[Luftwaffle8]

Tetsuzo Iwamoto kept a personal diary during the war. Unfortunately, some of the dates are way off. His diary was turned into a book, published under the title ZERO SEN GEIKTSUI O (ZERO FIGHTER SHOOT DOWN KING) in 1972 by Konnichi No Wadai Sha, Tokyo.

There is a handwritten list of his claims. Some of his claims were:
F4Fx7, P38 x 4, F4U x48, P40 x 1, F6F x 29, P47 x 1, P51 x 1, PBY5A x 1 (group)...202 individual, 26 shared, 22 uncertain, 2 damaged, and 2 on the ground.Grand total: 254.

I was interested in his PBY claim, so I checked US records, and sure enough, a group of Zeroes brought it down. He was right on. Strangely, his China War claims are not listed. According to Hata/Izawa, he was the top Navy pilot with 14 in China. Of course, none of these claims are verified.

In 1975, I wrote to Mrs. Iwamoto, asking if I could drop by and interview her. She politely declined and giving the polite and customary excuses, which translated into English meant: I don't want to see you, please do not bother me. She did say that she had no photos of her husband (hard to believe) and could offer nothing.

During his time at Rabaul, Japan News sent a team to take movies for the people back home. He was filmed and his wife, who was 14 at the time, remembered seeing his face in the movie house. They would marry later.

Iwamoto was greatly respected as a veteran, having fought in the China War and surviving the war (1937 to 1945). Because he fought for so long, it was assumed that he shot down many planes.

I met Mr. Takeo Tanimizu in Japan. He too fought at Rabaul. He knew Iwamoto when the pilot was transferred to the 203 KU in the home defense. They flew together and jointly claimed a B-29. That's what Mr. Tanimizu told me.

After the war, the Navy was kaput, and Iwamoto was forced to do menial jobs to survive. He had no job skills other than piloting a fighter plane.
Well, you know the rest.

Iwamoto's claims are simply claims and nothing more. If an American vet tells me that he mowed down 50+ German soldiers with his BAR and took out a pillbox with a grenade, who am I to argue with him? How is he going to prove it and who cares anyway? We didn't have US Infantry BAR aces. Maybe someday, we will! People are so obsessed with scores! Does notching 50 kills on the stock of his BAR PROVE his claims??? Besides, in hand-to-hand combat, whose keeping scores???!

I think Japanese "aces" should be categorized by length of combat service.
But that's just not appealing.

About 15 years ago, I met with Iyozoh Fujita in Los Angeles and showed him Izawa/Hata's bio on him. And I asked, "Did you shoot down ten American planes at Midway???" And he answered: "I think I hit that many but I don't know how many went down."