P-39s, Zeros & A-24s

"Chris Mark" wrote in message
...
rom: Cub Driver look@my

they were returning with empty guns?

Certainly a possibility. Even if they still had ammo for their cowl guns
they
might have learned by that time in the war that attacking an alert and
ready
B-25 formation with 30 cals was pretty pointless. The B-25 turret gunners
alone would have outmatched them. The C model had 3/4" steel plate armor
across the rear of the radio compartment bulkhead, thus protecting the
interior
of the fuselage from gunfire from the rear. It would have easily stopped
light
machinegun fire.

Somewhere I've got an account of a B-25-Zero duel. If I find it I'll post
pertinent parts. It was written by Hobart Skidmore. He was a combat
correspondent who probably saw a lot more of the air war than most air
crew.
He was always ready to go and went out on night B-17 raids to Rabaul, B-25
and
B-26 raids against Lae and Salamaua, C-47 supply drops to Aussie troops on
the
Kokoda Track, you name it.
I heard that many years after the war he began to suffer from nightmares
about
his war experiences so terrible that they drove him to suicide. Don't
know if
that is really true.


Chris Mark

Saburo Sakai the number two Jap Ace was shot up by flying betreen two B-25's
as reported in his book
"SAMURAI" He spent months recovering and lost the use of one eye.
B-25's were treated with respect by the "Zeke's" as reported in the book on
B-25's in the Pacific campaign
"Warpath across the pacific" A very expensive book ($75) but GREAT photos of
the 8 50 cal's in the nose.

Larry

"W. D. Allen Sr." wrote:
Intel hasn't gotten much better since 1942.

WDA

end

"Chris Mark" wrote in
message
...
Little item from my friend doing P-39 research:

7 P-39s escort 7 A-24s on an anti-shipping
strike to Buna
summer 1942. Flying
at 9,000 feet, 3 Zeros going the opposite
direction at
11,000 feet spot them
and peel off in an attack. Descending dogfight
ensues
until Zeros break off at
4,000 feet. P-39 pilots make no claims, report
no losses
among themselves or
A-24s, which they catch up to as they make
their bomb runs
on a convoy of one
large and four small vessels escorted by one
warship which
they identify as a
destroyer. The flight home is uneventful,
with no further
enemy contact. They
confirm one bomb hit on the large ship, which
seems to
inflict no serious
damage, and six broad misses.
A-24s do not report any interception by Zeros
on the way
to the target and
mention no dogfight. Report attacking one
1,500 ton-class
cargo ship in a
convoy of four 100-ton class coastal vessels
and one
subchaser escort. AA fire
downs one A-24 during the dive. This plane
releases its
bomb as it spins out
of control and crashes into the sea. No parachutes.
It's
bomb falls far from
the convoy. Five bombs bracket the large
cargo vessel in
a close pattern and
one strikes the ship amidships. This ship
is left on fire,
dead in the water,
heeled over and in a sinking condition. As
they recover
from their dives, the
A-24s are hit by Zeros. Two are shot down
immediately,
crashing in flames into
sea. Two more survive long enough to make
it to the beach
where they crash
land and the crews are observed to escape
into the bush.
A fifth is badly
damaged but manages to make it to an emergency
strip where
it crash lands.
Only one returns home.
The next day 4 B-25s go out to bomb the convoy
but find no
sign of it. Nor do
they see any debris or oil slick in the area
of the A-24
attack. They were to
have a P-39 escort but it never shows up.
They are
intercepted by 6 Zeros
which circle them, then fly parallel to them
for a few
minutes performing slow
rolls before departing without making any
attempt to
attack. The B-25s sweep up
the Buna coast until they spot 6 beached barges
being
unloaded. They bomb and
strafe these, destroying them and the cargo
offloaded onto
the beach. They
report moderate AA fire, with one B-25 being
holed several
times and the
bombardier and co-pilot wounded. There is
no fighter
opposition.
The 6 P-39s dispatched as escorts report the
B-25s are not
at the rendevous
point so they proceed on a sweep of the Buna
coastal area,
discover Japanese
unloading 5 barges and strafe them, leaving
all burning.
They also strafe
supplies stacked on the beach and tents observed
under
trees just inland from
the beach, making repeated passes until expending
all
their ammunition. There
is no anti-aircraft fire. As they are departing
they
observe 9 Zeros
patrolling the beach at 6,000 feet but these
make no
aggressive moves and
maintain altitude.

If you were an intelligence officer evaluating
these
reports, what would you
make of them?


Chris Mark


I'm not sure. In the days before gun-camera video, I don't know how they
got any good intel. Keep in mind that the 5th AF in Summer of '42 was still
operating on a shoestring, with what refugees from the Philippines and the
East Indies working with the reinforcements that were headed for Manila but
diverted to Australia-they were still getting things set up and running.
ULTRA might be a source to confirm the BDA, but was 5th AF cleared for it
at the time?

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

Cub Driver wrote:
On 13 Jul 2003 18:13:44 GMT, ost
(Chris Mark) wrote:

They are intercepted by 6 Zeros
which circle them, then fly parallel to them
for a few minutes performing slow
rolls before departing without making any attempt
to attack

Wonderful! I wonder how often such things happened?
And what would be
the reason--that they were off on a mission
& couldn't expend
ammunition, or they were returning with empty
guns?


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster
Buffalo | Piper Cub
It would be interesting to know if Saburo Sakai and his unit were the Zeroes
involved-Sakai did let a Dutch DC-3 go off Java-he flew alongside for a minute
and saw a little girl looking out a cabin window. Sakai then waved to the
girl and the flight crew, and then RTB.

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"L. P. LePage" wrote:

snip

Saburo Sakai the number two Jap Ace was shot up by flying betreen two B-25's
as reported in his book
"SAMURAI" He spent months recovering and lost the use of one eye.

ISTR that Sakai was badly wounded (as above) when he attacked a flight of SBDs
which he mistook for Wildcats, near Guadalcanal on August 7th, 1942. No B-25s
involved.

Guy

Guy Alcala writes:

"L. P. LePage" wrote:

snip

Saburo Sakai the number two Jap Ace was shot up by flying betreen two B-25's
as reported in his book
"SAMURAI" He spent months recovering and lost the use of one eye.

ISTR that Sakai was badly wounded (as above) when he attacked a flight of SBDs
which he mistook for Wildcats, near Guadalcanal on August 7th, 1942. No B-25s
involved.


I thought it said originally said TBFs in the book, but that in
retrospect it has emerged that no TBFs were around that day either, so
they must have been SBDs. Or was it the other way around?

--
G Hassenpflug * IJN & JMSDF equipment/history fan

Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:

Guy Alcala writes:

"L. P. LePage" wrote:

snip

Saburo Sakai the number two Jap Ace was shot up by flying betreen two B-25's
as reported in his book
"SAMURAI" He spent months recovering and lost the use of one eye.

ISTR that Sakai was badly wounded (as above) when he attacked a flight of SBDs
which he mistook for Wildcats, near Guadalcanal on August 7th, 1942. No B-25s
involved.


I thought it said originally said TBFs in the book, but that in
retrospect it has emerged that no TBFs were around that day either, so
they must have been SBDs. Or was it the other way around?

That's my memory - Sakai thought they were TBFs. I used Eric Hammel's account in
his "Guadalcanal: The Carrier Battles," as most likely the best researched, and he
ID's them (with crew's names) as 8 SBDs from Enterprise.

Guy

From: "Yann D" ya

Cowl guns ok, but the zero 21 also had 2x20mm wing guns
So the truth must be elsewhere


Probably is.
I was thinking maybe the Zeros had expended their 20mm but still had ammo for
their light machineguns and decided it wasn't worth wasting on bombers when
their might be US fighters around that they would have to deal with and which
might be hurt by that light weaponry. Just idle speculation.


Chris Mark

From: "Yann D"

I just remember Saburo Sakai wrote in his book (Samurai) that he did
aerobatics overhead an US base just for fun. An the AA guns didn't fire at
them either...

If this is in reference to the Moresby area in early 1942, AA guns didn't fire
because there weren't any. Some 90mm would have settled his hash.

A little bit of fun in the middle of all this violence maybe..




Chris Mark

ArtKramr wrote:

Oh yeah ! Well I had 1/4" Plexiglas protectig me. Try and beat that. !!!

I've read that some Lancaster rear gunners would remove the "clear
vision" panel in the turret, between the guns, so as to remove the risk
of condensation or frost degrading their view. I know they had
electrically heated clothing, but even so !

Subject: P-39s, Zeros & A-24s
From: Alan Dicey
Date: 7/20/03 4:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

ArtKramr wrote:

Oh yeah ! Well I had 1/4" Plexiglas protectig me. Try and beat that. !!!

I've read that some Lancaster rear gunners would remove the "clear
vision" panel in the turret, between the guns, so as to remove the risk
of condensation or frost degrading their view. I know they had
electrically heated clothing, but even so !



We also had electric suits but I never remember my Plexi fogging up. If it did
I could just open the little vent flap and let a180 MPH relative wind come in
and blow my maps, charts, calculators, E6B and Wheems plotters all over the
place. (sheesh)


Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer