FAA victories

[gian paolo]

Originally Posted by JoeB

Hata/Izawa "Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II" says the 4 Raiden and 8 Zeroes of the 302nd met "6 Grummans" that morning, claiming 1 but losing 4, type not given. Tillman in "Hellcat" gives a combat that morning in which a division of VF-6 F6F's claimed "at least" 1 Zeke and 2 Jacks without loss, in combat with a mixed formation of 7; also one where VF-88 F6F's were jumped by Japanese fighters after the US ceasefire order (they said), losing 4 F6F's; that latter seems a less likely match than the first.

Per Tillman, and Brown in "Carrier Operations of WWII Vol 1 The Royal Navy", those USN missions and the FAA Seafires respectively were both on dawn strikes. The BPF cancelled further strikes at 0700 says Brown.

I saw a website with a painting of the Seafires giving the source matching it to 302nd's combat as Mark Huggins (a name I recognize as author of articles on the JNAF), but no discussion of the other possibilities. Do you know the specific info, perhaps uncovered since the books I mentioned, that allows certainty in making this match?

Edit: adding another source, Frank Olynyk's list of USN victories gives if I count correctly 25 destroyed claims by USN fighters v Japanese ones August 15, by VF-31, VF-49 and other elements of VF-88 besides the two combats in Tillman (the VF-88 claims are 'near Atsugi a/f' over which Hata/Izawa says the 302nd fought). All are in the time window 0545-0720. Needless to say, these and the FAA claims don't necessarily all compete for credit for just those 4 302nd AG planes; there's no complete source of Japanese air ops in that period AFAIK and several of the claims are against JAAF types (though the specific type claimed doesn't seem to mean a whole lot in cases that have been definitively matched).

Joe

Hi Joe


H. Sakaida - Imperial Japanese Navy Aces 1937-45 - reports a combat

between VF-88 F6F and 302 KU A6M/J2M near Atsugi confirmed in an article on Flight Journal by Tillman . 6 F6F vs 12 Japanese ( HATA/IZAWA :
6 Grummans vs 8 A6M + 4 J2M ) claim 9 zeke/jacks for 4 losses (HATA/IZAWA admitting 4 Japanese losses as well )

VF-6 claimed 1 A6M + 2 J2M in the same area as did the FAA seafires

Did they fight different sections of the 302 KU or other IJNAF units ?

Best regards

gian paolo