Interview with zero pilot

Japan at War: interview with a Zero pilot

Komachi Sadamu, his first campaign was on 8 December 1941, his last battle was fought on 17 August 1945. An Imperial Japanese Navy pilot who fought throughout the Pacific right from the outset of the war until two days after Japan's surrender tells his story.

 

Quite an interesting read. Some guys just have the knack of being a survivor. Thanks for posting the website.

 

Fantastic read. Thanks very much.

 

It is incredible that he survived the war start to finish!

 

Some folks avoid this kind of thing as they prefer the myths. Also I've been told by a couple people that eyewitness accounts are worthless & to be avoided. they lecture to me how the writing of academic historians are the only way to get the "facts".

Saburo Saki left some very interesting descriptions of his experince as a naval fighter pilot. Those were translated to English back in the 1950s & 1960s. They created quite a sensation when published back then.

 

Good stuff! Thanks for sharing!

 

Unbelievible how he survived from Pearl Harbor all the way to the end of the war! Amazing interview!

 

Hi,

Thanks for all. Good luck for you. I have some my ideals. I'll share soon again.

If you want to do more info, you also visit at: Pilot interview questions
Tks again.

 

looks like this guy was thicker in the action than sakai. he was at pearl harbor and coral sea.

after sakai's publish book "samurai," he was interviewed a number of times, and even invited to fly a p-51D (don't think he ever had the chance to fight a mustang.) one telling thing about the interviews was when he was asked which feature in the zero he liked best. it wasn't the outstanding maneuverability or the long loiter time. what he liked best were the twin .25-caliber machine guns on top of the cowling that lined up perfectly along the pilot's line-of-sight. it was perfect for snap-shooting at the enemy's cockpit whenever he came within 50 meters. is that a trained killer or what?

 

Interesting view into his experience - thanks for posting the link!

CJS

 

Amazing description of his views especially how frustrated he was with the radios......I am sure all pilots of WWII knew of the importance of the ability to communicate when you are so heavily committed to a mission. Any malfunction of your "tools of the trade" would be a very great frustration. He clearly describes how the "top" didn't realize the real predicament of the fight in the skies with their attention based more intently on the striking forces instead of defense of the carrier.

 

Surely you mean twin 7.7mm (.30 cal) MGs? Unless this refers to a A6M variant I'm not aware of...

 

I thought that too CPL Punishment, but I've heard some vets remember things which are faithful renditions but technically inaccurate, Brown's 190D-9 evaluation was actually a D-12 as it turned out (ergo US postwar D-9 evaluations are dramatically different to Brown's and they considered them much more of an impressive hack than a superior performer), one of Reschke's Ta-152 flight accounts mentions one engine type specifically although his own pilot book records a different model with another engine type for that particular flight (when brought up he deferred to the record and a blurred memory which is perfectly reasonable and by no means infringes the gentleman's overall veracity...just you'd double check any personal account with technical/official records if you were writing an encyclopedia obviously).

Since by 1945 zeroes still being produced were routinely fitted with one or two .50 calibres in the nose (one actually but because the water injection guage went where the other breech would've been iirc), this particular Japanese pilot probably just remembers the earlier nose armament as half the calibre of the later one. You could roughly say from a field point of view, the 7.7mm is half the calibre of the 12.7mm so he probably just remembers it that way, and the fact Japan was metric back then so he's not very accustomed to imperial calibres. Saying ".25 calibre" only sounds so wrong because we're all so used to american nomenclature of .30 calibre and .50 calibre in the Brownings, this vet might think the 7.92 is a .30 and the 7.7 is a .25 because he's so used to metric and a .303 is way more powerful than a 7.7mm Japanese or Italian.

 

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

 

A pleasant and informative read. Thanks for posting it.

 

Is It is really store.it was held wow great to be hear this new.

Thanks & Regards
Sample Job Description

 

Just ran across this - thanks to Kai-Petri whenever he has a chance to read this.

One comment, the heavier machine guns fitted to some later Zero models were 13.2mm, which would be about .52 caliber.