IJN escort sunk by Hellcats 9 September 1944

[keith A]

A fair point chaps. My argument is that the USN claimed not ten but over thirty ships (of various types) damaged or sunk. Most are small cargo vessels, probably unnamed. AG-15 does however claim several ships. Perhaps several aircraft attacked the same vessel at different times and observed different results, but surely we are not arguing that AG-15 aircraft all attacked the same ship, describing it differently each time? Even the "Fog of war" would argue that is unlikely, and that the photographs taken after the attack cannot be dismissed? USN/Japanese claims of damage to their opponents in the Pacific are frequently ridiculous, but in this case there must be some doubt about Japanese records.

Without facing enemy air attack the USN aircraft were able to bomb and strafe without real opposition. Duncan of VF-15 must have made a least two low-level strafes on Japanese soldiers in the water after he sank a landing craft containing a company of infantry (he fired twelve rounds from his revolver i.e. he unloaded a full cylinder of .38, reloaded and attacked again).

A later attack by surface vessels claimed to have sunk all the survivors.

K