Akutan Zero
It was found intact by the Americans in July 1942 and became the first Zero acquired by the United States during the war that could be restored to airworthy condition.
As a result of information gained from these tests, American tacticians were able to devise ways to defeat the Zero, which was the Imperial Japanese Navy's primary fighter plane throughout the war.
[5] Nonetheless, historian John Lundstrom and others challenge "the contention that it took dissection of Koga's Zero to create tactics that beat the fabled airplane".
[7] The Zero, which first flew in 1939, was exceedingly agile and lightweight, with maneuverability and range superior to any other fighter in the world at that time.
[8] In 1940 Claire Lee Chennault, leader of the Flying Tigers, wrote a report to warn his home country of the Zero's performance.
However, United States Department of War analysts rejected the Chennault report as "arrant nonsense" and concluded the performance attributed to the Zero was an aerodynamic impossibility.
[10] According to American flying ace William N. Leonard, "In these early encounters and on our own we were learning the folly of dogfighting with the Zero".
According to American author Jim Rearden, "The Zero was probably the easiest fighter of any in World War II to bring down when hit ...
In February 1942, a Zero (serial number 5349) piloted by Hajime Toyoshima crashed on Melville Island in Australia after the bombing of Darwin; it was heavily damaged.
A Japanese task force led by Admiral Kakuji Kakuta bombed Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island twice, once on June 3 and again the following day.
It also seems likely that in his interview, Shikada employed selective memory in not mentioning shooting down Mitchell's PBY and then machine-gunning the crew on the water".
[21] Physical inspection of the plane revealed it was hit with small arms fire: .50 caliber bullet holes and smaller, from both above and below.
Although the aircraft survived the landing nearly intact, Petty Officer Koga died instantly on impact, probably from a broken neck or a blunt-force blow to his head.
The Japanese submarine stationed off Akutan Island to pick up pilots searched for Koga in vain before being driven off by the destroyer USS Williamson.
The crash site, which was out of sight of standard flight lanes and not visible by ship, remained undetected and undisturbed for over a month.
Thies's plane circled the crash site for several minutes, noted its position on the map, and returned to Dutch Harbor to report it.
This team gave Koga a Christian burial in a nearby knoll and set about recovering the plane, but the lack of heavy equipment (which they had been unable to unload after the delivery ship lost two anchors) frustrated their efforts.
This time, with proper heavy equipment, the team was able to free the Zero from the mud and haul it overland to a nearby barge, without further damaging it.
From there, it was transported by barge to Naval Air Station North Island near San Diego where repairs were carefully carried out.
After careful study, Roy Grumman decided that he could design an aircraft that could match or surpass the Zero in most respects, except range, without sacrificing pilot armor, self-sealing fuel tanks, and a sturdy fuselage structure.
[33] The U.S. carrier-borne fighter plane that succeeded the Grumman F4F Wildcat,[5][39] the F6F Hellcat, was tested in its first experimental mode as the XF6F-1 prototype with an under-powered Wright R-2600 Twin Cyclone 14-cylinder, two-row radial engine on 26 June 1942.
[42] Grumman complied by redesigning and strengthening the F6F airframe to incorporate the 2,000 hp (1,500 kW) R-2800-10 engine, driving a three-bladed Hamilton Standard propeller.
The F6F-3 subtype had been designed with specific "Wildcat vs Zero" input from F4F pilots who fought in the Battle of the Coral Sea, such as Jim Flatley, and the Battle of Midway, such as Jimmy Thach; their input was obtained during a meeting with Grumman Vice President Jake Swirbul at Pearl Harbor on 23 June 1942.
[39] American aces Kenneth A. Walsh and R. Robert Porter, among others, credited tactics derived from this knowledge with saving their lives.
[50] The capture and flight tests of Koga's Zero is usually described as a tremendous coup for the Allies as it revealed the secrets of that mysterious aircraft and led directly to its downfall.
[6]Nine wrecked Mitsubishi A6M Zeros were recovered from Pearl Harbor shortly after the attack in December 1941, and United States Office of Naval Intelligence, along with BuAer had them studied, and then shipped to the Experimental Engineering Department at Dayton, Ohio in 1942.
It was noted that the experimental Grumman XF6F-1s then undergoing testing in June 1942 and the Zero had "wings integrated with the fuselage,"[51] an unusual design feature in American aircraft of the day.
From the wreckage, William N. Leonard salvaged several gauges, which he donated to the National Museum of the United States Navy.
[52] American author Jim Rearden led a search on Akutan in 1988 in an attempt to repatriate Koga's body.
They found that Koga's body had been exhumed by an American Graves Registration Service team in 1947, and re-buried on Adak Island, further down the Aleutian chain.
