Allied Opinion of IJN vs. IJA Fighter Pilots

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

I think that the crucial difference was that the Americans utilized their resources to better advantage than the Japanese did. At that stage of the war the IJN actually outnumbered the USN in the south Pacific yet it was the Japanese failure to develop forward air bases that ultimately cost them the campaign. Pre-war doctrine held that the Japanese were to hold their conquests through a series of bases supported by the fleet and at Guadalcanal they were to see this policy vindicated but at their expense by the Americans who used their land- and carrier-based air power to neutralize the IJN. It is true that there was one P-400 unit, the 67th Fighter Squadron (aka the Jagdstaffel), but after a disastrous aerial combat on 30 August 1942 where four were shot down and another five written off these were utilized in the ground-attack and anti-shipping role with considerable success as they were considered to be completely unsuitable for engaging enemy fighters.

Horrido!

Leo

[Graham Boak]

There's a couple of points here. One is that the Japanese did not have the resources that the US did. They didn't develop more forward bases because they couldn't. The other is that the Russians found the P-400/P-39 perfectly capable of dealing with enemy fighters, so this kind of sweeping generalisation just isn't right. The important point being perhaps that they were not dealing with the same fighters.