IJN Aircraft losses 7 December 1941

[OpanaPointer]

Less than 19 years until the 100th anniversary. A friend who lives near Kamogawa has invited me to sail from Tankan Bay to Hawaii, his treat. It would be interesting.

I soooo envy you!
Have a good trip!

As I'll be 90 years old I probably won't remember the trip. Won't stop me from going.

[fontessa]

I have one question. What are the "flight records"? I have shown the action reports of Akagi flight units 飛行隊戦闘行動調書. It mentions there were 18 plots and Iizuka was not there. Akagi Val Unit had no backup pilot, so I concluded that Iizuka was not on board Akagi at that time. If you don't mind, could you show me your recollections of Iizuka?

On the air records of Akagi, my question is - are these the real ones that were aboard the morning of the battle, or are they records reconstructed by the Akagi's officers after the battle because the originals were destroyed in the battle?

Do you mean 飛行隊戦闘行動調書 was lost, and reconstructed later? And Iizuka was dropped at the time of the reconstruction? Below are the action reports of the fighter group / Akagi flight units. They look "rare". Hard to believe that they aer the reconstructed documents. The Val group action report I showed earlier also looks "rare".

All 4 carriers of the Kido Butai used old pattern forms for their 行隊戦闘行動調書. Suddenly all their Midway kodochoshos are recorded in the new "18-9" pattern forms. Also the total lack of kodochoshos for routine patrol and CAP flights is telling. So yes, there is a serious possibility those kodochoshos are not original.
Of course, I'm not Glenn - I know, that if original kodochoshos were lost at Midway, ALL kodochoshos will be lost - not just for Midway operation. Also, it's physically impossible anybody could recreate so much details about flying operations from memory even on one carrier, yet alone on all 4 of them.
So if original kodochoshos were NOT lost at Midway, why are they different?
Fortunately we have an explanation in "Zuiho" kodochoshos - in part 1, page 24 of the file there is a note, that kodochoshos for June 1942 were "removed for the investigation"(??translation). Most probably the same happened with the kodochoshos of 4 carriers of the Kido Butai - though their combat kodochoshos were copied for the files before originals were removed.

Thanks. The note is;
六月分日誌部員保管中ニ付キ行動調査不能
Unable to investigate (Wartime) Diary of June because it was kept by 部員 Staff.

瑞鳳行動調書 1.jpg

A note that clarifies the meaning of the above has been attached to 瑞鳳飛行隊行動調書 Zuiho Air Unit Action Report for 5 December 1941 (Format: Revised in September 1944).
瑞鳳ノ戦時日誌ヨリ採リタルタメ搭乗員名、記載事項不明
Crew name and Details (for example, see the 1st chart of my previous #83 post)were. unknown as it was taken from Zuiho Wartime Diary.

瑞鳳行動調書 2.jpg

Based on the above, my guess is that 行動調書 lost due to the sinking of the Zuiho was recovered (probably by 功績調査部 Achievements Research Department) from her Wartime Diary). All Wartime Diaries and Action Reports were sent to 功績調査部 for achievement evaluations.

Actually I couldn't notice that the format of 行動調書 of the 4 aircraft carriers at Midway was “Revised in September 1944” version. However, it is difficult to believe that their "Freshness 生々しさ" was later restored. If we look into 行動調書 database, we can find many examples of “Revised in September 1944” version. For example, 千歳空 Chitose Naval Air Group 行動調書 dated 25 December 1941 below. (Probably revised to make it easier to use in 功績調査部) It is hard to believe that all of these have been "restored". The only possibility is that “Revised in September 1944” version was actually used from December 1941 or January 1942. But this version was not distributed to the 1st Air Fleet at this time by some reason and distributed in April-May 1942 before the 1st Air Fleet left Japan for Midway. That's the most acceptable interpretation to me.

千歳空行動調書.jpg

At first I thought that "18-9 1改訂" was ”Revised in September 1944" version. But it seems to be just a calling number of format version.

fontessa

[glenn239]

Do you mean 飛行隊戦闘行動調書 was lost, and reconstructed later? And Iizuka was dropped at the time of the reconstruction? Below are the action reports of the fighter group / Akagi flight units. They look "rare". Hard to believe that they aer the reconstructed documents. The Val group action report I showed earlier also looks "rare".

Yes, that's the idea. That the records were lost with the ship and reconstructed after the battle, and the reason why Iizuka is missing is because he was wounded before the Indian Ocean Raid and dropped out of the squadron records. If this is so, then the theory, the possible reason why your Akagi flight records show information for operations for Akagi pilots on Hiryu after Akagi was bombed is because they are not the originals, they are replacements for the originals.

Anyways, I'd also asked you an additional question. According to the Akagi fighter records, in your opinion, of the 18 fighter pilots, which three Akagi pilots will have been the ones assigned to escort the Akagi strike mission scheduled at 1030?

For example, in the Hiryu fighter records there were six escorts assigned to the 1050 strike. 3 were scheduled beforehand, 3 apparently were added at the last moment as a battle situation improvisation. When I look at Hiryu records, I see that Shigermatisu Yasuhiro, Minegishi Yoshijuro and Chiyoshima Yutaka flew on the Midway mission, then landed aboard Hiryu after 0830, and none of the three took off on CAP missions between then and launching at 1057. I therefore conclude those three pilots named were the 3 Hiryu pilots earmarked for escort duty around 0900, and that this is the reason why they fly no CAP sorties before 1057; they were resting aboard Hiryu after 0900 for their 1030 mission.

For Akagi, like Hiryu the fighter unit breaks out into nine pilots that were originally assigned to CAP and nine assigned to Midway. Of the nine CAP assignments, Tanaka Katsumi, Ohara Hiroshi and Iwashiro Yoshio only recovered by 1010 so could not have been scheduled for the 1030 strike. Takasuga Mitsuyoshi landed at 0951. He was part of a group that took off at 0832 of which two were killed and the other landed at 1010. All of this rules him out for being assigned escort duty. The other five original CAP pilots were either aloft at 1025 or dead.

I conclude from this that none of the nine pilots assigned by Akagi around 0900 to escort the strike at 1030 were any of the original '9' CAP pilots.

Of the nine Midway escorts, one had been killed leaving eight. Five pilots that landed from Midway plus one other; Shirane Ayao, Kikuchi Tetsuo, Kimura Tadeo, Omori Shigetaka, Ishii Seiji and Ishida Masashi reinforced the combat air patrol between 0932 and 0945 and five of them did not return to the ship. "Kimura Tadeo", one of these that launched is not listed in the Akagi fighter roster and may either be a 6th Ku passenger, or perhaps a misprint for Kimura Koreo. If so, the CAP flight in particular is the shortest CAP flight in the Japanese records for the entire battle (19 minutes) as if the pilot were doing a 'quickie', or testing some sort of repair. "Kimura Tadeo" is the only one of the six launched to return to Akagi.

At 1025 there were therefore only three Midway escort pilots aboard Akagi; Kimura Koreo (PO1C), Mori Sakae (PO3C) and Kawada Yozo (PO2C). Except for a possible quick jaunt by Koreo, none of the three had participated in any CAP actions after recovering. I therefore concluded that these three are the three Akagi pilots earmarked for the strike mission, they were resting for their mission after 0900.

So that's how I arrived at my three Akagi escort pilots. What are your three and what method do you use to determine this?

[glenn239]

He also says;
After completing the first wave attack, we were busy loading land bombs for the second wave attack. Just at that time a report came that an enemy task force was sighted. So a quick change from land bombs to ship bombs had to be made.
In actual Midway Operation, the second wave of attacks was scheduled to take off from Akagi and Kaga only with Ketas equipped with torpedoes, and from Soryu and Hiryu with Val equipped with non-armor-piercing 250kg bombs. So if Iizuka was truly on board the Akagi, there's no way he would write with blue letters. I've shown you a number of rational reasons, but I don't understand why you trust Iizuka so much. The blue text above is clearly a lie.

fontessa

The reason why I'm inclined to believe Iizuka is because first I see no motive for him to lie, (these being invariably to cover up for misdeeds or to claim false credit for some accomplishment, neither of which apply here), and second his account is lucid, so he's not suffering from memory problems as he writes it. Third, it's because his account is functionally identical to Kiyoto Furuta's, another Akagi dive bomber pilot.

[fontessa]

He also says;
After completing the first wave attack, we were busy loading land bombs for the second wave attack. Just at that time a report came that an enemy task force was sighted. So a quick change from land bombs to ship bombs had to be made.
In actual Midway Operation, the second wave of attacks was scheduled to take off from Akagi and Kaga only with Ketas equipped with torpedoes, and from Soryu and Hiryu with Val equipped with non-armor-piercing 250kg bombs. So if Iizuka was truly on board the Akagi, there's no way he would write with blue letters. I've shown you a number of rational reasons, but I don't understand why you trust Iizuka so much. The blue text above is clearly a lie.

fontessa

The reason why I'm inclined to believe Iizuka is because first I see no motive for him to lie, (these being invariably to cover up for misdeeds or to claim false credit for some accomplishment, neither of which apply here), and second his account is lucid, so he's not suffering from memory problems as he writes it. Third, it's because his account is functionally identical to Kiyoto Furuta's, another Akagi dive bomber pilot.

OK. You are free to believe him or not.

fontessa

[glenn239]

Do you mean 飛行隊戦闘行動調書 was lost, and reconstructed later? And Iizuka was dropped at the time of the reconstruction? Below are the action reports of the fighter group / Akagi flight units. They look "rare". Hard to believe that they aer the reconstructed documents. The Val group action report I showed earlier also looks "rare".

Yes, that's the idea. That the records were lost with the ship and reconstructed after the battle, and the reason why Iizuka is missing is because he was wounded before the Indian Ocean Raid and dropped out of the squadron records. If this is so, then the theory, the possible reason why your Akagi flight records show information for operations for Akagi pilots on Hiryu after Akagi was bombed is because they are not the originals, they are replacements for the originals.

Anyways, I'd also asked you an additional question. According to the Akagi fighter records, in your opinion, of the 18 fighter pilots, which three Akagi pilots will have been the ones assigned to escort the Akagi strike mission scheduled at 1030?

For example, in the Hiryu fighter records there were six escorts assigned to the 1050 strike. 3 were scheduled beforehand, 3 apparently were added at the last moment as a battle situation improvisation. When I look at Hiryu records, I see that Shigermatisu Yasuhiro, Minegishi Yoshijuro and Chiyoshima Yutaka flew on the Midway mission, then landed aboard Hiryu after 0830, and none of the three took off on CAP missions between then and launching at 1057. Two of the other pilots (Noboru and Hitoshi) were CAP pilots, so were 2 of the 3 added. The final pilot Suekichi does not appear in the Hiryu fighter roster so was probably a 6th Ku addition. I therefore conclude those three pilots named, (Shigermatisu, Minegishi, Chiyoshima) were the 3 Hiryu pilots earmarked for escort duty around 0900, and that this is the reason why they fly no CAP sorties before 1057; they were resting aboard Hiryu after 0900 for their 1030 mission.

For Akagi, like Hiryu the fighter unit breaks out into nine pilots that were originally assigned to CAP and nine assigned to Midway. Of the nine CAP assignments, Tanaka Katsumi, Ohara Hiroshi and Iwashiro Yoshio only recovered by 1010 so could not have been scheduled for the 1030 strike. Takasuga Mitsuyoshi landed at 0951. He was part of a group that took off at 0832 of which two were killed and the other landed at 1010. All of this rules him out for being assigned escort duty. The other five original CAP pilots were either aloft at 1025 or dead.

I conclude from this that none of the nine pilots assigned by Akagi around 0900 to escort the strike at 1030 were any of the original '9' CAP pilots.

Of the nine Midway escorts, one had been killed leaving eight. Five pilots that landed from Midway plus one other; Shirane Ayao, Kikuchi Tetsuo, Kimura Tadeo, Omori Shigetaka, Ishii Seiji and Ishida Masashi reinforced the combat air patrol between 0932 and 0945 and five of them did not return to the ship. "Kimura Tadeo", one of these that launched is not listed in the Akagi fighter roster and may either be a 6th Ku passenger, or perhaps a misprint for Kimura Koreo. If so, the CAP flight in particular is the shortest CAP flight in the Japanese records for the entire battle (19 minutes) as if the pilot were doing a 'quickie', or testing some sort of repair. "Kimura Tadeo" is the only one of the six launched to return to Akagi.

At 1025 there were therefore only three Midway escort pilots aboard Akagi; Kimura Koreo (PO1C), Mori Sakae (PO3C) and Kawada Yozo (PO2C). Except for a possible quick jaunt by Koreo, none of the three had participated in any CAP actions after recovering. I therefore concluded that these three are the three Akagi pilots earmarked for the strike mission, they were resting for their mission after 0900.

So that's how I arrived at my three Akagi escort pilots. What are your three and what method do you use to determine this?

[glenn239]

OK. You are free to believe him or not.

fontessa

Not "him", "them". The Iizuka account is functionally identical to Furuta's.

[fontessa]

Do you mean 飛行隊戦闘行動調書 was lost, and reconstructed later? And Iizuka was dropped at the time of the reconstruction? Below are the action reports of the fighter group / Akagi flight units. They look "rare". Hard to believe that they aer the reconstructed documents. The Val group action report I showed earlier also looks "rare".

Yes, that's the idea. That the records were lost with the ship and reconstructed after the battle, and the reason why Iizuka is missing is because he was wounded before the Indian Ocean Raid and dropped out of the squadron records. If this is so, then the theory, the possible reason why your Akagi flight records show information for operations for Akagi pilots on Hiryu after Akagi was bombed is because they are not the originals, they are replacements for the originals.

Do you think the entire action report was written on board the ship? It was not possible or very difficult, ordinary action reports were completed after the battle and submitted to higher headquarters. Therefore, it is not strange that the information about her Zero's landing on Hiryu was added to Akagi's action report later.

fontessa

[fontessa]

About Fuchida’s Book

I would like to make some comments about the book "Midway'' written by Fuchid and Okumiya.
At the time of its publication, this book was considered "True Fact." However, recently it has been evaluated as follows.
The operation leadership was severely criticized for its disastrous defeat at Midway. The intention of the publishing of the book was to relieve criticism of them by emphasizing the narrow loss, saying, “If only we had five more minutes.''

Fuchida developed appendicitis and underwent surgery. On June 5th, his stitches were already removed, but he had to stay in his bed in his room. However he crawled onto the bridge. He could see all the deck from there. In other words, the “Five Minutes of Destiny'' story is not just hearsay, but his experience. In his book, a bomb from a Dauntless exploded during the first Zero's takeoff, and the Zero narrowly escaped a bomb explosion. So how 飛行機隊戦闘行動調書 described the Zero? It is 9直 9th shift on the 2nd CAP page piloted by FPO1 Kimura Koreo 木村惟雄 which took off at 0725 Tokyo Time. He reminisces: “When I saw Kaga and Soryu being bombed and on fire, I immediately boarded the captain's Zero which was preparing to take off.'' In other words, he was not a member of the 2nd Wave Attack. I think this is enough to show that "Five Minutes of Destiny" is not true.

fontessa

[glenn239]

You cannot include the Zeros in these figures as if they were Kates or Vals, because the Zero needed a much shorter take-off run. If 27 was the maximum number of Kates which could have taken off with 800 kg of bombs or torpedoes and with the ship steaming at full speed (and I think there was a stronger wind on 7 December than on 4 June), and if the minimum take off run for the Val was similar to a Kate's, then only a maximum of 10 Vals could have been spotted in front of the 17 Kates. And even if they could have done that they would not have done it, because:

Looks like the deck spot on Akagi at Pearl Harbor had 27 Kates on deck with the lead B5N2's nose about halfway across the central elevator. That puts the takeoff run for Fuchida at about 435'. Call it 9,000lbs and 1000hp. The Val's minimum takeoff distance must have been less - the HP was 1070 and the weight was about 1,000lbs lighter than a Kate.

Akagi had 17 Kates aboard and 18 Vals. Of the Vals, 5 came back from Midway with damage, (1 out of commission and 4 damaged but repairable) meaning that given the frantic conditions, as few as 13 would have been assigned to the next mission. That makes a deck spot of 30 bombers, plus the fighters. 3 more bombers would drop the lead Val's deck run to about 400 feet. That seems doable. I think you are correct that they could not have fit all 18.

(2) The first strike on the enemy carriers would have been delayed by the need to re-arm, refuel and spot the Vals. (This delay would also lengthen the time before airborne CAP fighters which were out of ammo could land to re-arm.)

The rearmament and refuelling of the Val squadron was happening, according to both Iizuka and Furuta, concurrently to the rearming of the torpedo bombers.

[fontessa]

with the ship steaming at full speed (and I think there was a stronger wind on 7 December than on 4 June),

It's not realistic. Because flight conditions change depending on wind speed. Difficult for any expert. In reality, the aircraft carrier's speed was controlled so that the combined wind speed was a constant value, depending on the wind speed that day. This was 12m/sec in the first half of the war and 15m/sec in the latter half of the war. When the Zero was developed, the required takeoff distance was "70m or less at a composite wind speed of 12/sec''.

fontessa

[Rob Stuart]

with the ship steaming at full speed (and I think there was a stronger wind on 7 December than on 4 June),

It's not realistic. Because flight conditions change depending on wind speed. Difficult for any expert. In reality, the aircraft carrier's speed was controlled so that the combined wind speed was a constant value, depending on the wind speed that day. This was 12m/sec in the first half of the war and 15m/sec in the latter half of the war. When the Zero was developed, the required takeoff distance was "70m or less at a composite wind speed of 12/sec''.

fontessa

Good point. Thanks for this.

[fontessa]

Do you mean 飛行隊戦闘行動調書 was lost, and reconstructed later? And Iizuka was dropped at the time of the reconstruction? Below are the action reports of the fighter group / Akagi flight units. They look "rare". Hard to believe that they aer the reconstructed documents. The Val group action report I showed earlier also looks "rare".

Yes, that's the idea. That the records were lost with the ship and reconstructed after the battle, and the reason why Iizuka is missing is because he was wounded before the Indian Ocean Raid and dropped out of the squadron records. If this is so, then the theory, the possible reason why your Akagi flight records show information for operations for Akagi pilots on Hiryu after Akagi was bombed is because they are not the originals, they are replacements for the originals.

Do you think the entire action report was written on board the ship? It was not possible or very difficult, ordinary action reports were completed after the battle and submitted to higher headquarters. Therefore, it is not strange that the information about her Zero's landing on Hiryu was added to Akagi's action report later.

fontessa

For example;
LCDR Yoshioka Chuichi (Air "Otzu" Staff Officer / the 1st Air Fleet) said that he made the 1st Air Fleet Action Report at Hashirajima Anchorage after returning to Japan.

fontessa

[glenn239]

There was no "theoretically" in Kido Butai attack plans at Midway. EVERY source say "Akagi" was ordered to launch against US carriers only B5Ns and a flight of A6M: from Nagumo's report to Fuchida's part of Midway book. It means either they are lying or Iizuka is lying.

Nagumo Report states,

0530 Message from Comdr. Mobile Force to Mobile Force: "Carrier-based bombers will prepare for second attack. Equip yourselves with 250 kilogram bombs."

That is a direct order made at 0830 to 1st Division carriers Akagi and Kaga to re-arm their Midway D3A1 dive bombers for the second attack. And, from Iizuka and Furuta's accounts, this is exactly what they did when they landed.

The problem is - it's simply not possible if "Fatal five minute" theory is correct. Kido Butai strike units were to be launched together. So if "Akagi" have empty hangars, so does "Kaga". Which is not the case.

Our dive bombers arrived in the nick of time, caught one enemy CV (Akagi) with most, if not all, of his planes on deck. The other carriers had some planes on deck.

Raymond Spruance, 16 June 1942

The US combat reports sharply distinguished between the readiness state of the target carriers. The target of the Yorktown's squadron, (which must obviously be the Akagi if Fuchida's account is true) was said to be covered in aircraft, with many blown overboard during the strikes. The target of Enterprise's squadrons had few aircraft on their decks. So the IJN carriers were not in the same state of readiness. The reason why Kaga was behind was because she'd been under constant torpedo attacks, which continued past 1015. These attacks completely disrupted her perparations. The reason why Akagi, which had not been attacked and therefore whose arming was not disrupted, would not wait for Kaga and commence her spot is because Kaga was under attack. There was no assurances that Kaga would survive the attack. You seem to be suggesting that because we know Kaga was undamaged in the attacks before 1020 that Akagi's staff would assume that. They would be crazy to assume that.

[fontessa]

Nagumo Report states,

0530 Message from Comdr. Mobile Force to Mobile Force: "Carrier-based bombers will prepare for second attack. Equip yourselves with 250 kilogram bombs."

That is a direct order made at 0830 to 1st Division carriers Akagi and Kaga to re-arm their Midway D3A1 dive bombers for the second attack. And, from Iizuka and Furuta's accounts, this is exactly what they did when they landed.

Sure? I can't find it in Senshi Soho. And what is your source?
One more question. Why do you think Iizuka was not listed in 戦闘機隊行動調書?

fontessa