Zero Read online

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  FOREWORD

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER 1

  THE SINO-JAPANESE INCIDENT

  CHAPTER 2

  PEACE ATTEMPTS FAIL—THE FIGHTING CONTINUES

  CHAPTER 3

  ZERO FIGHTERS IN CHINA

  CHAPTER 4

  EVE OF THE PACIFIC WAR

  CHAPTER 5

  OPENING OF HOSTILITIES FOLLOWED BY ANXIETY

  CHAPTER 6

  PREWAR ANTICIPATION

  CHAPTER 7

  THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK: OVERWHELMING VICTORY AS THE WAR BEGINS

  CHAPTER 8

  ZERO FIGHTERS ASSURE VICTORIES: OPERATIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES AND THE DUTCH EAST INDIES

  CHAPTER 9

  THE SEA BATTLE OFF THE COAST OF MALAYA

  CHAPTER 10

  THE WAKE ISLAND OPERATION

  CHAPTER 11

  THE INDIAN OCEAN OPERATION

  CHAPTER 12

  THE CORAL SEA BATTLE

  CHAPTER 13

  THE MIDWAY AND ALEUTIANS OPERATIONS: THE TURNING POINT OF THE WAR

  CHAPTER 14

  REORGANIZATION OF THE COMBINED FLEET

  CHAPTER 15

  CHANGE IN WARSHIP-BUILDING POLICY

  CHAPTER 16

  DESPERATE AIR OPERATIONS OVER LONG-RANGE CONDITIONS: THE SAGA OF SABURO SAKAI

  CHAPTER 17

  SUCCESSION OF AIR BATTLES AFTER GUADALCANAL

  CHAPTER 18

  THE GUADALCANAL CAMPAIGN: EVALUATION OF AMERICAN WARPLANES

  CHAPTER 19

  "OPERATION A"—I-GO SAKUSEN

  CHAPTER 20

  ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO DIES IN ACTION

  CHAPTER 21

  BATTLE OF SANTA CRUZ

  CHAPTER 22

  OUR SITUATION BECOMES CRITICAL: AIR BATTLES IN THE SOLOMONS AND RABAUL AREAS

  CHAPTER 23

  THE END IS IN SIGHT: DEFENSE OF THE MARIANA ISLANDS

  CHAPTER 24

  THE KAMIKAZE SUICIDE ATTACKS

  CHAPTER 25

  AIR RAIDS AND EARTHQUAKES

  CHAPTER 26

  DEFENSE OF THE MAINLAND: THE B-29 APPEARS

  CHAPTER 27

  CARRIER PLANES RAID THE HOMELAND

  CHAPTER 28

  THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS: PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS OF MASATAKE OKUMIYA

  CHAPTER 29

  JIRO HORIKOSHI’S FINAL WAR DIARY

  ZERO

  Copyright © 1956, 2002 by Martin Caidin

  Introduction copyright © 2002 by David Ballantine

  Foreword © 2002 by John Gresham

  An ibooks, Inc. ebook

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  ZERO

  MARTIN CAIDIN was the author of over fifty books and more than a thousand magazine articles and was recog­nized as one of the outstanding aeronautics and aviation authorities in the world. The National War College, the Air Force’s Air University and several other institutions use his books as doctrine and strategy guides, historical references and textbooks. He twice won the Aviation/Space Writers Association award as the outstanding author in the field of aviation. Caidin died in March 1997.

  This book is dedicated to . . . all the airmen who fought with and who fought against the Zero fighter.

  Acknowledgements

  The authors wish to express their appreciation to all the persons and institutions without whose assistance this book would not have been possible. Particular thanks are due to ex-Vice-Admiral Misao Wada, whose suggestions and encouragement brought the Japanese authors to assemble the material for ZERO!; I wish particularly to thank Otto v. St. Whitelock, whose editorial assistance has always been invaluable; Sally Botsford, whose long hours of hard work and typing helped so much; and the former editors of Impact, who produced probably the most dra­matic record of the Pacific War.

  Introduction

  Some years ago when Lee Iacocca was C.E.O.’ing at Chrysler someone suggested that he use the following line in a commercial:

  On your way to buy a Toyota,

  It still isn’t too late

  To remember Pappy Boyington

  And our boys from Torpedo 8

  Being an astute businessman, Iacocca researched and test­ed this advertisement only to find out that the vast major­ity of his potential customers, particularly the younger ones, didn’t know anything about either Boyington or Torpedo 8.

  This lack of familiarity with World War II was and con­tinues to be unfortunate particularly in view of the vio­lence that has been loosened in our world today.

  Zero by Martin Caidin was told to him by two of Japan’s major military players, Masatake Okumiye and Jiro Horikoshi. It is an indepth account of Japanese air power in the years between 1937 and 1945. A very vital part of this narrative is the development of Japan’s Zero fighter which during the opening years of the war was superior to any fighter plane that showed our star on its wings.

  It was as late as June 4, 1942, that a fantastic stroke of luck left a Zero fighter on an island in the Aleutians. Its pilot had attempted an emergency landing which resulted in a slightly damaged aircraft. The Japanese aviator was not so lucky. His head struck the instrument panel, killing him instantly. Retrieved by American forces, the Zero was rushed to research facilities in the States and its powerful capabilities were carefully noted as the Grumman Com­pany put together the F6F. Finally we had a plane that was the equal to or even superior to the Zero. Its days of ascen­dancy were over, but this did not prevent it from fighting actively right up to the very end of the war.

  As the air war drew to an end and American bombers ranged over the Japanese islands, a new form of warfare was developed by the Japanese. Two very different cul­tures were at war. For a Japanese soldier or marine, death was preferable to the shame of capture. With this orienta­tion it was not a large step to design a Kamikaze program where the pilots in explosive-laden planes suicidally crashed them into American warships and our B-29 bombers. In those final months of the war the Japanese even designed glider bombs and manned torpedoes to be directed by a living pilot on a one-way trip to targets of opportunity.

  We speak of being at war today, and I guess we are. However there are differences. In one night, B-29s burned nearly seventeen square miles of Tokyo with resulting casualties that no one has ever been able to count.

  I don’t think we can ever see the present clearly if we neglect windows into the past. Zero is a revealing account of an American victory over an extremely violent culture that was very different from our own.

  It was also a culture that didn’t give up easily. With almost every city of any size burnt to the ground the Japanese government was willing to desperately fight on until the last of its citizens was killed. Only the use of the ultimate violence of atomic weapons elicited the Emperor’s surrender. Many are critical of this violence.

  My question and particularly for the younger critics is, “Which of the home islands of Japan were you planning to invade on or about the end of 1945?”

  David Ballantine

  Bearsville, NY

  Foreword

  I still remember touching it for the first time, feeling the smooth metallic skin and taking the measure of something foreign, clandestine, and forbidden. The artifact in ques­tion was a Soviet-built MiG fighter, the place a classified intelligence and training facility in the western United States, and the time was the early 1980s: the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The MiG was one of a number covertly acquired by t
he United States for comparison tests against American aircraft, a program that in fact dated back to the Second World War. As a young defense consul­tant in my 20s, I knew this because I had once read a book about foreign combat aircraft as a teenager, one which in many ways had prepared me for the wonder and excite­ment of touching the secretly acquired Soviet aircraft. In the volume, were stories that had relevance to me as I began to consider the fighting qualities of the MiG in front of me, and gave me an insight that has served my career well in the two decades since. That book, was Zero.

  I still remember reading Zero for the first time. I had borrowed a dog-eared copy from my father’s library, and wound up wrecking what was left of the binding before returning it. Even in the 1970s, the perspective in Zero was unique and the stories fresh as when they had been written, years before I had been born. It was my first look at mili­tary operations from an “enemy” point-of-view, something I had not considered prior to reading Zero. Before long I had added a second-hand paperback edition to my own growing library of military history books, where a copy has remained for over three decades. As I was soon to learn, my personal reading experience with Zero was neither unusual nor unique. Since that time, I have found that many other historians, writers, game designers, defense analysts, and military enthusiasts shared the same adven­ture with me. Zero was just that kind of book for all of us.

  Today, I still look back in awe and respect at Zero, both for its effect on me personally, along with how well it has stood the test of time. Written in Japan five decades ago, Zero was among the first of a handful of books written by Japanese veterans of the Great Pacific War. The Japanese authors of Zero, Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi, though generally unknown outside of Japan were men at the center of Japanese naval aviation during that period. Okumiya was an air operations officer aboard carriers and at land bases throughout the war, giving him a unique per­spective on the conduct of Japanese naval aviation in combat. Horikoshi on the other hand, was the chief designer of the Type 0 Reisen (Zero fighter) for Mitsubishi. His exceptional engineering skills made him a contempo­rary of such legendary American designers as Kelly Johnson (whose creations included the P-38 Lightning and P/F-80 Shooting Star) and Ed Heinniman (lead engineer on the SBD Dauntless, A-20 Havoc, and A-1 Skyraider). Horikoshi’s understanding of Japanese design and produc­tion practices help give Zero an unparalleled clarity on just why Japan failed to field more and better aircraft in the second half of the Great Pacific War. Zero also provides readers with something else: an understanding of just what Imperial Japan’s Navy was doing and thinking prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Japanese records of that period are sparse at best, most being destroyed as the result of systematic destruction by Japan’s leadership, American firebombing, and Allied postwar editing and discarding by occupation forces. The personal memories and diaries of Okumiya and Horikoshi represent an important contribution to insights into Japanese politi­cal, cultural, and military society before the war, something lacking from so many other volumes on the Great Pacific War. As such, Zero may well have been the first book in both Japan and the United States to explore such topics in the post-World War II period.

  The ten years from the mid-1930s to 1945 is a historical black hole to most Japanese citizens, and today the general population shuns almost any open signs of respect or interest in the period. This lack of historical perspective remains one of the major social shortcomings within Japan, something the Japanese continue to struggle with even at the dawn of a new Century. Amazingly the handful of books about World War II written by military veteran authors like Masatake Okumiya, Jiro Horikoshi, Saburo Saki (along with “Fred” Saito and Martin Caiden, the author of Samurai), and Tameichi Hara (writer of the clas­sic Japanese Destroyer Captain) may well become the pri­mary way Japanese youngsters will learn about the darkest days and intentions of their country in the years ahead. In writing Zero, Okumiya and Horikoshi did a great service, as much to the future of their homeland as to the document­ing of aviation history. After the war, Japan made a con­scious effort to put their sense of manifest destiny and desires for conquest behind, as the country tried to recover from one of the worst beatings ever inflicted upon a defeated nation. Nevertheless, Okumiya and Horikoshi wrote their story with pride and passion, along with a sense of remorse and frustration, feelings that come through clearly in Zero.

  Another bit of respect needs to be paid to the efforts of the late Martin Caiden, who brought Zero to American readers in the mid-1950s. Zero was one of three books Caiden found in Japan, the other two being The Zero Fighter and Saburo Saki’s superb Samurai! These three classics of historical aviation literature have helped several generations of military professionals gain some insight into the mysteries of why Japan acted as it did in World War II, and how they could possibly evolve their opera­tions to include the seeming insanity to Western minds of planned kamikaze (suicide) operations. Today, military officers at service schools around the world still study Zero for insights into just how Japan managed to conquer almost a quarter of the world’s surface in just six months, the greatest overwater military conquest in the history of the world. Caiden was a man with an eye for good and unusual books, something that made him a legend in pub­lishing and a favorite among readers like myself.

  Zero is more than just a book about an airplane, even though that aircraft was the key to Japanese plans and suc­cesses in the first year of the war in the Pacific. It is the story of Japanese naval aviation, the force that allowed Japan to spread out faster and farther than any other nation in history. At the core of this community was the Type 0 Reisen fighter and its highly skilled pilots, which enabled Japan to achieve air supremacy wherever it flew early in World War II. The Zero fighter flew with the Impe­rial Japanese Navy everywhere that it went, from 1940 in China until the end of the war with America in 1945. Between those dates, the Reisen was both Japan’s combat edge, and later its downfall as it fought against increas­ingly longer and tougher odds. Ironically, the very qualities that made the Zero a world-beater in 1940 would make it vulnerable to superior models of Allied aircraft and improved tactics just two years later. In this way, the Reisen was a metaphor for the entire philosophy of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II, and Zero is the book that tells that story.

  Today, Zero still remains the best general narrative of Japanese naval aviation in World War II. Here readers will find the Imperial Japanese Navy’s many early successes and long decline that ended in 1945. Within the pages of Zero you will find what military professionals call “ground truth,” a raw and honest personal view of events through the eyes of two men who were there to see for themselves. Such accounts are always rare in wartime, made even more so by the terrible casualty rates of both Japanese naval personnel and later civilians as American firebombing of urban centers became standard tactics. That either man survived World War II is a minor miracle. That they cared enough to write Zero at all for posterity is their legacy. None of us enjoys admitting our failures to ourselves, much less sharing them with others. In Zero, Okumiya and Horikoshi have done so for the whole world to see, something almost inconceivable given the cultural nature of Japanese society. In this way, their honesty and bravery in postwar Japan is certainly the equal of their actions during World War II.

  Zero is hardly a perfect book, though today it stands up well even when compared to newer accounts of the Pacific War. It suffers in a few areas, most of them more due to when it was written than any error or personal bias of the authors. As a point of reference, Samuel Elliot Morrison’s fifteen volume masterpiece, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, was not even finished until 1962, fully five years after the first American edition of Zero had been released. In fact, the Great Pacific War had been over only five years when Okumiya and Horikoshi began writing the book that became Zero. That they got so much right so early is a tribute to their own experience, along with an obvious personal honor and integrity to the s
ubject of their labors. Both had lost many close acquaintances in the war, and they clearly intended Zero as a respectful homage to all those who lost their lives fighting for Japan.

  Nevertheless, even the imperfections in Zero provide us insights into the shortcomings of Japanese military culture, one of the most important being the matter of codebreak­ing. The first public insights into U.S. efforts to penetrate Japanese code and cipher systems was revealed during the Congressional investigations of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1946. This should have raised the equivalent of a warning klaxon to Okumiya, whose obvious knowledge of classified documents and plans clearly shows in Zero. Nevertheless, the lack of emphasis on intelligence matters in Zero is itself a clear indication of a major lapse in the prosecution of the Japanese war effort. A similar fault is reflected in Oku­miya’s lack of insight on radar and other supporting elec­tronic and mechanical aids to aerial warfare. In fact, Okumiya seems almost wondrously mystified and befud­dled at times by the growing power of the American war machine as the book progresses, a feeling shared by many Japanese military leaders of the time. This was hardly his fault though. Having spent his entire life being raised in a society which preached the racial and moral supremacy of Japanese warriors over their enemies, it was a difficult misconception to overcome when looking at the United States as a military opponent. Add to this the Imperial Navy doctrine of emphasizing the offensive fighting quali­ties of individual planes and ships over building a larger and more balanced force as America did, and it is easy to see how by 1943 the Japanese began to be overwhelmed.