Akutan Zero

The Akutan Zero is inspected by US Navy personnel on Akutan Island on July 11, 1942.

The Akutan Zero, also known as Koga's Zero and the Aleutian Zero, was a type 0 model 21 Mitsubishi A6M Zero Japanese fighter plane. This type of airplane was the Imperial Japanese Navy's most common fighter plane during World War 2. It crashed on Akutan Island, Alaska Territory, during June 1942. It was the first flyable Zero that the United States got during the war. The Americans fixed the plane and test pilots flew it to find out how it worked. American tacticians were able to find ways to defeat the Zero.

Tadayoshi Koga was the pilot. He was a 19-year-old flight petty officer first class. He launched from the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō as part of a June 4 1942 raid on Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Small gun fire cut the oil line in the plane. Without oil, the plane crashed and killed the pilot. The plane did not break apart in the crash. The pilots of other Zero planes flying with Koga thought that he might be alive. Because of this, they did not try to destroy his plane. The Americans got the plane in July.

The Akutan Zero was very important to the American war effort. Some said it may have been "one of the greatest prizes of the Pacific war". Japanese historian Masatake Okumiya thought that losing the Akutan Zero to the Americans was similar to Japan losing the Battle of Midway. He said it made Japan lose the war sooner. On the other hand, John Lundstrom is among those who do not agree with "the contention that it took dissection of Koga's Zero to create tactics that beat the fabled airplane".

The Akutan Zero was destroyed in a training accident in 1945. Parts of the plane are kept in several museums in the United States.

Akutan Zero Media

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  A Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero Model 21 takes off from the aircraft carrier Akagi to attack Pearl Harbor

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  Tadayoshi Koga (1922–1942) was the pilot of the Akutan Zero.

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  Pilot Bill Thies (left) in front of his Catalina that discovered the Akutan Zero

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  Loading of the Akutan Zero onto a barge

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  Eddie Sanders taxiing the plane after its first test flight, September 20, 1942

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  The Zero while temporarily at the Langley Research Center, just after its wind-tunnel tests, March 8, 1943

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  The ashes of Tadayoshi Koga are probably interred in Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery.

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  Location of Akutan in Alaska

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  The Zero trailing oil over Dutch Harbor, moments after being hit

Further reading

• Eric M. Bergerud (2001-04-13). Fire In The Sky: The Air War In The South Pacific. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-8133-3869-9.
• Michael I. Handel (1989-05-01). War, strategy, and intelligence. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7146-3311-4.
• John B. Lundstrom (September 2005). First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-472-4.
• Okumiya, Masatake, Jiro Horikoshi, and Martin Caidin. Zero! New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1956.
• Michael O'Leary (1980-06-23). United States naval fighters of World War II in action. Blandford. ISBN 978-0-7137-0956-8.
• Ian Dear (1995-01-01). The Oxford guide to World War II. ISBN 978-0-19-534096-9.
• Jim Rearden (1995). Koga's Zero: the fighter that changed World War II. Pictorial Histories Pub Co. ISBN 978-0-929521-56-5.
• Rearden, Jim. "Koga's Zero—An Enemy Plane That Saved American Lives" Archived 2008-12-27 at the Wayback Machine. Invention and Technology Magazine. Volume 13, Issue 2, Fall 1997. Retrieved on 2008-12-09.
• Patrick Degan (2003-05-01). Flattop Fighting in World War II: The Battles Between American and Japanese Aircraft Carriers. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1451-2.

Other websites

• Bill Thies's website
• Zeros over China, 1941–1942. Ben Schapiro. The Warbird's Forum, May 2008—An article describing the capture and repair of Gerhard Neumann's Zero in China in 1941.
• War Prize: The Capture Of The First Japanese Zero Fighter In 1941. j-aircraft.com, December 3, 1999. A second article describing the capture and repair of Gerhard Neumann's Zero.
• Article on Yoshimitsu Maeda's crashed Zero