[GuerraCivil]

To my knowledge is that at least US Navy Air Force had knowledge of the existence of Zero fighter by the early 1941 and accurate intelligence report was already circulating in USNAF units by the spring 1941. I do not know how it was with USAAF/RAF/NEI. When it comes to P-40 vs. Zero, I think that P-40´s reputation has suffered too much for the reason that so many P-40´s were destroyed on the ground in Pearl Harbor and Philippines. One should not look the stats of lost P-40´s on those grounds but analyze more the real Zero vs. P-40 air combat situation.

The problem as usual is the gross exaggeration of kill/loss -stats of both sides. If you read the book Samurai, it gives an impression that Zeros destroyed plenty of P-40/P-39 with very small losses of their own. But if you look the stats of Allied side, it gives opposite numbers. I have seen even a claim that for each lost P-40 Warhawk at least five Zero´s were shot down!

To confuse the matter more are the comments and stories of the pilots of both sides.

John Thach after Midway battle: "Any success of our fighter pilots may have against the Japanese Zero fighter is not due to the performance of the airplane (Wildcat) we fly but is the result of comparatively poor marksmanship of the Japanese, stupid mistakes of the Japanese by a few of their pilots and superior marksmanship and team work of some of our pilots."

A further American claim (Edward M. Young) is that Japanese lost 43 Zeros in aerial combats of Coral Sea / Midway while US fighter losses in those combats were only 31 Wildcats. The "best elite" pilots (air carrier Zero pilots) of IJN did not make it so well if the kill/loss stats are true. But this is an American claim, can we trust that it is 100 % neutral and that also Japanese sources have been consulted?

When it comes to air combats over Guadalcanal in late 1942, I think that some things should be considered. It was a great disadvantage for Japanese air units that they had to fly very long journey to get over Guadalcanal and getting back. I have read that Zero pilots could ever not afford to drop their extra fuel tanks in combat as they needed every available drop of fuel! For Americans it was the opposite - they flew near of their own bases and got warning of approaching Japanese formations usually well in time so they were already waiting Japanese in advantageous position. I have also read that the medical supplies of Japanese were scarce and their healthcare less good than that of the Americans, who were much better supplied. Many Japanese pilots were forced to climb in cockpit despite being sick and weakened by malaria.

If you have read the book Samurai! (Caidin), in it Saburo Sakai makes couple of comments on shooting skills of American pilots mentioning how they tended to overshoot (and these I believe are genuine Sakai comments not Caidin´s inventions). And these comments were made on US Navy pilots who were supposed to have practiced very much deflection shooting! Of course these quotes do not necessarily mean that American pilots trying to shoot down Sakai were poor but that Sakai was a pilot with good survival skill and thus difficult to shoot down.

But if we are to believe the story of Sakai surviving alone from the attack by 15 US Navy Hellcats which did not manage to get a single bullet hole in his Zero, it does not give a picture of good skills when it comes to deflection shooting. This is not the only story of its kind - another Japanese pilot told in afterwar interview that he managed to survive from the attacks of several Corsairs while flying a Val divebomber in a hopeless mission. Corsairs shot two of his wingmen down rapidly but found the remaining third Val difficult as the experienced pilot did the best tricks that he knew to safe his and gunners´s skin. Somehow Corsair pilots managed to overshoot and miss every time when they attacked his alone Val. Was it that he was simply so good or were Corsair pilots rookies like those Hellcat guys who did not manage to bring Sakai´s Zero down?