USAAF Raid, 7 April 1945

[keith A]

I am beginning to question my assumption that the 252 Ku were Moore's victims. Watanabe is killed ramming a B-29. if the unit lost just two aircraft then I don't think it met the p-51s.

I think his opponents were the Ki84 of 1 Kyoku Hikotai that Michel has identified. After shooting two of these down the remainder flew around in "lazy eights", which seems to indicate an inexperienced unit that had lost it's leaders.

The two fighter groups claim a massive twenty-one kills at least. Including several (at least four) "Shoki" arguing the 23rd,70th and 246th Sentais were involved (see Millman "Ki-44 etc).

The B-29 gunners posted 80-23-50 for the first mission!

The 244th (Ki-61)also lost Cpl Kihara who was WIA by a P-51 but b/o. He may be the missing casualty in Michel's earlier post on this thread.

Many thanks Michel and others. this part of the forum is much neglected and I hope these posts will boost it a little. I have used other sites because of this but I think this one needs to be developed. The loss of Frank O has seriously depleted the forum but I hope others will step up. We value your input.

best regards

Keith