HISTORY

Sqn. Ldr. John Jackson returned to Port Moresby in the US

Douglas A-24 Dauntless aircraft after a walk through the

jungle from Lae area, after his aircraft was shot down by Tainan Kōkūtai. A distinguished fighter pilot, Sqn. Ldr. Jackson

served with No. 23 Squadron in Australia (1939), No. 3

Squadron in the Middle East (1940-1941) and No. 75 Squadron

in Papua New Guinea (1942). He was killed in action on April

28, 1942, during a dogfight with PO2c Hideo Izumi

(9 v.) of Tainan Kōkūtai. He is buried in Bomana War Cemetery.

Jackson International Airport, Port Moresby, commemorates

his name.

then blew up, killing him. Kelly was honored

with DSO in memoriam, as his last action was

attributed to the sinking of the battleship Haruna (note 1). According to Sakai no vessel was

hit by bomber. Besides that, he claims that the

victory over the bomber could not be attributed to anybody and Japanese authorities did not

recognize it because the crash of the airplane

was not observed by anybody.

However, the victory is noted in his logbook and

the confusion is even greater due to information that Sakai's victory was not recognized (C.

Shores) and was credited to five of his colleagues as a shared one. Author of this article had

opportunity to study Tainan Kōkūtai unit diary

and the mission record shows that the B-17 was

intercepted by 16 Zero pilots, five of them were

shooting at the bomber (Sakai was not among

them) while one shooting pilot’s Zero was hit

twice by defense fire. Victory was recognized

as shared to all 16 pilots including Sakai.

During another patrol over the Philippines,

on December 12, Tainan Kōkūtai repeatedly

attacked Catalinas on the surface of the Gulf of

Subic. Another target, Clark Field found protection under the low cloud layer and so 1. Chútai

turned to the Iba base. Here, during strafing,

they destroyed six Curtiss P-40s, including two

by Sakai. Then an anti-aircraft fire hit his plane and forced him to land prematurely at Vigan

further northwards. The ground crews repaired

the machine and Sakai could return to Formosa

on the next day with a leg injury.

On the same day that Sakai's fighter was damaged, the Japanese landed near Legazpi in

southeastern Luzon. As early as December 14,

Legazpi was in Japanese hands, and the 2nd

Chútai of Tainan Kōkūtai, led by Lt. Setó landed

over there.

It is interesting to note that according to unit

diary Sakai performed very few combat flights

during December 1941. January was not diffe-

10

INFO Eduard

BORNEO

Coming the end of 1941, the fate of the defenders

of Philippines was also over. Next target was

Borneo with its American and Dutch defenders.

Tainan Kōkūtai transferred between December

26 and January 7, 1942, to Jolo Island (Horo-tó). Thanks to the rapid advance of Japanese

combat units, on January 11, another base was

in their hands, this time on Tarakan, lying west

of Borneo. The airport was operational from January 16, and Tainan Kōkūtai continued patrol

flights over Borneo.

On Saturday, January 24, 1941, Japanese forces landed on Balikpapan, and their ships were

attacked several times by Dutch and American

bombers. Six Zeroes of Tainan Kōkūtai intercepted eight attacking B-17s. This group of Japanese fighters was then relieved by another

flight from the same unit, led by Petty Officer

1st Class Kunioshi Tanaka (17 victories), who

made several attacks even though he was injured by defense fire. Allegedly, he shot down

a four-engine bomber that collided with another one. Both were credited to him as confirmed victories. The third B-17 was shot down by

Tanaka’s wingman Petty Officer 3rd Class Takeo

Matsuda in cooperation with Sakai (Hata-Izawa

page 266). Sakai in his memoirs depicts Tanaka

as unharmed, but enraged, for, as he claimed,

no bomber was shot down and the Americans

hit a tanker that had begun to burn. In addition,

Sakai according to his own words did not take

part in this combat, but B-17 was mentioned in

his logbook as well as in unit diary (note 2). On

American side three B-17s suffered light damage during the combat.

The very next day, January 25, the Tainan Kōkūtai members intercepted Glenn Martin bombers. Their crews attempted to attack Japanese

vessels off Balikpapan. It was probably during

this fight Sakai has won two victories over the

medium bombers that he has chased up to Banjarmasin where he shot them down.

In the afternoon, the patrolling Zeroes attacked

seven Boeing B-17 bombers from the 7th and

19th Bomb Group. The Japanese performed well

but lost two pilots themselves. Sakai with his

wingman Sadao Uehara also attacked the American formation, although it is not clear whether

the two airmen performed the attack before or

after the attack by their patrolling colleagues. After a great deal of effort, they managed

to seriously damage a four-engine bomber, but

the victory could only be verified the next day

when the crashed machine was photographed

by Japanese reconnaissance pilots. A total of

five bombers were forced to land after the battle. As far as it is known, the only victory was

credited to Uehara. Uehara achieved thirteen

victories, according to his own records, by the

end of the war.

JAVA

On January 30, Tainan Kōkūtai, together with the

23rd Air Flotilla, moved to the conquered Balikpapan. From this airbase, starting from February 3, 1942, series of raids on eastern Java were

performed together with 3rd Kōkūtai. The Japanese themselves praised the qualities of Flying

Fortresses and openly discussed difficulties

Photo: Fold3

Photo: AWM

rent. Tainan Kōkūtai performed combat flights

every day with usual minimum number of six

planes, often 10 or more. There were days when

several operations were performed. However,

during January 1942 Sakai flew just 9 combat

flights, followed by 11 missions in February. Sakai was always flying as leader of Shótai with

three aircraft, but on several occasions he even

led formation of several Shótais.

Pvt. Irving Weibel and Pfc. Lester W. Hengen apply a coat of liquid wax to the surface of an overhauled Bell P-39 at the 4th Air

Depot Engine Overhaul And Repair Shop at Garbutt Field, Townsville. This P-39D of the 39th FS, 35th FG was flown by Capt.

Curran L. “Jack” Jones for at least the first of his five confirmed aerial victories. Jones shot down W.O. Satoshi Yoshino from

Tainan Kōkūtai on June 9, 1942, over Cape Ward Hunt. Yoshino probably flew the well-known Zero “V-117” carrying Buntaichó

markings. The production batch for this particular Airacobra replaced the 37mm cannon with a Hispano-Suiza 20mm (externally

identifiable by its longer barrel, compared to the 37mm), an option normally found only in the P-400 export version.

May 2022