Recognition

[Alex Smart]

Hi,

Why was it that the identification of jap aircraft was so difficult for the british and Australian Forces early in the conflict 1941/42 ?

I have been reading the ORB of 459 sqdn and their pilots refered to jap aircraft several times as either Me109's or Ju88's. What caused this confusion ?

Any ideas

Alex

[JeffK]

Alex,

I think it was lack of training and preperation for the conflict. I would imagine all of the training schools had ID cards for all of the German & Italian aircraft and bugger all about the Japanese.

Similar errors are made everywhere, but it was a little worse in the skies over Malaya (I can understand a "Tony" being mistaken for a '109)

(PS, I assume you mean 453 RAAF Sqn, 459 RAAF was in the Mid East)

[Jim Oxley]

It is very much as Jeff mentioned.

Allied intelligence on the various makes of Japanese aircraft was very poor in the first 18 months of the war. Every fighter was referred to as a Zero, despite the fact that the British and Americans (AVG) in Malaya and Burma fought almost exclusively against the IJAAF which used the Ki-43.

The poor preparation of the Allies in the early stages of the War was directly related to strongly held racist views that the Japanese were inferior to them. Mind you they soon changed their minds.

[Alex Smart]

hi,
Thank you Jeff, I have been looking at 459 Sqdn as well, Hudsons for the most part.

Yes 453 but also 21 Sqdn too.

I forget right now which Sqdn it was but one poor chap who baled safe (lucky) who was shot at several times while in the 'chute.

When his 'chute was later examined some 25 bullet holes were counted.

I have also read of the survival of an Australian Nurse, who was one of 65, who's survivours were forced to walk into the sea and were shot.

But back to aircraft and their pilots, indeed all RAF in the far East.

I have a book by Les and Pam Stubbs, entitled "Unsung heroes of the Royal Air force"

A wealth of info and A to Z of ALL known POW's one from 202 Sqdn resqued by German sub in the Bay of Biscay and handed over to the Japanese on arrival in Java.

Well worth the price of £15 at the time it's a paperback.

Night

Alex

[edwest]

The Americans produced a monthly publication called: U.S. Army-Navy Journal of Recognition. Numbers 1-6 were collected into book form by the Naval Institute Press in 1990. "U.S. Army-Navy Journal of Recognition September 1943- February 1994, Numbers 1-6." (Published complete with covers, all black and white.)

I also happened to obtain an original copy of this 8 1/2 x 11 inches publication. The photos published within include military vehicles and aircraft. There is a page of small photos designed to improve the reader's recognition skills. However, one could quickly see how an aircraft against a bright sky and from a certain angle, and traveling at high speed, might easily be mistaken as to type.

The book includes accounts of friendly fire incidents.



Hope this helps,
Ed

[R Leonard]

Early intelligence officers warned pilots to expect, since it was “known” that the Japanese really did not have any decent fighter planes, to see Me-109’s as adversaries. Small wonder that even Lieutenant Commander Paul Ramsey, CO of VF-2 at Coral Sea, reported shooting down an Me-109 for certain in that battle and claimed another as a probable. His wingman supported his observations. And Lieutenant Noel Gayler also reported seeing them at Coral Sea, mentioning his observation in an interview conducted at BuAir on 17 Jun 42 while discussion the Lexington Air Group attack on the Shokaku for which he flew strike escort:

“After about two minutes in this clear space, we were jumped by fighters from the Jap carriers. I should say there were probably four or five Jap fighters. At first they were all air–cooled type Zeros or some modification – it was the first I’d seen of them. Then, after a minute or two of fighting, more fighters appeared on the scene that were liquid–cooled jobs that looked very similar to the ME–109F. I can’t say definitely what they were, but they were planes similar to them.”

Gayler, of course, had been in the Pacific since before the war started, serving in VF-3 before his temporary assignment to VF-2. Any exposure he may have had to Me-109’s would have been through photographs or drawings, not actual observation of the type. And one must ask, just from where did the photos and/or drawings come?

A month later, at Midway, Ensign Albert Earnest of VT-8 reported being attacked by Japanese fighters that appeared to be Me-109s. He once told me, with a smile, that he had been briefed by the intelligence types to expect to see 109’s so that was what he saw. A self-fulfilling prophesy.

Still later, on 24 August 42, two more pilots reported seeing Me-109’s during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. One, Ensign Francis Register from Enterprise’s VF-6 reported shooting one down; Ensign John Kleinman from Saratoga’s VF-5 reported another as a probable.

Some like to ascribe these sightings to the advent of the Ki-61 (Tony), but, as you can see from the dates of these reported sightings, they were long before the advent of the Ki-61 in combat. In fact, the USN did not report encountering its first Ki-61 in combat until 11 September 43, when Lieutenant (jg) David Scott, in a VF-33 F6F, correctly identified one and claimed it as destroyed near Fauro Island in the Solomons.

It would appear that this sort of identification error in the early days stemmed from an exposure to intelligence briefings prior to deployment. Yorktown’s VF-42 pilots never received any briefing as to what to expect to see the Japanese flying and never reported seeing 109’s, even though they were in the thick of the early fighting up through Midway. Squadrons that spent time at Pearl Harbor between deployments, such as VF-2, VF-5, and VF-6, and from Bert Earnest’s own account, VT-8 (Det), were evidently exposed to this sort of misinformation.

Regards,

Rich

[Graham Boak]

What has not been mentioned, but was perhaps more important than anything else, was how secretive a society Japan was before WW2. Any information about the military was kept from the Japanese public, and hence even more from the rare foreign traveller. There were no tourists as the modern world knows them. Even then, screens were built to hide the manufacture of the larger warships from sight.

It is perhaps not surprising that Western intelligence was so poor about Japanese technology, as surprising that anything at all was known. Some items were indeed reported to intelligence channels, but they were buried in their own layers of secrecy.

[JeffK]

But the Japanese Army Air Force & Japanese Navy Air Force had e\been in battle over China for a number of years.

Whenthe Zero-Sen arrived in early 1940 it decimated (or worse) the Chinese Fighters which had been holding their own until then.

Re-reading "Bloody shambles" by Shores. Cull & Izawa, they used the phrase "Zero type fighter" to cover the Zero-Sen & Oscar. The biggest difference was said to be one had cannon in the wing (Zero) and the other didnt.

To shift theatres, even the Luftwaffe had a "Spitfire phobia" and their claims in the Battle of Britain were heavily weighted to having beaten the Spit rather than the lowly Hurricane.

[Graham Boak]

Yes, they had been fighting in China, but how many travellers or foreign contacts were there to pass back information? And how good would the resulting information have been? Yes, Chennault did pass back some, but that ended up stuck in a file - as I commented.

It does seem that people who have grown up in a easy-travelling free-world media-rich environment find it difficult to understand how little genuine information actually was available from the authoritative regimes pre-war. As a comparison, think how little is currently known about current US black programmes, where free comment on what can be seen is rife. Pre-war, all information from all countries was "black".

[marsyao]

Jeffk, the first time JNAF committed Zero in China was in an raid over China wartime capital Chongqin in 1941, in tha air combat, Zero shot down 13 chinese aircrafts(mainly I-15 and I-16) without any losses of themself