two was a month earlier, and the scale was quite large! The location takes place on Wake Island.
In the second half of 1943, the F6F Hellcat carrier-based fighter had been commissioned in batches on the large aircraft carriers of the US Army, replacing the main position of the F4F "Wildcat". On September 19, 1943, a 11-aircraft carrier formation of the U.S. Navy raided the Gilbert Islands. The Hellcats entered the war for the first time in this battle, shooting down a Type II submarine of the Japanese Navy for the first time.
Hellcat takes off
On October 6, the U.S. carrier squadron once again turned its target to Wake Island in the central Pacific. At 2:42 a.m. local time, Japanese radar on Wake Island caught a large-scale aircraft swarm coming. The U.S. military dispatched a total of 400 carrier-based aircraft, including F6F Hellcat fighters (estimated at 100-200 or more), SBD "Fearless" dive bombers, and TBF "Avengers" torpedo aircraft, launching a fierce air strike on this small island.
At the time, the Japanese Navy's elite 252nd Air Force was scattered across the Gilbert Islands and marshall islands, with at least 26 Zero fighters and 17 Type I land attack aircraft on Wake Island. 26 Zeros on Wake Island quickly took off to meet the battle, while Malloy Lap Atoll sent 14 aircraft (including 7 Zeros and 7 bombers) to support.
And just like that, the first air battle between the Zero and the Hellcats began!
Zero fleet at the airport
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Japanese pilot's feelings about the "Hellcat": fast, unable to catch up, difficult to deal with! </h1>
Compared to the F4F Wildcat (1200 hp), the F6F Hellcat is equipped with a 2100 hp high-power engine with a maximum level flight speed from 512 km/h to 605 km/h. At the same time, the "Hellcat" has made many targeted improvements to the Zero fighter, and has greatly improved its ability to climb, hover, and roll. Not only that, but the Hellcat maintained a strong firepower (6 12.7 mm machine guns) and strong bulletproof ability, which was a stark difference from the fragile zero battle of the fuselage.
In contrast, the Japanese Navy's Zero fighters are still at the early stage of the war, most of which are the early Zero 22 and a few are the mid-term Zero 32 and 22. The later version of the Zero 52 had just flown in August 1943, before it could be deployed on the distant Wake Island. And the Zero-52 is still a 1,000-horsepower engine, and the real performance has not improved much. The Fierce Wind carrier-based fighter, which was truly comparable to the Hellcat, did not serve until the end of the war.
From the end of 1942, Japanese pilots had strongly felt the advances in American fighter technology, and the performance advantage of Zero Warfare in the early days was gradually fading. The main fighters of the US army have gradually changed from P-39 and P-40 to new models such as P-38, P-47 and F4U, and the zero-war air combat exchange ratio is not so good. This time the US aircraft carrier formation attacked Wake Island, and even the carrier-based fighters were replaced by the old "Wildcat" to the "Hellcat", and the myth of Zero War was finally coming to an end!
How did the Japanese pilots feel when they first encountered a carrier-based fighter that was stronger than Zero?
"Our Zero Team went into the air battle and in an instant it felt like this guy was different from the enemy planes we had encountered before. Fast, can't catch up, good athleticism, difficult to deal with. Later I learned that it was F6F! At the age of 24, Isamu Miyazaki (Kami-eicho, survived the war and accumulated 13 after the war) was one of the seven "Zero" pilots reinforced, a small unit led by Captain Yuzo Tsukamoto. After taking off at 8:20 a.m., it flew thousands of kilometers long distance, and did not reach the waters near Wake Island until 1:12 p.m., and immediately engaged in an encounter with the AMERICAN plane.
Zero fighter formation
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Japanese aircraft on Wake Island were completely destroyed, and the ace of the Bishan air battle was killed</h1>
By this time, the local "Zero" on Wake Island had already been completely destroyed. In the entire morning of air combat, 16 of the 26 "Zero" aircraft were shot down, and the remaining 10 were destroyed by the US aircraft after landing, along with 17 Type I land attacks on the ground, and none of them remained.
Among the Japanese pilots who were shot down and killed was a toshiyuki Sueda (Hida Nagashi) who had a different identity. He participated in the first air battle of the Zero, the "913 Bishan Air Battle" in 1940. Not only that, but Toshiyuki Sueda also created an air combat stunt action, known as "Sueda Stunt", which is quite famous in the Japanese Naval Aviation. Before his death, Sueda Toshiyuki's total air battle results reached 9.
Hellcats vs. Zero
On the other hand, the Japanese on Wake Island claimed to have shot down 14 U.S. "new fighters" in the morning air battle, and another 4 were uncertain. But in reality, the U.S. military lost a total of six F6Fs in the air battle on October 6, and 12 other aircraft (including fighters and bombers) were shot down by ground artillery fire.
The 7 zeros reinforced at Malloylapu Atoll did not have the ability to change the tide of battle. By this time the battle over Wake Island was nearing its end, and most of the U.S. fleet was returning, but the number of Hellcats acting as defenders was overwhelming. At the beginning of the engagement, Captain Yuzo Tsukamoto, the leader of the Zero Squad, and another Zero Were shot down, and Captain Tsukamoto himself was forced to land at sea, and the other fighters were scattered. The Zero Squad claimed to have shot down 6 F6Fs, and 2 more were uncertain, but this record was grossly exaggerated.
Hellcat with Zero Type 21
Isamu Miyazaki's zero battle once rose to an altitude of 8,000 meters, and even saw the US aircraft carrier formation in the distance. However, with the Zero fighter alone, there is nothing that can be done against the aircraft carrier, and after thousands of miles of trek and fierce air combat, the fuel gauge has been exhausted. The few remaining fighters of the Zero Squad had to make a forced landing on the bullet-scarred Wake Island airfield. Soon, these fighters were all lost before dark under the continuous strafing of the US planes.
After a day of fighting, the Zero was wiped out in its first encounter with the Hellcats. Of the 33 zeros that participated in the war, 18 were shot down in the air and 15 were damaged by forced landings or blown up by U.S. aircraft. In contrast, the Hellcats were shot down 6 in the air battle, and the air loss ratio between the two sides was 3:1.
Japanese ace Toshiyuki Sueda (center)
Objectively speaking, the "Zero" fighter in the case of performance and number disadvantages, and the "Hellcat" into this battle loss ratio, than a year later", "Mariana Turkey Hunting" is much better. Many of the pilots of the Japanese Navy's 252nd Air Force who participated in the war were veterans or even aces in air combat, in addition to Toshiyuki Sueda (Flying Cao Chang, accumulated 9 battle results, killed in this battle), there were also Wake Island Flight Captain Zhou Fang Yuancheng (Captain, cumulative battle results of 15), Nakajima Fumiyoshi (Shangfei Cao, accumulated 16 results, killed in this battle) and others who participated in many Sino-Japanese wars.
On the contrary, most of the pilots of US carrier-based aircraft are novices, basically participating in air combat for the first time. However, these U.S. army novices relied on the excellent performance of the "Hellcat" to beat the veterans of the Japanese Navy with a 18:6 result.
After the battle, Captain Zhou Fangyuancheng, the captain of the Wake Island Flight Team, wrote to his classmates in the Navy, saying: "The opponent is still a newcomer, but the F6F speed and climbing power are very strong, and there is no way to fight zero..." (Author: Tao Mujian)