Page 12
Info Eduard - September 2010
Page 12
Japanese Eagles against American Cobras
Martin Ferkl
HISTORY
P-39/P-400 Airacobra Opponents over New Guinea
With the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th,
1941, the Pacic war began. In conjunction with
that attack, Japanese invasion forces also turned
their attention to the shores of the Philippines
and Indochina. The American and British forces were
caught unprepared, and the Japanese also held
a technical and tactical superiority. Progress was
very rapid, and in a matter of several months,
they were quite literally knocking on the door of the
Australian continent, thousands of kilometers from their
homeland.
After the battles of Midway and the Coral Sea,
the lightning fast expansion was slowed. The road
to Australia for the Japanese was blocked by Port
Moresby. After unsuccessful landing attempts, whose
failure was ensured by the cruel defeat in the Coral
Sea, the attempt was made to take the target over land,
and the complicated conditions of the New Guinea jungle
and the Owen Stanley mountain range proved to be
insurmountable.
As a result, the Japanese continued to press air attacks.
These were made from bases along the northeastern
shore of New Guinea at Lae, Salamaua, and especially
later from Buna.
The brunt of the combat with units equipped with the
Airacobra was carried out in 1942 by the Imperial
Japanese Naval Air Force, notably by two units -
the Tainan Kokutai
1
and the 2nd Kokutai, besides
the vanguard role played by the 4th Kokutai. This was
a mixed unit with ghters and bombers in its inventory.
The unit arrived at Lae, just several days after
the base was secured by Japanese ground forces
on March 11th, 1942. Attacks on Post Moresby began
immediately, and Lae had seven Reisens
2
available.
There was a reorganization of the unit on April 1st,
with the 4th Kokutai becoming exclusively a bomber
unit, and her ghter assets were formally turned
over to the Tainan Kokutai. On dividing the aircraft,
pilots were also reassigned accordingly. Tainan
Kokutai is without question, the best known unit within
the Japanese forces operating during World War Two.
Out of its ranks came the greatest number of aces, including
Saburo Sakai, and the most successful Japanese ghter
ace of all time, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa. New Guinea was
reached in April, 1942, and the unit arrived at Rabaul by the
transport ship ‘Komaki Maru’, and then proceeded by air
to Lae on April 17th. On April 25th, there twenty-
four Reisens at Lae. From April to the early August,
the unit conducted 51 raids on Port Moresby. Claims
of victories were, as they were all over the world,
more or less exaggerated. According to the pilots,
there were 246 enemy aircraft shot down (of which 45
were probables). Other victories were claimed during
combat directly over the bases at Lae and Buna.
The majority of the opponents were identied
as P-39s, which, in a maneuvering dogght with
a Zeke, had no chance. They themselves lost twenty
aircraft to various causes, including crashes.
The turning point came with the American landings
at Guadalcanal on August 7th, 1942. Tainan Kokutai
The Japanese also abandoned
this Reisen Model 32, c/n 3030.
The white outlined red ‘Q-102’
on the tail puts the aircraft with
2nd Kokutai. On the side of the
fuselage, there is the dedication
inscription Hokoku No. 872,
donated by „Katayoshi“.
The plane was built by
Mitsubishi, and left the assembly
line on June 30th, 1942.