The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

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MAX_theHitMan
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The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#1

Post by MAX_theHitMan » 07 May 2008, 23:30

What was The LAST airplane shot down ww2 ??
In this case it would be the Pacific theater.
I read it somewhere that it was a Japanese "Betty" bomber, but details aren´t clear.
Who shot it down, or what type of airplane was it?

I need this information so I can create an aviation artwork.
Thank you all in advance.

Btw, What was the LAST airplane shot down in the European Theater of WW2?
Some say it was an Me-262 shot down by a russian pilot and some say
it was Fieseler Reccon plane shot down or taken down by an American Reccon plane?
Any info on this?

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Mark in Cleveland, Tn.
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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#2

Post by Mark in Cleveland, Tn. » 08 May 2008, 02:51

A Betty, and the U.S. aircraft doing the historic deed was a P-63 Black Widow . The story behind this mission can be found in the AIR CLASSICS....WINGS....AIRPOWER magazines archives..


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sallyg
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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#3

Post by sallyg » 12 May 2008, 19:17

According to Wikipedia, and not footnoted there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-61_Black_Widow
It is widely believed that the last two enemy aircraft destroyed before the Japanese surrender were both downed by a P-61 of the 548th NFS. This aircraft, known as "Lady in the Dark" was piloted by Lt. Lee Kendall, gaining its victories over a Ki-43 on the night of 14 August/15 August 1945, and a Ki-44 on the next night. However, this is incorrect; these were the last aircraft destroyed by a USAAF fighter; the last Japanese aircraft destroyed in World War II were by a Convair B-32, "Hobo Queen Two," which destroyed two A6M Zeros on 18 August 1945.

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#4

Post by 199Punch » 07 Aug 2008, 21:45

After seeing your post I found this account. It seems the Japanese shot down the last plane not the USAAF.
Needs to be confirmed.

The war was over on August 15th, 1945, but Saburo Sakai's last combat mission took place two days after that day.

The 15th and the 16th went by quickly, and it was a little past 11:30 AM on the 17th when we suddenly heard an air raid alarm. We were caught totally off guard because we thought it was all over, and we all stood up with a tense feeling. Intelligence says the enemy is one large bomber flying up the Boso Peninsula. The war is over now, do they still want to fight?
"Commander what should we do? Intercept him?" I asked.

Lt.Cmdr Ibusuki hesitated for a moment, then called the Hikocho and asked something, hung up, and hollered "Start the engines!"

We surrounded Lt.Cmdr. Ibusuki with excitement.

"International law forbids us to attack the enemy after surrender, but it is okay to get back at planes that come to attack us. Come on men! Go get him!" he said.

The pilots who were all frustrated at the sudden surrender sprung on to their planes which were already started. There were ten Zeros and five or six Shiden-kais. I chose the nearest Zero. I thought I would never fly the Zero again, so I was very excited about having the chance to fly again.

It wasn't just because the Zero was nearest to me that I chose the Zero. Ever since it's debut in 1940, I was into my sixth year flying and fighting on the Zero. In fact a Shiden-kai, then the state-of-the-art fighter plane, was paked even closer to where I was than the Zero I flew. However, I instinctively chose the Zero, not even considering the Shiden-kai. the thought that flashed in my mind then was this;

"The Pacific War was started by the Zero. This is probably going to be the last air battle in WW2, and I would want to let the Zero place it's name in history as having fought that last battle!"

Three or four planes followed me up. We were heading for Narita. If you were not a pilot, you may wonder why we would still fight; the war was over and shooting down the enemy was not going to do us any good. On the contrary, we may lose our lives which had been saved. But such logic just did not make sense to us then.

At around this time, the Yokosuka Kokutai was working on the improvement of radio equipment on fighter planes and, performance had improved considerably, so we had no trouble finding the enemy. We found him at 6,000 meters. I had assumed the enemy was a B-29, but what I saw was a completely different aircraft. The single vertical stabilizer was enormous, and sweeped upwards towards the rear. I had never seen this plane before (I later found out that this was the Convair B-32 Dominator).

Altitude 6,000 meter is where the 2nd speed of the Zero's supercharger works best. My wingman got to him first and started shooting. The enemy was obviously surprised at the interception, and started fleeing south, shooting it's defensive guns frantically. I managed to catch up after a while, but the enemy's airspeed was very high. I made a run from the upper right side, but got interrupted by another Zero that got in my way. There were more fighters than the enemy so I had to wait for my turn to attack again. The enemy went into a shallow dive to increase air speed. It was so fast! I thought they used some kind of rocket acceralator device or something.

We had quickly flew past Tateyama and the enemy was fleeing towards Ohshima. I noticed that the enemy was trailing white smoke from the left wing root. Someone's bullet hit the enemy!

"We can get him", I thought. However, I was having a hard time catching up. I noted our fighters started turning back one by one. They were out of 20mm shells. I fired my last cannon shells. Several shells exploded on the enemy's right wing. My wingman followed with a burst. The enemy kept getting lower, and by the time it was near Miyake-jima, it was skimming the water. I thought I should confirm it going down, but if an enemy carrier was around, we would have to fight fresh fighters. Then it would be our turn to die. I turned around and headed back to Yokosuka Kokutai. If my memory is right, the other Zero that followed me to the last attack was another ace, PO1 Komachi.

This apparently became the last air battle of the Pacific War.

According to US records, on august 17th 1945, a B-32 that took off from Iwo Jima on a recon mission over Tokyo splashed down near the Izu islands due to malfunction. All crew were rescued.

Apparently, the action was legal and we were never questioned about this action by McArthur's forces.

Zero-sen No Saigo, Saburo Sakai 1995, ISBN4-06-207770-1

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#5

Post by kriegsmarine221 » 20 Dec 2008, 09:24

i thought the last plane shot down was a fi-156

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#6

Post by Ome_Joop » 24 Dec 2008, 23:03

In Europe it maybe was but that was long before VJ-day
The MISS ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting for the US artillery her pilot saw a similar German plane doing the same thing. He dove on the German plane and he and his co-pilot fired their pistols damaging the German plane enough that it had to make a forced landing. Whereupon they landed and took the Germans prisoner. I don't know where they put them since the MISS ME only had 2 seats.
Mark Anderson wrote: "In regards to the duel of two spotter aircraft doing battle during the last days of WW2, Cornelius Ryan wrote of the incident in his book Last Battle. While enroute to scout the area around Berlin Lts. Duane Francies and William Martin, in the last "dogfight" between Americans and Germans in WW2, took on a Fieseler "Storch" under pistolfire from their L-4 Cub, forced the Storch to crash land and its two occupants to be captured by an American troop convoy which had watched the action from below. The above account was also verified to me by correspondence from Mr. Martin in 2003."
http://wilk4.com/humor/humorm175.htm

The Storch was also the last German aircraft shot down in air combat on the Western Front, on the morning of V-E Day. Lieutenants Duane Francies and William Martin, flying a Piper L-4 Cub for the 5th US Army Division, spotted a Storch circling below them. They immediately dove on the airplane and opened fire with their Colt .45s, with the result that the Storch made a emergency landing with its engine hit. The Americans landed their Cub and - following a short gun battle - captured the two Germans. Observer Martin won the Air Medal for his role, but pilot Duane Francies had to wait 22 years until the story was told in Cornelius Ryan's book, "The Last Battle," before he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. While it was the last Luftwaffe plane lost on the western front, this Storch was also the only German plane shot down by pistol fire during the Second World War.
http://www.modelingmadness.com/reviews/ ... /61100.htm

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#7

Post by A Man » 30 Dec 2008, 17:41

According to "Answering Their Country's Call" (The Johns Hopkins University Press - November 5, 2002) author, Michael Rogers: the pilot Clarence "Bill" Moore of the Flying Meat Ax squadron, in his F6F Hellcat, had the "last official aerial victory scored by an American pilot in the Pacific, and the last of the Second World War", at 2:30 P.M. on August 15, 1945, when he shot down a kamakaze en route...

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#8

Post by Ironmachine » 14 Feb 2009, 11:00

And just to add another ingredient to this confusing recipe:
Aug. 15, 1945. Navy Lt. Cmdr. T.H. Reidy, commander of VBF 83 and flying a Vought F4U Corsair, records the last confirmed US air-to-air victory of World War II while hostilities are still officially declared, as he shoots down a Nakajima C6N1 Saiun reconnaissance aircraft at 5:40 a.m. local time over Tokyo. Five minutes later, the war officially ends.
Aug. 18, 1945. In the last combat action of any kind against the Japanese in World War II, a pair of Consolidated B-32 Dominators on a reconnaissance flight over Tokyo are attacked by 14 Zeros and Tojos. One US crew member is killed and two are wounded during the attack. B-32 gunners claim two victories and two more probables during the engagement. Both B-32s (one nicknamed Hobo Queen II; the other unnamed) are flown safely back to Okinawa.
From http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Magazi ... 944-46.pdf

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#9

Post by gianpaolo » 14 Feb 2009, 12:45

The FAA Seafires too claimed several Zekes on 15/8.

gianpaolo

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#10

Post by filnorm » 23 Feb 2009, 14:24

Ome_Joop wrote:In Europe it maybe was but that was long before VJ-day
The MISS ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting for the US artillery her pilot saw a similar German plane doing the same thing. He dove on the German plane and he and his co-pilot fired their pistols damaging the German plane enough that it had to make a forced landing. Whereupon they landed and took the Germans prisoner. I don't know where they put them since the MISS ME only had 2 seats.
Mark Anderson wrote: "In regards to the duel of two spotter aircraft doing battle during the last days of WW2, Cornelius Ryan wrote of the incident in his book Last Battle. While enroute to scout the area around Berlin Lts. Duane Francies and William Martin, in the last "dogfight" between Americans and Germans in WW2, took on a Fieseler "Storch" under pistolfire from their L-4 Cub, forced the Storch to crash land and its two occupants to be captured by an American troop convoy which had watched the action from below. The above account was also verified to me by correspondence from Mr. Martin in 2003."
http://wilk4.com/humor/humorm175.htm

The Storch was also the last German aircraft shot down in air combat on the Western Front, on the morning of V-E Day. Lieutenants Duane Francies and William Martin, flying a Piper L-4 Cub for the 5th US Army Division, spotted a Storch circling below them. They immediately dove on the airplane and opened fire with their Colt .45s, with the result that the Storch made a emergency landing with its engine hit. The Americans landed their Cub and - following a short gun battle - captured the two Germans. Observer Martin won the Air Medal for his role, but pilot Duane Francies had to wait 22 years until the story was told in Cornelius Ryan's book, "The Last Battle," before he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. While it was the last Luftwaffe plane lost on the western front, this Storch was also the only German plane shot down by pistol fire during the Second World War.
http://www.modelingmadness.com/reviews/ ... /61100.htm
OK then, what is the date? According to the latest research, the Soviet Air Force shot down at least one German bomber and a U.S. P-38 on May 9, 1945 in the vicinity of Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Regards, Filip
Blog on strafing missions also in ENGLISH now - http://hloubkari.bloguje.cz/tema-21-english-version.php
Board on the air war over Czechoslovakia at http://hloubkari.cz/forum

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#11

Post by kriegsmarine221 » 24 Feb 2009, 06:08

why would the soviets shoot down a US plane? and about the fact that a piper cub shot down a fi-156. i believe it but the fi-156 has a mg-15 machingun in the rear cabin and it offers substantially more firepower than a pistol. why was it shot down so easily?

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#12

Post by filnorm » 24 Feb 2009, 10:52

The Russians definitely mistook the target - they thought they are attacking Fw 189...

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#13

Post by TISO » 24 Feb 2009, 18:51

filnorm wrote:The Russians definitely mistook the target - they thought they are attacking Fw 189...
Kozhedub the top scoring allied ace also had two Mustangs on his tally. They mistook La-7's for Focke wulfs and got mauled.

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#14

Post by R Leonard » 25 Feb 2009, 04:47

Last Japanese warplane shot down by a USN pilot, was a D4Y credited to ENS Clarence Alan Moore from Belleau Wood’s VF-31 at approximately 1400 on 15 August near Hodoka Airfield.

Reidy, mentioned in a post above, and at the time a LT, was the first USN scorer on 15 August, his shoot-down of a C6N reported as ocurring at 0540 - the first of 34 aircraft credited to USN pilots that day, ending with Moore's D4Y.

Last USAAF fighter credits in the Pacific I can find went to the 35th FS on 14 August 1945 at approximately 1215. Credits went to 1LT Dwight E Hollister - 1 Ki-84; Capt Raymond F Meyer, Jr - 2 Ki-84, plus 0.5 Ki-84 damaged; Capt Billy G Moore - 1 Ki-84; 2LT George I Stevens, Jr - 1 Ki-84, plus 0.5 Ki-84 damaged. All this occurred in the general vicinity, over water, north of Karatsu, Saga Province, Kyushu.

Last USAAF night fighter credit I can find was 2LT Curtiss R Griffitts of the 418 NFS on 7 Aug 45 at approx. 2230 near Kumamoto Airfield, Kyushu, a G4M. Griffitts' radar operator was 2LT Myron G Bigler.

Rich

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Re: The Last airplane shot down ww2 ?? - Help needed

#15

Post by kriegsmarine221 » 25 Feb 2009, 05:28

TISO wrote:
filnorm wrote:The Russians definitely mistook the target - they thought they are attacking Fw 189...
Kozhedub the top scoring allied ace also had two Mustangs on his tally. They mistook La-7's for Focke wulfs and got mauled.
actually theres no recording or account of that happening. allied pilots arent that dumb to mistake a la-7 for a fw-190. theres a lot of difference in appearance between the 2.

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