TOP ACES of JAPAN: List + a few Notes

Good Evening.....

Lately, I have been trying to pin down information concerning Japanese fighter pilots.
One can read book after book concerning their aircraft....

But as far as the accounts from these men themselves.....not much at all.

True, Saburo Sakai does have his book, but this is the only account in English that I'm aware of. Inside info concerning the pilots themselves is scarce indeed. Whether this is due to lack of publications in English, lack of pilots that wrote something of their experiences, or simply a lack of pilots surviving the war, is unclear...

The following is offered as a starter....hopefully we can fill in the gaps, and tell a wider story of this mainly unrecorded aspect of World War 2.


ACES OF JAPAN :tinysmile_classes_t

NAME/RANK/SERVICE...............................CONFIRMED KILLS

Hiroyoshi Nishazawa.....................................87
Warrant Officer, JNAF.

Tetsuzo Iwamoto.........................................80 (14 in China)
Lieutenant (jg), JNAF.

Shoichi Sugita..............................................70 (approx.)
Petty Officer 1st, JNAF.

Saburo Sakai...............................................62 (2 in China)
Lieutenant (jg), JNAF.

Hiromichi Shinohara....................................58 (all in Manchuria)
Warrant Officer, JAAF.

Takeo Okumura..........................................54 (4 in China)
Petty Officer 1st, JNAF.

Satoshi Anabuki..........................................51
Master Sergeant, JAAF.

Isamu Sasaki.............................................38
Warrant Officer, JAAF.

Mitsuyoshi Tauri........................................38 (28 in Manchuria)
Lieutenant, JAAF.

Toshio Ohta..............................................34
Petty Officer 1st, JNAF.

Kazu Sugino..............................................32
Warrant Officer, JNAF.

Yasuhiko Kuroe.........................................30
Major, JAAF.

Notes- (We will add to this list as we go. Other site users may well have infornation for this list. It would be interesting to see just what ratio of bombers/fighters these totals represent. When I can track down a copy of Sakai's book, I will add further info.)

I have heard two phrases concerning Japanese aces....

"Rare as hen's teeth"....and...

"Gamesmen of the highest order."

One had to be an exceptional pilot to perform in a Mitsubishi A6M2 "Reisen" ( Japanese nickname 'Zero-Sen' or "Zeke"/"Hamp", the two Allied codewords for this aircraft). One can bore one's self to death comparing the performance characteristics of Allied fighters. They all dived like gangbusters, could take more hits than Popeye, and where invariably equipped with .50 calibre machine-guns.
But, a 'Zero-Sen' pilot had to maneuver his way around the deficiencies of his fragile aircraft. It's turning circle was small, and Allied pilots trapped in this were generally not to last too long at all. The "Zero-Sen" had little or no armor, and it's lack of self-sealing fuel tanks meant that you could generally not make too many errors. A "flamer" was the frequent fate, as wieght was sacrificed to RANGE. But, it's twin 20mm cannon meant that it could take on bombers as well as fighters, giving it an operational versatility that also included a bomb rack. One might well call it the world's first truly multi-role aircraft, as it was also the first fighter to be ship borne as well as land based with no special modifications other than a tail hook and folding wings.


PILOT NOTES- NISHIZAWA

Tall, pale and gaunt, Naval Warrant Officer Hiroyushi Nishizawa was one of those odd characters whos like one finds surprisingly often near the top of aces' lists the world over. This greatest of Japanese fighter pilots was, on the ground, so habitually moody and withdrawn that his less complicated collegues were sometimes hard put not to take offense! However, once airborne, Nishizawa seemed to undergo a kind of demonic change of personality. According to his famous squadron mate, Saburo Sakai,

"...his reserve, his silence, his spurning of associates vanished....he became the Devil....a genius...a poet...Never have I seen a man with a fighter plane do what Nishizawa would do with his Zero."

From Lae, through Rabaul and the Guadacanal campaign, and on to the Philippines, Nishizawa blazed a trail that culminated in 87 'official' victories, with perhaps as many as 15 more unofficial kills. On the 25th October, 1944, he died, a passenger aboard an unarmed transport shot down by enemy fighters.
Indeed, Nishizwawa's fate is shared by many of the great aces from both world wars. Albert Ball (ground fire), Georges Guyneymer (disappeared), Oswald Boelcke (mid-air collision), Manfred von Richthofen (ground fire), Joachim Marseilles (cockpit fire & fatal bail-out)....all were moody personalities, and all died unvanquished by their peers in circumstances that had nothing to do with plane on plane combat.......

***(more to come....as I say, I will add to this as we go)


FAMOUS AIR UNITS

Apart from the 'Kudo Sentais' embarked aboard the big fleet carriers, the most famous Japanese Naval-Air unit was the 'Tainan Kokutai', it's fame resting primarily on the exploits of it's fighter component, which included an astonishing number of pilots who were to become great aces, Nishizawa, Sakai, Ohta, Sasai, Tanaka and several more. The Zeros of the Tainan Kokutai played an important part in the Philipipines, East Indies and Guadacanal campaigns, but their role in the Lae airwing on New Guinea, which Sakai describes in his book, was perhaps the high point of their history.
Other well known Navy units were the 'Genzen, 'Mihoro' and 'Kanoya' Kokutais, whose bomber components sank H.M.S. "Prince of Wales" and H.M.S. "Renown", and the elite, late war 343rd Kokutai ("Genda's Circus"), a large air-defense fighter unit lead by Commander Minoru Genda, one of the chief planners of the Pearl Harbour raid, and tactician for the "Kudo Batai" (Combined Fleet). Genda placed his carriers in a 'box', allowing strikes of larger sizes to be formed at one time, but which also put all their vulnerable flat-tops in one spot for the attackers to find.
among the Army Air force's more famous fighter units were the 64th Sentai, commanded by the national hero Lieutenant Colonel Tateo Kato, and the 50th Sentai, which included the JAAF's two top aces Anabuki and Sasaki. Both groups operated in Burma throughout most of the war.
Belonging to the most famous of the JAAF's late-war defense units were the colorfully painted 'Tojos' (Ki-44 'Shoki) of Major Naboru Ikuda's 47th Sentai, and the even more flamboyant 'Tonys' (Ki-61 'Hien) of Major Teruhiko Kobayashi's 244th Sentai. Kobayashi was, incidentally, one of the few Japanese pilots to win the rare Bukusho award for gallantry.

***(more to come here too. Ive got to check around for more info)


This data base is a beginning. Hopefully, a little surfing, some reading, and a few links and hints from site users that drop in will see it expand. For now, these pilots remain a dark zone to be illuminated.

B5N2Kate

 

Got a couple of links from google, Wiki.....got to do a little cross checking, because a lot of the totals are disputed. Osprey publishes two books by the same author on JAAF and JNAF pilots.
Just to give you an idea of the level of dispute as to the 'claim' totals, Nishizawa is unofficially credited with 120-150 kills! If correct it would be a remarkable achievement!.....As I say, our data base has to start somewhere!....Help from site users always welcome!

Note....all these above totals are OFFICIAL confirmations....it remains to be seen just what the UNOFFICIAL totals turn out to be!