B-29 shotdown 10 June 1945, Tokyo

[paddyob26]

I am trying to confirm who may have shotdown a B-29 on 10 June 1945 south of Tokyo. The aircraft was a B-29A, USAAF serial no. 42-63567, "City of Providence", 30th Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force, MACR 14614. I have received a post on another website that it was JNAF pilot Lt. (jg) Sada-aki Akamatsu, 302nd Kokutai, however there was no reference to any records or other confirming data. The Missing Air Crewman Report states that the formation was attacked by fighters after turning south soon after bombing the target. The B-29 "City of Providence" was hit in the Number 2 engine which caught fire. The pilot made a steep decent trying to extinguish the fire. About 15-20 miles south of the coast over the Pacific the crew started to bail out. The fire reached the oil tank or a fuel tank and the wing exploded and separated. Six or seven parachutes where seen plus a partially opened but streaming parachute was observed and reported by other crews. Two of the crew were picked up by Air-Sea Rescue. All others were listed as missing and were never recovered and later declared killed in action. Does anyone have access to Japanese records or have any information on this B-29 loss and who may have been the Japanese pilot who shot it down.

Thank you,
Patrick

[JoeB]

I don't have information directly from Japanese records, but some stuff that might be useful:

Aakamatsu was a very senior pilot, 1932 pilot training graduate who survived WWII. There are short biographies of him in Hata/Izawa "Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II" and Henry Sakaida's "JNAF Aces" Osprey series book. He did fly the Raiden fighter with the 302nd AG in defense of Tokyo near the end of the war, but this particular incident is not discussed in either book.

I believe the response you got on USAAF forum came from this Japanese language site, anyway it says the same thing:
http://www10.ocn.ne.jp/~kuushuu/B29-42-63567.html
The root site is this list of US bombers downed over Japan, with detail pages for most, but its own sources aren't given.
http://www10.ocn.ne.jp/~kuushuu/mia.html

This series of (again Japanese language) pages extensively summarizes info in the Maru Magazine "Special: Pacific Air-Sea War" series. I don't know what citations those actual magazines give, but this site agrees well with the Japanese official history in some other cases, at least. It says Akamatsu was credited with 1 B-29 destroyed and 2 others hit June 10. However it notes the total JNAF strength v B-29's and P-51's in this action as 107 Zeroes, 24 Shiden, 11 Raiden and 6 Suisei ('Judy' divebomber, interceptor versions), which claimed 17 B-29's destroyed. It says US sources give only 1 a/c downed outright, so it might not be possible to attribute this downing to a particular claim with any certainty, even if the original records were at hand.
http://pico3298.ameblo.jp/pico3298/t...000325982.html

Joe

[paddyob26]

Thank you Joe for the info and the referenced source.

Patrick