[JaganP]

The query is about the book "Air War over Burma" (The Volume 3 of the Bloddy Shambles series) . There is a description about an air battle that sort of fits in with an alternative explanation.

Question is more specific to 8th February 1944, in which an air battle happened . Ki-43s of the 64th Sentai shot down two Hurricanes of 6 Squadron IAF, and in turn another Ki-43 flown by Captain T Miyabe was badly damaged . Miyabe was of 1st Chutai and observing another formation of Ki-43s jumping two Hurricanes. then he felt his own aircraft hit by another Hurricane.

Chris Shores attributed this to No.134 Squadron RAF noting at the same time that there is an inconsistency in timings between the sorties of No.134 Squadron and the airbattle. 134 Squadron's airbattles happened in the afternoon - while the 6 Squadron IAF Hurricanes were engaged in the battle in the morning.

Can anyone in touch with author Chris Shores confirm as to where the information on Japanese operations came from? What the source material is? Is it possible to deduce that Captain Miyabe was flying at 9.00am in the morning of that date when his Hurricane was hit?

The reason for this is that there is an unrecorded claim for an Indian pilot shooting down a Ki-43 before getting shot down and killed (DR Reddy). While his claim was not made in the ORB , his squadron mate had published this claim in the early 1990s and later reiterated the same without hesitation in the early 2000s in an oral interview with a historian.

It appears that claim might be true if I can prove Captain Miyabe was damaged in the morning hours of 8 Feb, 1944.