"Zeromania" of 1941/42: when every "Jap" was Zero

[GuerraCivil]

Looking from early Allied accounts of December 1941 and until mid 1942 it seems that every Japanese fighter was "Zero" for Allied airmen - even Ki-27 "Nate" with fixed undercarriage was identified as Zero by famous Boyd Wagner (and many others). And not to speak of XXX times when Ki-43 "Oscar" was identified automatically as Zero.

Was there a kind of "Zeromania" among Allied airmen which made them to think that every Japanese fighterplane was a Zero? Or was it just a poor general knowlegde about Japanese aircraft?

One thing which seems to clear is that Japanese Navy Air Force (IJNAF) aircraft were more widely known than their IJAAF counterparts. How much there was knowledge among Allied about the difference of these two Japanese air arms and that they used different aircraft?

At what point "Zeromania" started to loose and when did more widespread knowledge of other Japanese fighter types take place among Allied airmen? By what point "Oscars" started to be identified more widely as "Oscars"?

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Misidentification of Oscars as Zeroes still occured at the end of the war.

The fact to identify opposing fighters as the "best" known enemy fighters was common, with for example German fighters claiming Spitfires in Africa in 1941-1941 while facing Hurricanes or P-40s, while on the other side, Allied pilots identified Italian fighters as Bf 109s. Another example is the many "Fw 190 with long noses" identified by Allied pilots during the summer 1944 after the type was reported by Allied intelligence, but before it started to be used by the Germans.

[GuerraCivil]

I do not know if the identification of enemy plane as "best known enemy plane" has something to do with the more or less conscious desire to make air victory as "glorious" as possible?

For example shooting down a "Zero" might have been felt more glorious achievement to shoot down some obsolete "Claude" or "Nate". And about Germans it has been said that it was easier for them to recognize combat losses against Spitfire units than against Hurricane units as Hurricanes were "more scrap" and thus it was also more glorious to shoot down a Spitfire than just a Hurricane.

But still I would like to believe that it was simply putting everything Japanese flying one engined thing as "Zero" in 1941/1942 - "Zero" being practically a synonym with "one-engined Japanese aircraft".

I do not know if someone has gone through the claims and combat reports of Allied pilots of the 1941/1942 but I would not be surprised that they would show almost all of the sighted Japanese one-engined planes to be "Zeros"...

[bearoutwest]

Perhaps, consider it this way:

Time 0 secs
- You notice a group of aircraft approach you from your 3 o’clock position, same altitude as you;
Time 10 seconds
- at 2km range you notice large specks in the sky (could be anything)
Time 20 secs
- at 1km range, you can tell they are single engine types (if approaching at 400 km/hr or 250mph, they cover 1km in 9 seconds, you are probably unable to distinguish radial or in-line engines yet)
Time 24 secs
- at 600m range, you are in effective 20mm cannon range (you probably can’t make out markings or too many colours, you are manoeuvring now just in case they are hostile)
Time 26 secs
- at 400m range, you can make out details like the bubble-style glasshouse canopy, and they are moving with hostile intent (you are definitely not sitting still watching them, you are concentrating on countering their positioning, looking out for your own formation, they could be Zeros, Oscars, Buffalos attacking in error)
Time 28 secs
- at 200m range, you can see a splash of red on their wings as they turn/bank, they are now firing nose guns (definitely hostiles but Oscars firing nose-only armament or Zeros using machine guns to line up before using limited cannon ammo?)

The aircraft approaching you have closed from 1km range to effective machine-gun range in (I estimate) 8 seconds. In that time you have gone from noticing their approach to dogfighting for your life. Not a huge amount of time to clearly identify what sort of aircraft they are, especially that you may not have been able to make out much detail until they were 400m away (i.e. in the last two seconds of the above scenario, while you would have been concentrating on staying alive).

Not surprising that Zeros, Oscars, Nates, Vals, Franks were often misidentified. The details that we look at as enthusiasts with a wealth of books at our disposal, would not be as obvious at longer range, in the shorter time of an stress-filled dogfight, especially with light/shadow and turning angles obscuring details such as fixed undercarriage or two man canopy.

Regards,
...geoff

[GuerraCivil]

Perhaps it is surprising that pilots were able to identify enemy aircraft by type correctly as often they did when one takes in account the circumstances of air combats.

Some identifications are rather odd though even taking in account the circumstances, for example Ki-27 was identified even as "Bf 110". And also some less known "new types" like "Heinkel 113" also appeared in some combat reports.

But the main thing was to of course to identify if the flying spot in the sky was a friendly or enemy plane.