McGuire Last fight

[jeanba]

Hello,

According to this site : http://www.acepilots.com/usaaf_mcguire.html , Mc Guire was shot down by Mixunori Fukuda flying a Ki-84, Warrant Officer Akira Sugimoto was also involved.
Do you know more about those pilots ?
Do you know which units they belonged to ?

Thank you in advance

[gian paolo]

Originally Posted by jeanba

Hello,

According to this site : http://www.acepilots.com/usaaf_mcguire.html , Mc Guire was shot down by Mixunori Fukuda flying a Ki-84, Warrant Officer Akira Sugimoto was also involved.
Do you know more about those pilots ?
Do you know which units they belonged to ?

Thank you in advance

Hi
Jeanba


W.O Sugimoto was a pilot of 54 Hikosentai and surely an experienced one though not listed among IJAAFaces. His ki-43 was damaged and crash
landed, the pilot killed by Filipino partisans.

Sergeant Fukuda belonged to 71 Hikosentai and scored first victory in this

fight. His ki-84 too was damaged but he managed back to base. He survived war.

As for Major Mc Guire death , no firm conclusion has ever been reached.

He may have been downed by Sugimoto , but that's just a speculation .

Hope this helps

gian paolo

[jeanba]

Thank you very much for this very usefull information.
The first version I read of Mc Guire's death was that he stalled while dogfighting against a high ranking Zero ace, then in the begining of the 90's, variants of the version I quoted came to be treated as the most reliable (ie : Mc Guire was caught by surprise by a Franck while chasing an Oscar at low altitude, he stalled and crashed).
Still, Mc Guire is supposed to have been shot down by a japanese ace according to all account I have read, was Mixunori Fukuda an ace ?

Edit : I found a "Fukuda Sumia" 11 kills IJNAF ace who was killed in October 44 ...

[gian paolo]

Originally Posted by jeanba

Thank you very much for this very usefull information.
The first version I read of Mc Guire's death was that he stalled while dogfighting against a high ranking Zero ace, then in the begining of the 90's, variants of the version I quoted came to be treated as the most reliable (ie : Mc Guire was caught by surprise by a Franck while chasing an Oscar at low altitude, he stalled and crashed).
Still, Mc Guire is supposed to have been shot down by a japanese ace according to all account I have read, was Mixunori Fukuda an ace ?

Edit : I found a "Fukuda Sumia" 11 kills IJNAF ace who was killed in October 44 ...

Jeanba

I think it's an accepted fact that no IJNAF A6M Zero were there.

Actually the details of Mc Guire demise went unnoticed even to his surviving comrades.He may have well stalled and crashed trying to

catch the agile and elusive ki-43 flown by Sugimoto or he may have been

shot down by Sugimoto himself who is credited of damaging 2LT Thropp

p-38 . Fukuda entered the fray later and probably downed Major

Rittmeyer.

The two IJAAF pilots were surely well trained and bold but are not

recorded in Japanese sources as aces.

Lastly the two Fukudas are not related , belonging to different air forces and having different names, moreover Mizunori survived the war and I read

it was even interviewed .

Best

gian paolo

[jeanba]

This is the history I have read most often in recent soruces and the most reliable too.
According to me, it is interesting to see how the legend evolved around the death of McGuire, and the tendancy that some persons have to say that
1st : he was not shot down
2nd : he was dogfighting an ace (and this was my question : none of the involved japanese pilot were "aces" as far as I could find).

[gian paolo]

Originally Posted by jeanba

This is the history I have read most often in recent soruces and the most reliable too.
According to me, it is interesting to see how the legend evolved around the death of McGuire, and the tendancy that some persons have to say that
1st : he was not shot down
2nd : he was dogfighting an ace (and this was my question : none of the involved japanese pilot were "aces" as far as I could find).

I suspect all this was for public comsumption at home . Mc Guire loss while

battling an "ace" was more palatable than admitting his loss at the hands

of an ( then ) anonymous Jap(anese ) pilot.

Even if we assume that he was not shot down , his was undeniably a battle casualty . Saying it was not , is the same as saying that a ground
trooper killed by a stone thrown up by an enemy shell blast is an accident


gian paolo

[Jim Oxley]

The best analysis of Tom McGuire's death IMHO is contained in John Stanaway's brilliant book "Possum, Clover and Hades".

McGuire was leading a four-plane patrol on the morning of 7 January, 1945; consisting of Capt. Ed Weaver as No.2, Maj. Jack Rittmayer as No.3 and Doug Thropp as No.4. All were very experienced combat pilots except Thropp, who was relatively new.

The following is and extract from the book:

"McGuire eased the flight down when they reached Negros and broke out beklow the clouds at 1,700ft. The Americans were about ten miles north of Fabrica aerodrome and bodly began circling the base at exactly 0700 hrs.

Five minutes later McGuire set course at about 1,400ft for the airstrips on western Negros, despairing of finding Japanese over Fabrica. Within a short time Weaver sighted what he took to be a Zeke 52 climbing directly below about 500ft and ahead about a thousand yards.

What Weaver identified as a MitsubishiA6M5 Zero was actually an Ki-43 Oscar flown by W/O Akira Sugimoto of the 54th Sentai. he had been flying in search of an American supply convoy headed for Mindoro or Lingayen Gulf. The weather had been impossible and Sugimoto headed back after a long and frustrating flight.

Weaver had called the enemy fighter and McGuire made a diving turn to the left to trap it; Sugimoto was already directly beneath the P-38 flight. The Oscar pilot may have been tired after the long search mission, but he was sharp enough to turn left himself, and get on the tial of Lt. Thropp, who was now the number htree after being ordered to switch positions with Major Rittmayer.

Thropp skidded his Lightning to avoid the fire coming from Sugimoto's two 12.7mm guns. It was inconceivable to Thropp that the Japanese pilotcould miss but he did. Rittmayer put his P-38 on the verge of a stall to draw enough lead to discourage this pugnacious Japanese. That he managed to do, temporarily. Sugimoto simply tightened the turn on his extremely maneuverable fighter and got a bead on Weaver.

With all he could do to avoid the attack, Weaver called McGuire and tightened his own turn until he was inside and a little below his leader. Sugimoto stuck like glue in his light olive-green Ki-43 with it's graceful yellow-orange tail insignia and confounded the entire flight of battle-tested Americans. A call ffrom McGuire ordered the flight to keep it's drop tanks even as the Oscar was out-turning the P-38's. The tanks were nearly full and further hampered the flexibility of the American fighters. Within a moment that inflexibility would produce catastrophe.

Weaver saw McGuire "increase his turn tremendously" to get his sights on the Oscar. The last thing Weaver observed of his leader was when McGiure's P-38 "snap-rolled to the left and slipped in an inverted position with the nose down about 30 degree. Becuase of the attitude of my plane, I then lost sight of him momentarily. A second later I saw the explosion and fire of his crash."

Sugimoto either saw his opportunity to escape or was driven off by Doug Thropp who had come around in the circle sufficiently to fire a three second burst at the Oscar. The Japanese fighter raced off to the north where it amde a forced landing, probably from damage received by Rittmayer ot Thropp, and Sugimoto was soon caught and shot to death by a group of Filipino partisans.

Meanwhile, Sergent Mizonori Fukuda of the Ki-84 Frank equipped 71st Sentai was landing at Manapla strip on Negros when he noticed Sugimoto's plight to the north. He raced to the aid of his comrade in the Oscar and arrived just about the timeMcGuire crashed and Sugimoto escaped into the clouds to the north.

While the three P-38's were still in disarray, Fukuda dived from the clouds to the left and got onto Rittmayer's tail in the middle position. All the remaining P-38's had now dropped their tanks and Weaver, in the trail position, fired a burst at the Ki-84 just as Fukuda fired a killing burst at Rittmayer. A moment later another explosion was seen on the ground less than two miles from Pinanamaan Town. Fukuda also put a cannon shell into Thropp's right tail boom and left engine manifold. Weaver had done some damage to the Frank which made it back to Manalpa and crashlanded with twenty three bullet holes from Weavers guns, and was a complete write-off."

[jeanba]

Thank you
A very nice and immersive account.

[rpeck350]

Another interesting sight.
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/p-38/44-24845/
Rick

[Edward]

Charles Martin's biography of Maj. McGuire, The Last Great Ace: The Life of Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. (1999) has recently been republished and is available at a reasonable price.

Edward