Comparative Table for Main Types of Fighters

Aircraft Length Span Engine Max Speed Range Armament Number(hp) (mph)/ normal/max Built

altitude (miles)(feet)

U.S. Navy

F4F-4 28'9" 38'0" Pratt & 320/19,400 910/1,250 4x (later 6) 1,168Wildcat Whitney .50-cal.

R-1830-86 machine guns(1 ,200)

4U-1 33'4" 41'0" Pratt & 417/ 6x.50-cal. 9,4441Corsair Whitney 19,900 1,015/1,562 machine guns

R-2800-8(2,000)

USAAF

P-400 30'2" 34'0" Allison 335/ 600/1,100 1x20mm can. 179 2(P-39D) V-1710 5,000 4x.30-cal.Airacobra (1,150) 2x.50-cal.

machine guns

P-40E 31 '2" 37'4" Allison 335/ 650/ 6x.50-cal. 2,320Warhawk V-1710 5,000 850 machine guns

(1 ,1 50)

JapaneseNavy

A6M2 29'8" 39'4" Nakajima 331/ 1,160/ 2x20mm can. 1,1003Model 21 Sakai 12 15,000 1,930 2x7.7mmZero-sen (925) machine gunsZeke)

A6M2-N 33'1 " 39'4" Nakajima 270/ 714/ 2x20mm can. 327(Rufe) Sakai 12 16,400 1,107 2x7.7mm

(925) machine guns

JapaneseArmy

Ki.43-1a 28'11 " 37'6" Nakajima 308/ 745 max 2x7.7mm or 716Hayabusa Ha-25 13,100 12.7mm(Oscar) (950) machine guns

Ki.61-1a 28'8" 39'4" Kawasaki 368/ 373/ 2x12.7mm 1,380Hien Ha-40 16,000 684 2x7.7mm(Tony) (1,175) machine guns

1 Includes all variants of the F4U-l, i.e., the -1, -lA, -Ie (armed with 4x20mm cannon), and -10, as well as those built byGoodyear .as the FG-IA/D, and by Brewster as the F3A-1O.

2 The amount reclaimed by the USAAF from the original RAF order of 675. Approximately 100 P-400 and 90 P-39Ds servedwith the USAAF in the Pacific. Others served with the Soviet Air Force, and the USAAF in the Middle East and the Mediter-ranean theater.

3 Production numbers for many Japanese aircraft are difficult to pin down. The best estimate places A6M2 production atover 1, 100.

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Author's Collection

Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington

The One and Only 'Pappy'

Every one of the Corps' aces hadspecial qualities that set him apartfrom his squadron mates. Flyingand shooting skills, tenacity, ag-gressiveness, and a generous shareof luck—the aces had these inabundance. One man probably hadmore than his share of these quali-t:Les, and that was the legendary"Pappy" Boyington.

A native of Idaho, Gregory Boy-ington went through flight trainingas a Marine Aviation Cadet, earninga reputation for irreverence andhigh jinks that did not go downwell with his superiors. His thirstfor adventure, as well as his accu-mulated financial debts, led him toresign his commission as a firstlieutenant and join the AmericanVolunteer Group (AVG), betterknown as the Flying Tigers. Likeother service pilots who joined theAVG, he first resigned his commis-sion and this letter was then put ina safe to be redeemed and torn upwhen he rejoined the Marine Corps.

Boyington claimed to have shotdown six Japanese aircraft whilewith the Flying Tigers. However,AVG records were poorly kept, andwere lost in air raids. To compoundthe problem, the U.S. Air Force

does not officially recognize thekills made by the AVG, eventhough the Tigers were eventuallyabsorbed into the Fourteenth AirForce, led by Major General ClaireChennault. Thus, the best confir-mation that can be obtained onBoyington's record with the AVG isthat he scored 3.5 kills.

Whatever today's accounts show,Boyington returned to the U.S.claiming to be one of America's firstaces. He was perhaps the first Ma-rine aviator to have flown in com-bat against the Japanese, though,and he felt he would easily regainhis commission in the MarineCorps. To his frustration, no one inany service seemed to want him.His reputation was well known andthis made his reception not exactlyopen armed.

Boyington finally telegrammedhis qualifications to Secretary of theNavy Frank Knox, and as a result,found himself back in the MarineCorps on active duty as a Reservemajor. He deployed as executive of-ficer of VMF-122 from the WestCoast to the Solomons. He was

based at Espiritu Santo, initially fly-ing squadron training, non-combatmissions. He deployed for a shortbut inactive tour at Guadalcanal inMarch 1943, and after the squadronwas withdrawn, he relieved MajorElmer Brackett as commanding offi-cer in April 1943. His first commandtour was disappointing. He eventu-ally landed in VMF-112, which hecommanded for three weeks in therear area. Prior to forward deploy-ment, he broke his leg whilewrestling and was hospitalized.

Boyington got another chanceand took command of a reconsti-tuted VMF-214. The original unithad returned from a combat tour,during which it had lost its com-manding officer, Major WilliamPace. When the squadron returnedfrom a short rest and recreation tourin Australia, the decision was madeto reorganize the unit because thesquadron did not have a full com-plement of combat-ready pilots.Thus, the squadron number went toa newly organized squadron underMajor Boyington. In his illuminat-ing wartime memoir, Once They

Black Sheep pilots scramble toward their F411-1 "birdcage" Corsairs. The early modelfighters had framed cockpit canopies. The next F4U-lAs and subsequent models usedbubble canopies which enhanced the limited visibility from the fighter's cockpit.

Author's Collection

26

I

-a-.

- _) -.-—.

- •__ ...- -.

ii

Were Eagles: The Men of the BlackSheep Squadron, the squadron intelli-gence officer, First Lieutenant FrankWalton, described how Boyingtongot the new squadron command:

Major Boyington was theright rank for a squadroncommander; he was an expe-rienced combat pilot; he wasavailable; and the need wasgreat. These assets overcamesuch reservations as the gen-eral [Major General Ralph I.Mitchell, Wing Commanderof the 1st Marine AircraftWing] may have had abouthis personal problems. Gen-eral [Mitchell] made the deci-sion. "We need an aggressivecombat leader. We'll go withBoyington." The squadronhad its commander.Much has been written about

Boyington and his squadron. At 31,Boyington was older than his 22-year-old lieutenants. His mencalled him "Cramps" or "Pappy."In prewar days, he was called"Rats," after the Russian-bornactor, Gregory Ratoff. Thesquadron wanted to call them-selves the alliterative "Boyington'sBastards," but 1 940s sensitivitieswould not allow such language.They decided on the more evoca-tive "Black Sheep."

The popular image of VMF-214as a collection of malcontents andne'er-do-wells is not at all accu-rate. The television program of thelate 1970s did nothing to dispelthis inaccurate impression. Intruth, Pappy's squadron was muchlike any other fighter squadron,with a cross-section of people ofvarying capabilities and experi-ence. The two things that weldedthe new squadron into such a fear-some fighting unit was its newmount, the F4U-1 Corsair, and itsindomitable leader.

Boyington took his squadron toMunda on New Georgia in Septem-

ber. On the 16th, the Black Sheepflew their first mission, a bomberescort to Ballale, a Japanese airfieldon a small island about five milessoutheast of Bougainville. The mis-sion turned into a free-for-all asabout 40 Zeros descended on thebombers. Boyington downed a Zerofor his squadron's first kill. Hequickly added four more. Six otherBlack Sheep scored kills. It was anauspicious debut, marred only by

the loss of one -214 pilot, CaptainRobert T. Ewing.

The following weeks were filledwith continuous action. Boyingtonand his squadron rampaged throughthe enemy formations, whether theMarine Corsairs were escortingbombers, or making pure fightersweeps. The frustrated Japanesetried to lure Pappy into severaltraps, but the pugnacious acetaunted them over the radio, chal-

Author's Collection

Pappy briefs his pilots before a mission from Espiritu Santo. Front row, from left: Boying-ton, holding paper, Stanley R. Bailey, Virgil G. Ray, Robert A. Alexander; standing, fromleft: William N. Case, Rolland N. Rinabarger, Don H. Fisher, Henry M. Bourgeois, John F.Begert, Robert T. Ewing, Denmark Groover, Jr., Burney L. Tucker.

Maintenance crews service this F4U-i at a Pacific base. The Corsair's size is shown to advan-tage in this view, as is the bubble canopy of the late-production -is and subsequent models.

Author's Collection

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&- bi• 44 '•4' ,;.'•

p'

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.4- h.Tj

lenging them to come and get him.By mid-December 1943, VMF-

214, along with the other Alliedfighter squadrons, began mountinglarge fighter sweeps staged throughthe new fighter strip at TorokinaPoint on Bougainville. Author Bar-rett Tiliman described the state ofaffairs in the area at the end of De-cember 1943:

.Boyington and other se-nior airmen saw the disadvan-tage of [these] large fightersweeps. They intimidated theopposition into remaininggrounded, which was the op-posite reaction desired. A set ofguidelines was drawn up forfuture operations. It specifiedthat the maximum number offighters should be limited to

no more than 48. As few air-craft types and squadronsshould be employed as possi-ble, for better coordination andmutual support.This strategy was fine, except

that Boyington was beginning tofeel the pressure that being a topace seemed to bring. People keptwondering when Pappy wouldachieve, then break, the magic num-ber of 26, Captain Eddie Ricken-backer's score in World War I. JoeFoss had already equalled the earlyace's total, but was now out of ac-tion. Boyington scored four kills on23 December 1943, bringing histally to 24. Boyington was certainlyfeeling the pressure to break Rick-enbacker ' s 25-year-old record. Boy-ington's intelligence officer, First

Lieutenant Frank Walton, wrote ofhis tenseness and quick flareupswhen pressed about when and byhow much he would surpass themagic 26.

A few days before his final mis-sion, Boyington reacted to a persis-tent public affairs officer. "Sure, I'dlike to break the record," said Boy-ington. "Who wouldn't? I'd like toget 40 if I could. The more we canshoot down here, the fewer there'llbe up the line to stop us."

Later that night, Boyington toldWalton, "Christ, I don't care if Ibreak the record or not, if they'djust leave me alone." Walton toldhis skipper the squadron was be-hind him and that he was probablyin the best position he'd ever be into break the record.

The fighter strip at Torokina was hacked out of the Bougainvillejungle. This December 1943 view shows a lineup of Corsairs and

an SBD, which is completing its landing rollout past a grading ma-chine still working to finish the new landing field.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 74672

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"- -_

'

Department of Defense (USMC) 73114

lstLt Robert M. Hanson of VMF-215 en-joyed a brief career in which he shot down20 of his final total of 25 Japanese planes in13 days. He was shot down during a straf-ing run on 3 February, 1944, a day beforehis 24th birthday.

"You'll never have anotherchance," Walton said. "It's now ornever."

"Yes," Boyington agreed, "1guess you're right."

Like a melodrama, however,Boyington's life now seemed to re-volve around raising his score.Even those devoted members ofhis squadron could not help won-dering—if only to cheer theirsquadron commander on—whenhe would do it.

Pappy's agony was about tocome to a crashing halt. He got asingle kill on 27 December during ahuge fight against 60 Zeros. But,after taking off on a mission againstRabaul on 2 January 1944, at thehead of 56 Navy and Marine fight-ers, Boyington had problems withhis Corsair's engine. He returnedwithout adding to his score.

The following day, he launchedat the head of another sweep stag-ing through Bougainville. By latemorning, other VMF-214 pilots re-turned with the news that Boying-ton had, indeed, been in action.When they last saw him, Pappy had

already disposed of one Zero, andtogether with his wingman, Cap-tain George M. Ashmun, was hoton the tails of other victims.

The initial happy anticipationturned to apprehension as the daywore on and neither Pappy norAshmun returned. By the afternoon,without word from other bases, thesquadron had to face the unthink-able: Boyington was missing. TheBlack Sheep mounted patrols tolook for their leader, but within afew days, they had to admit thatPappy was not coming back.

In fact, Boyington and his wing-man had been shot down afterPappy had bagged three moreZeros, thus bringing his claimedtotal to 28, breaking the Ricken-backer tally, and establishing Boy-ington as the top-scoring Marineace of the war, and, for that matter,of all time. However, these finalvictories were unknown until Boy-ington's return from a Japaneseprison camp in 1945. Boyington'slast two kills were thus uncon-firmed. The only one who could

One of Boyington's Black Sheep, lstLtJohn F. Bolt, already an ace, shot downhis sixth plane over Rabaul in early Janu-ary 1944. During the Korean war, whenhe was flying as an exchange pilot withthe Air Force, he shot down six North Ko-rean planes to become the Marine Corps'first jet ace.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 72421

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Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 72421

Capt Donald N. Aldrich was a 20-kill acewith VMF-215, and had learned to flywith the Royal Canadian Air Force beforethe U.S. entered the war. Although he sur-vived the war, he was killed in a flyingmishap in 1947.

have seen Pappy's victories was hiswingman, Captain Ashmun, shotdown along with his skipper. Whilethere is no reason to doubt hisclaims, the strict rules of verifyingkills were apparently relaxed forthe returning hero when he was re-covered from a prisoner of warcamp after the war.

Pappy and his wingman hadbeen overwhelmed by a swarm ofZeros and had to bail out of theirfaltering Corsairs near Cape St.George on New Ireland. CaptainAshmun was never recovered, butBoyington was retrieved by aJapanese submarine after beingstrafed by the vengeful Zeros thathad just shot him down. Boyingtonspent the next 20 months as a pris-oner of war, although no one in theU.S. knew it until after V-J Day.

He endured torture and beatingsduring interrogations, and was fi-nally rescued when someonepainted "Boyington Here!" on theroof of his prison barracks. Aircraftdropping supplies to the prisonersshortly after the ceasefire in August1945 spotted the message and soon

•1

/

Department of Defense (USMC) 73119

Three of the Corps' top aces pose atTorokina in early 1944. From left: lstLtRobert Hanson, Capt Donald N. Aldrich,and Capt Harold Spears were members ofVMF-215 during the busy period followingthe loss of Pappy Boyington. The three avi-ators accounted for a combined total of 60Japanese aircraft.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 72424

Capt Harold L. Spears was Robert Hanson'sflight leader on the day Hanson was shotdown and killed after Spears gave Hansonpermission to make a strafing run against aJapanese position in December 1944.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 58384

On 30 June 1943, lstLt Wilbur J. Thomasof VMF-213 shot down four enemy planeswhile providing air cover for American op-erations on New Georgia. Two weeks later,on 15 July, he shot down three more Japan-ese bombers. Before he left the Pacific, histotal of kills was 18½.

everyone knew that Pappy wascoming back.

Although he had never receiveda single decoration while he was incombat, Boyington returned to theU.S. to find that he not only hadbeen awarded the Navy Cross, butthe Medal of Honor as well, albeit"posthumously."

With Pappy Boyington gone,several other young Marine avia-tors began to make themselvesknown. The most productive, andunfortunately, the one with theshortest career, was First LieutenantRobert M. Hanson of VMF-215. Al-though born in India of missionaryparents, Hanson called Massachu-setts home. A husky, competitiveman, he quickly took to the life of aMarine combat aviator.

During his first and second tours,flying from Vella Lavella with othersquadrons, including Boyington'sBlack Sheep, Hanson shot downfive Japanese planes, although dur-ing one of these fights, he, himself,

was forced to ditch his Corsair inEmpress Augusta Bay.

For his third tour, he joined VMF-215 at Torokina. By mid-January,Hanson had begun such a hot streakof kills, that the young pilot hadearned the name "Butcher Bob."Hanson shot Japanese planes downin bunches. On 18 January 1944, hedisposed of five enemy aircraft. On24 January, he added four moreZeros. Another four Japanese planeswent down before Hanson's Corsairon 30 January. His score now stoodat 25, 20 of which had been gainedin 13 days in only six missions. Han-son's successes were happening soquickly that he was relatively un-known outside his combat area.Very few combat correspondentsknew of his record until later.

Lieutenant Hanson took off for amission on 3 February 1944. Thenext day would be his 24th birth-day, and the squadron's third tourwould end in a few days. He wasgoing back home. He called his

30

flight commander, Captain HaroldL. Spears, and asked if he couldstrafe Japanese antiaircraft artillerypositions at Cape St. George onNew Ireland, the same general areaover which Pappy Boyington hadbeen shot down a month before.

Hanson made his run, firing hisplane's six .50-caliber machineguns. The Japanese returned fire asthe big, blue-gray Marine fighterrocketed past, seemingly undercontrol. However, Hanson's planedove into the water from a low alti-bide, leaving only an oil slick.

Hanson's meteoric career sawhim become the highest-scoringMarine Corsair ace, and the secondMarine high-scorer, one behind JoeFoss. Lieutenant Hanson received aposthumous Medal of Honor for histhird tour of combat. As Barrett Till-man points out in his book on theF4U, Hanson "became the third andlast Corsair pilot to receive theMedal of Honor in World War II.And the youngest."

S.---,.

Japanese Pilots in the Solomons Air War

T he stereotypical picture of a small, emaciatedJapanese pilot, wearing glasses whose lenseswere the thickness of the bottoms of Coke bottles,grasping the stick of his bamboo-and-rice-paper air-plane (the design was probably stolen from the U.S.,too) did not persist for long after the war began. Thefirst American aircrews to return from combat knew thatthey had faced some of the world's most experiencedcombat pilots equipped with some pretty impressive air-planes.

Author's Collection

A rebuilt late-model Zero shows off the clean lines of the A6M se-ries, which changed little during the production run of more than10,000 fighters.

Certainly, Japanese society was completely alien tomost Americans. Adherence to ancestral codes of honorand a national history-one of constant internal, local-ized strife where personal weakness was not tolerated,especially in the Samurai class of professional war-riors-did not permit the individual Japanese soldier tosurrender even in the face of overwhelming odds.

This capability did not come by accident. Japanesetraining was tough. In some respects, it went far beyondthe legendary limits of even U.S. Marine Corps boottraining. However, as the war turned against them, theJapanese relaxed their stringent prewar requirementsand mass-produced pilots to replace the veterans whowere lost at Midway and in the Solomons. For instance,before the war, pilots learned navigation and how topack a parachute. After 1942, these subjects were elimi-nated from training to save time.

Young men who were accepted for flight trainingwere subjected to an excruciating preflight indoctrina-tion into military life. Their instructors-mostly en-listed-were literally their rulers, with nearly life-or-

Author's Collection

Newly commissioned Ens Junichi Sasai in May 1941.

death control of the recruits' existence. After survivingthe physical training, the recruits began flight trainingwhere the rigors of their preflight classes were main-tained. By the time Japanese troops evacuatedGuadalcanal in February 1943, however, their edgehad begun wearing thin as they had lost many of theirmost experienced pilots and flight commanders, alongwith their aircraft.

The failed Japanese adventure at Midway in June1942, as well as the heavy losses in the almost dailycombat over Guadalcanal and the Solomons deprivedthem of irreplaceable talent. Even the most experi-enced pilots eventually came up against a losing rollof the dice.

As noted in the main text, Japanese aces such asSakai, Sasai, and Ota were invalided out of combat, oreventually killed. Rotation of pilots out of the war zonewas a system employed neither by the Japanese nor theGermans, as a matter of fact. As several surviving Axisaces have noted in their memoirs, they flew until theycouldn't. Indeed many Japanese and German aces flew

31

Author'sS:olJection

Enlisted pilots of the Tainan Kokutai pose at Rabaul in 1942. Sev-eral of these aviators would be among the top Japanese aces, includ-ing Saburo Sakai (middle row, second from lefO, and HiroyoshiNishizawa (standing, first on left).

turned to Japan with about 60 kills to his credit. Actu-ally, because he was so badly wounded early in theGuadalcanal fighting, Sakai never got a chance to en-gage Marine Corps pilots. They were still in transit tothe Solomons two weeks after Sakai had been in-valided home. (His commonly accepted final score of64 is only a best guess, even by his own logbook.)

After graduating from flight training, Sakai joined asquadron in China flying Mitsubishi Type 96 fighters,small, open-cockpit, fixed-landing-gear fighters. As a

Japanese aviators with proven records, or high scores,who were killed during the war. Japan was uniqueamong all the combatants during the war in that it hadno regular or defined system of awards, except for oc-casional inclusion in war news-what the British mightcall being "mentioned in dispatches."

This somewhat frustrating lack of recognition wasdescribed by Masatake Okumiya, a Navy fighter com-mander, in his classic book Zero! (with Jiro Horikoshi).Describing a meeting with senior officers, he askedthem, "Why in the name of heaven does Headquartersdelay so long in according our combat men the honorsthey deserve? ..Our Navy does absolutely nothing torecognize its heroes...."

Author's Collection

Lt (j.g.) ]unichi Sadai of the Tainan Air Group. This 1942 photoshows the young combat leader, of such men as Sakai andNishizawa, shortly before his death over Guadalcanal.

Occasionally, senior officers would give gifts, such asceremonial swords, to those pilots who had performedgreat services. And sometimes, superiors would try tobuck the unbending system without much success.Saburo Sakai described one instance in June 1942 wherethe captain in charge of his wing summoned him andLieutenant Sasai to his quarters.

Dejectedly, the captain told his two pilots how he hadasked Tokyo to recognize them for their great accom-plishments. "...Tokyo is adamant about making anychanges at this time," he said. "They have refused even

Author's CoUection

LCdr Tadashi Nakajima, who led the Tainan Air Group, was typi-cal of the more senior aviators. His responsibilities were largely ad-ministrative but he tried to fly missions whenever his schedule per-mitted, usually with unproductive results. He led several of theearly missions over Guadalcanal and survived to lead a Shiden unitin 1944. It is doubtful that Nakajima scored more than 2 or 3 kills.

to award a medal or to promote in rank." The captain'sdeputy commander then said how the captain had askedthat Sasai be promoted to commander-an incrediblejump of three grades-and that Sakai be commissionedas an ensign.

Perhaps one of the most enigmatic, yet enduring, per-sonalities of the Zero pilots was the man who is generallyacknowledged to be the top-scoring Japanese ace, Hi-royoshi Nishizawa. Saburo Sakai described him as "talland lanky for a Japanese, nearly five feet, eight inches inheight," and possessing "almost supernatural vision."

These A6M3s are from the Tainan Air Group, and several sourceshave identified aircraft 106 as being flown by top ace Nishizawa.Typically, these fighters carry a single centerline fuel tank. TheZero's range was phenomenal, sometimes extending to nearly 1,600miles, making for a very long flight for its exhausted pilots.

Photo courtesy of Robert Mikesh

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Time of the Aces-Marine Pilots in the Solomons-1942-1944 PCN 19000312200_1Time of the Aces-Marine Pilots in the Solomons-1942-1944 PCN 19000312200_2Time of the Aces-Marine Pilots in the Solomons-1942-1944 PCN 19000312200_3Time of the Aces-Marine Pilots in the Solomons-1942-1944 PCN 19000312200_4Time of the Aces-Marine Pilots in the Solomons-1942-1944 PCN 19000312200_5